Topic Summary
Would you rather live in Newcastle or Shanghai?
Get your plane tickets at the ready, Year 2 are flying to China. The children will explore the landscape of China and see what the similarities and differences are between Shanghai and Newcastle. You won’t believe how different the schools look! The children will look at Chinese art for inspiration for our own textiles project.
In the topic we will be teaching the children the following key concepts:
- Respect – Why is it important to respect different countries and their cultures?
- Tradition - How do our traditions compare to those of other cultures?
- Identity – How important to our identity is the place we call home?
- Comparison – What can we learn from making a comparison between Newcastle and Shanghai?
Visits / Experiences
- Friday 17th November - Children in Need Children
- November 28th - Author Vashti Hardy visiting school
- Thursday 14th December 2:45pm - Year 2 Carols
- Tuesday 19th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Decorations Morning
Subject Information
English
To improve the children's writing skills this half term we will be practising the following skills:
- Developing consistent use of the punctuation we have already learned (full stops, capital letters, exclamation marks and question marks). We will also introduce new punctuation such as commas for lists, apostrophes to show when words have been shortened and apostrophes to show possession.
- How to write different types of sentences, for example, statements, exclamation sentences, commands and questions.
- Improving our descriptive writing by adding adjectives in front of nouns to form noun phrases and adverbs with verbs.
- Using the present and the past tenses correctly and consistently, ensuring the appropriate tense is chosen to match the meaning and intention behind the sentences.
- Using a wider range of conjunctions in order to extend our sentences (for example or, and, or but) as well as conjunctions to vary our sentences (for example, when, if, that or because).
We will also be teaching the children to increase their stamina for writing by practising speaking out loud, sentence by sentence in order to ensure our writing is carefully thought out. We will check our writing carefully, re-reading to check it makes sense, looking out for mistakes, for example in spelling and punctuation
Key Texts
- Dream of a Butterfly
- The Great Race
- Santa's Marvellous Mechanical Workshop
Maths
This half term we will focus on addition and subtraction. We will use practical resources and pictures to build our understanding as well as working with numbers alone. We will:
- Ensure we can recall and use addition and subtraction facts up to 20 fluently.
- Use facts we know to derive facts up to 100.
- Add and subtract two-digit numbers and 1s.
- Add and subtract two-digit numbers and 10s.
- Add and subtract 2 two-digit numbers.
- Add 3 one-digit numbers.
- Understand that addition can be done in any order but subtraction cannot.
- Recognise the connection between addition and subtraction.
Science
This half term we will investigate the properties of materials. We will teach the children to identify and name a variety of everyday materials, distinguishing objects from the materials they are made from. We will then investigate the properties of materials, eventually grouping and comparing materials according to these properties.
Geography
We will review our place in the world, zooming out to explore the poles and find China. The children will then compare the UK to China, looking at location and scale. We will look at cities, comparing human and physical features of Shanghai and Newcastle. We will study the two cities, comparing rivers, buildings, houses and schools. We will finish with a debate about where we would most like to live and why!
PSHE and Music
In PSHE the children will will continue or work on relationships, looking at the roles of different people in our lives as well as how we can respect those around us and ourselves.
During our music lessons, we will be using voices expressively to sing a range of songs and play untuned percussion instruments with a steady beat. We will also learn a range of traditional Christmas carols and modern Christmas songs.
Art
In art this half term we will be looking at the artist Jackson Pollock. We will study his use of warm and cold colours and use him as inspiration for our own textiles work. We will learn to apply different techniques to fabric, including brusho dye and tie dye.
Computing
In computing we will be looking at computer science, looking at how algorithms are the computer’s instructions and how being precise is very important.
PE
In PE the children will be taking part two topics to develop their gymnastics skills and their skills when playing ball games. They will:
- Perform balances on different body parts, with control and balance.
- Take body weight different body parts, with and without apparatus.
- Show increased awareness of extension and flexibility in actions.
- Copy, remember, repeat and plan linking simple actions with some control.
- Control and pass a ball with increasing accuracy.
- Work well with a partner and in a team.
If you would like any further details about this half term's curriculum in Year 2, please speak to your child's teacher.