Autumn 1
In English, the children learnt the story of the Enormous Turnip. They then planned and wrote their own version of the story using a vegetable and characters of their choice. For the second part of the half term, the children learnt about how to write instructions. The children had the opportunity to make rice crispy cakes for McMillan coffee morning so this gave them a great real-life example of following instructions. They then applied what they had learnt to design and write instructions on how to make a sandwich of their choice. 













































The children have developed their knowledge of place value in maths and began to explore addition. Year 1 can recognise lots of numbers which they can represent in a variety of ways. I have been really proud of how the year 2 children have been developing strategies to add numbers more quickly. The children really enjoyed their maths across the curriculum day PE lesson where they recognised numbers, used their times tables, found more and less and ordered numbers. 
























In RE, the children enjoyed learning about Christian belonging in the context of baptism. They explored what baptism is including what typically happens both during a baptism service and after. They thought about Christian symbolism and what gifts would help a child on their Christian journey. 














The children have really enjoyed their history learning on the Great Fire of London this half term and it has been brilliant to see their excitement when sharing their knowledge about the subject. They learnt that historians often only have a fragment of information to work with and use clues from sources to find out what happened in the past. The children acted as historians to look at clues to find out where and when the fire took place. They developed their knowledge of chronology by ordering the events on a timeline. The children made some brilliant Tudor houses which they were very excited to burn down on the playground. This gave us the opportunity to discuss why the Fire of London spread so quickly. The children learnt this was due to the closeness of houses and streets, the materials the houses were made from and the difficulty faced putting out fires. They looked at the fire equipment from the time and compared it with what we have nowadays. The children then thought about the impact the fire had on London and how it recovered. They discussed positive changes to come from the fire and how London was rebuilt. Finally, the children looked at sources including eye-witness accounts and thought about how to decide if a source is relevant to questions asked. 

























I have been really impressed with the children's music this half term. They have been using musical vocabulary to discuss different pieces of music. They have been great at talking about what instruments they can hear and how many beats there are in a bar. The year 2s have linked this to their knowledge of a waltz from last year. The children have sang beautifully but also developed their skills in composition writing. They worked together to create a graphic score with the theme of going to the supermarket. They then performed this using a range of untuned percussion instruments. The children have also explored using rhythm grids and have independently created their own grids which they have performed in the outside provision.