Transitions 2024-2025

Mrs Harper is the Year 2 teacher at Harlaxton CE Primary School. Below is some transition information informing you of a little bit about Year 2 before you begin. We are very friendly and hope to see you soon. 

School Year 2024-2025

Are Monarchs better than Peasants? 

Welcome to the Summer Term. We have lots of fun activities planned including a trip to Harlaxton Manor. Information will follow in due course. We are fortunate to experience a change in monarch in our life times, this will start our history project. We will look at current and past monarchs of the United Kingdom and also local monarchs, Dukes and owners of stately homes and manors. We will finish this term with a banquet day where we will debate the essential question, are monarchs better than peasants? 

Dates and House Keeping

Monday 

Reading books will be checked and changed if following the RWI scheme. Four or more reads in a week will earn a bonus house point and every 10 reading house points will earn a small prize! Free readers can change their books once completed in the classroom library. 

Tuesday 

PE - please make sure children have suitable clothing for indoor and outdoor PE. Earrings must be removed.

Wednesday 

Opportunity to change Reading for Pleasure books - these are for families to enjoy and read as a bedtime story.

Thursday

Homework books to be handed in for marking. 

Friday

Spelling tests for our phonics/spelling pattern words (see below for termly grid). 

PE - please make sure children have suitable clothing for indoor and outdoor PE. Earrings must be removed. 

- Children can also bring a healthy snack daily although a portion of fruit and vegetables is provided for children in Key Stage 1.

- Milk can be purchased from Cool milk which can be given mid morning. 

- Refillable bottles with water in the classrooms only please - juice can be drunk but in the locker area to prevent spills on work. 

Please provide your child with weather appropriate clothing for the typical British weather, the playground is a large open space so even on warm days it can be breezy so a thin coat, hat and sun lotion should see us through any weather! Please apply sun lotion in a morning and children can reapply at lunch as necessary. Sun lotion must be a roll on or cream and not a spray bottle.

Please make sure all items are named - anything unnamed can be found in lost property at the front of the school. 

Spring Term 2025

Welcome to the new school year, where we will be looking at endangered animals and recognise why it is important to protect them from becoming extinct. We have a visit to see some endangered animals in January, where we can get close to the wild animals but also find out about the amazing conservation that charities and organisations are doing to protect these animals. 

Woodside Wildlife Park

We enjoyed our school trip visiting endangered animals. We liked watching Humboldt Penguins being fed. The Zookeeper told us they identify them based on the beaded bracelets around their wings. How cool is that! Then we saw Julia, she is an 18 year old Sumatran Tiger who was rescued from the zoo over fourteen years ago! Her species of tiger is critically endangered. Finally we saw some Ringtailed Lemurs from the island of Madagascar in Africa. These animals are also endangered and have adapted to their surrounding areas so they can climb and jump from rocks to trees. What a busy but informative day we had!

Science

We are learning about animals, including humans this term. So far we have classified the five groups including mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians. We have also looked at carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. We could tell the classification from what the animals had eaten - yes, we have observed and investigated their poo! 

Maths

Over the past few weeks, Year 2 have successfully learned their times tables and division facts for 2, 5, and 10. They can now recall and apply multiplication facts, such as 2 x 3 = 6, 5 x 4 = 20, and 10 x 7 = 70, as well as the corresponding division facts, like 6 ÷ 2 = 3, 20 ÷ 5 = 4, and 30 ÷ 10 = 3. Through practice and engaging activities, the children have developed a strong foundation in these key mathematical concepts. Look at the images of them exploring below.
 

Welcome to the new academic year. This autumn, we have great adventures planned where we will investigate the termly question ‘What makes Britain Great?’ We will look into some historical events and significant historians both local and national as well as what makes up the British Isles and research some significant landmarks.

Christmas Party!

We had a great time partying with Year 1. We danced, played games and had a delicious array of party food! 

We had the best Christmas party with Year 1. We danced, played games, ate yummy snacks and played pass the parcel.

Snow Day

We had a great day exploring the snow. We made snowmen and enjoyed jumping in piles of deep, white, fluffy snow. How fun today has been! 

R.E

We have had a visit from Reverend Sarah to support with our RE topic understanding and recognising Christian traditions and celebrations. 

Odd Sock Day 2024

We enjoyed coming into school wearing odd socks to celebrate individuality and uniqueness to raise awareness of bullying. We reminded ourselves of how to be kind and respectful towards others. 

Bonfire Day - Our Experience Day

What a great day we had!

Harlaxton and Denton Years 2s came together to share their learning of Guy Fawkes and explore further discussions, drama, craft activities and much more! Emily from One Day Creative gave us further information, including how Guy Fawkes was hung, drawn and quartered after he was caught! In groups, we created pictures of the sky that we might see during Bonfire Night, the night traditionally people celebrated the failure of the plot. We also used some olden paper (although it could have been stained with tea and coffee) to write letters from Guy Fawkes in jail to the other conspirators.  We decided though, a secret code would be needed so others wouldn't understand our messages. Can you crack the codes? 

English 

We are learning to write a character description. So far, we have a bear called Pad that has arrived in our class. We cannot wait to hear about his adventures.

Maths 

We are exploring Place Value and recognising the value in 2-digit numbers. We can compare greater and fewer than and also order numbers from smallest to greatest or greatest to smallest - this is trickier as we have to count backwards!

We are calculating addition and subtraction. We can use Place Value charts, Tens frames and also bar models to help recognise that two (or three) parts make a whole. We have even looked at adding and subtracting over the ten, but this is tricky as we must exchange tens and ones! 

Geography

We have been looking at maps and atlas' to find out what makes up the United Kingdom. So far, we have recognised there are four countries, seas and oceans. 

Core Practice - Mind Up 

Through our PSHE curriculum, we have introduced Mind Up. This is teaching us how our brain works, and how the different areas impact our emotional wellbeing and regulation. Daily Core Practice is practised at regular intervals throughout the day, and mindfulness activities completed to support this. We enjoy taking part in breathing exercises, colouring and relaxing. 

PE 

In our PE lessons we have been practising our net and wall games - throwing, catching and passing to a partner over a net. The children have enjoyed playing small volleyball games and working together as a team. Tennis rackets have also been used to our tennis skills. 

Art 

This term we have been learning about portrait drawing. We have been exploring different mediums medium from chalk, oil pastels to charcoal. We discussed how they feel to use and our work. We looked carefully in mirrors when drawing our faces, discussing with our friends what we could see, looking at shape, size and patterns.  We have learnt about Cubism and the artist Picasso. Some of our portraits have been drawn in the style of Picasso! Come back soon to see our final pieces. 

Science

We have begun to compare seasonal changes. We took a walk around school, found signs of Autumn including:

- acorns

- fallen leaves

- leaves changing colours

- plants dying

We are investigating everyday materials. We have enjoyed classifying, looking at properties and even held a floating and sinking investigation where we made observations. 

Virtual Mile

We took part in our whole school challenge of a virtual mile. We ran around the field six times, which is one mile! We enjoyed it very much but found it made us hot and worn out.

Music

Over the past few weeks in our music lessons, we have listened and talked about the Christmas story. We have been thinking about the musical instruments we could play to the different events in the story, both real and manmade. We have enjoyed making body percussion to different songs and we have been thinking about which body percussions would be suitable for our nativity songs. We listened to the nativity songs and discussed with our friends the tempo and dynamics of the songs. 

Year 2 have also been discussing the Christmas Story and practicing for their nativity. The children thought about the different instruments they could play to match to the events and the characters in the story. 

PE 

Over the past few weeks, the children have been learning different striking and fielding techniques. The children have been playing games, taking on different roles e.g. fielders, bowlers and batters. We have been learning how to play honestly, communicating to our teammates. The children have been practising their over and under arm throwing. 

Phonics 

Resources below to support learning the sounds and rhymes following the Read Write Inc. (RWI) scheme we follow. 

Useful Websites for additional homework ideas