Primary 2 Curriculum Update Term 2

Welcome to our curriculum update for term 2. It is sure to be a busy term as we prepare for all the fun and exciting activities, we will be part of in the run up to advent and Christmas!

 

Literacy

Last term our focus had been predicting what might happen in our books and to think about sequencing parts of a story we’d read. We also began to think about what the ‘blurb’ on the back of a book may tell us. During term 2, we will further increase our skills by summarising the key parts of the book, looking to context clues to help us decipher unfamiliar words.

We will begin to answer both literal and inferential questions orally whilst beginning on identifying key features of a book i.e. fiction/non-fiction, index, contents and labels. We will also continue with our usual spelling and common word activities that help pupils retain and recognise their spelling sounds/phonemes and common words in books.

In writing children will begin to explore narrative writing, building on their knowledge of sequencing the main parts of a book. They will then create, plan and write their own narratives. This will mostly be in the form of imaginative writing, however they may do personal writing in the form of a narrative of a diary entry. Children will also use their knowledge of nouns from term 1 and will learn more about verbs and adjectives, identifying these in texts we are accessing in class.

During term 2 we will also partake in some listening and talking games and activities to help children develop the key skills needed when in whole class or group discussions. These skills will be further developed when we begin weekly sharing information in our class ‘Show and Tell’ activities too.

Numeracy

Our focus in maths will be to revisit place value, recognising sequences and patterns in numbers 0-99 and how these patterns continue in larger numbers just beyond 100.  Last term the focus was addition and in term 2 this will move to subtraction and recognising the link between addition and subtraction in our fact families.

Children will spend time mentally counting on in 2s, 5s and 10s and developing mental strategies for the skills we have worked on so far. The will continue to recite numbers to 100 whilst developing their knowledge of money. Children will work with coins up to an including £2 and will consider different combinations of coins and different ways of paying for an item or giving change. This will be developed through our toys topic and our in toyshop.

In beyond number we will build on our knowledge of 2D shapes and their properties by learning about symmetry using mirrors to help us find the line of symmetry. Pupils will also develop skills measurement, using non-standard and standard units to work out an items length, height or weight. Children will regularly use their ‘Buys Bee’ jotters to develop problem solving skills, applying knowledge of number to new contexts and develop strategies for any number problems.

Health & Wellbeing

All children will have the opportunity to be pupil of the day for a second time in term 2 and will continue to explore emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others. We will look at strategies for helping us deal with uncomfortable emotions and how we can help our friends if they are experiencing these emotions.

In P.E, our sessions will continue to be on a Tuesday and a Thursday and our focus in term 2 will be gymnastics and social dancing.  Children will also have the opportunity to partake in some fun activities which support teamwork whilst focusing on developing their listening skills, awareness of space and how to keep ourselves safe whilst using apparatus.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be on the Mother Mary in October, moving to Saints and Remembrance in November before visiting Advent and the nativity throughout December.

Topic (IDL)

In term 2 the focus of topic will be on science and how energy around is used to operate different toys we use. This will include electronic, battery operated and push and pull toys of now and in the past. The children will have the opportunity to explore different materials used in toys and predict what might happen during our experiments and toy building challenges.  Pupils will research the impact of energy and how toys have changed over the last century.

 

French (Modern Languages)

Children continue to familiarise themselves with basic greetings and expand their knowledge of number by increasing this to 20. Pupils will become more familiar with questions they can ask to learn someone’s name or age. As Christmas approaches we will also learn about how Christmas is celebrated in France.

We hope this is the start of another very successful term and that the pupils will continue to enjoy learning new topics across the curriculum.

Take care,

Mrs Travers