Curriculum OverviewSpring Term 1 - 2019

Year 2

Topic: The Polar Regions

In PE we will be focussing on ‘high and low’ in gymnastics, focussing on jumping from the apparatus and how we can land safely.

In PSHE the children will share opinions on the things that matter to them and explain their views. We will discuss how to make simple choices that improve our health and well-being.

In RE we will look at what it means to be a Hindu and what it is like to grow up in a Hindu family. We will learn about the different religious celebrations and the stories behind why Hindus celebrate them.

This term you can help you child at home by;

Reading with your child every night. Supporting your child with their homework and

making sure they hand it in each week. Practice the cursive handwriting style and ensuring

that your child is forming their letters correctly with the correct joins.

Practice their 2, 5, and 10 times tables so they can recall them without counting in steps.

Look at the relationship between multiplication and division- if we know 4 x 2 = 8, we also know 8 ÷ 2 = 4

Start discussions about the answers they have provided to maths homework. How do they know they are correct? Can they prove it to you? This will help deepen the child’s understanding of mathematical concepts.

In maths we will work on number and place value looking at how to partition numbers in different ways. We will solidify our knowledge of the four operations and learn how to select the correct information from word problems. We will look at the 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables and learn their related division facts. In measurement we are focussing on money and recognising the coins. We will be applying our knowledge of addition and subtraction to solve money problems- totalling amounts and giving change. The children will be learning how to find fractions of shapes and fractions of amounts, we will be finding ½, ¼, ¾ and ⅓. We are still learning to justify and prove our answers, across the maths curriculum.

The third Year 2 topic this term will see your child learning about The Polar Regions focussing on the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle. The children will compare the Arctic and the Antarctic looking at their similarities and differences. The children will find out which animals live in each region and observe how they have adapted to their habitat. They will go on to explore the culture and lifestyle of the Inuit people and learn how they have managed to survive in some of the world’s harshest conditions. We will make links to the Polar Regions across the curriculum.

As scientists we will explain how animals obtain food from other plants and animals so we can understand and create basic food chains to identify different food sources. Children will learn to describe conditions in a variety of habitats and microhabitats and give reasons as to why these conditions may affect the numbers of plants or animals living there. The children will learn how living things in a habitat depend on each other to survive.

As geographers we will locate the Polar Regions a on a map, looking the different countries and continents. We will look at the different animals, landscapes and cultures. We will explore Arctic cities and the countries they are in.

In English we will be looking at fiction and story writing. The children will be encouraged to get inventive with their descriptive writing as they plan their own stories creating new characters and settings. We will be practising our diary writing as we look at extracts from Robert Scott’s diary to create our own versions. We will also be learning how to write informal letters to a friend or relative, looking at all of the features of letter writing. Our grammar focuses will be writing in the correct tense, our use of varied punctuation, when to use different sentence types in our writing and ensuring we include adverbs to improve our description. We will be continuing to practise editing and improving our own work.

As musicians we will be working with tuned and untuned instruments to explore beat and rhythm. We will play beats and patterns from Renaissance Italy to West Africa, creating their own with body percussion, voices and instruments.

As artists we will continue our work on sketching to create scientific drawings of a range of polar animals, learning how to comment on each other’s work to give specific and helpful feedback. We identify the colours and shapes in the Aurora Borealis to create our own Aurora Borealis with different art materials and paint computer programs.

In ICT we will be testing algorithms comparing the efficiency of different sets of instructions. They will learn to use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs and edit and debug programs to change or improve the outcome.