Home Learning Year 2

What will you choose to do?• Make a tin can telephone with a friend. Investigate which connectors transfer the

sound most effectively (maybe wool, string or plastic coated wire). What is the longest connector you can use that still transfers the message? Does the connector need to be taut? Try using yoghurt pots instead of tin cans. Which work best?

A responsible adult should drill or punch a hole into the bottom of each can and check that the cans have no sharp edges.

• Watch online footage of brass bands. Create a musical band at home with family or friends, improvising with instruments to achieve different sounds. Compose some music of your own or play a well-known tune.

• Design a uniform for a marching band. Look at online images for inspiration.

• Listen to another traditional tale featuring a soldier character, perhaps The Tinder Box or Stone Soup. Practise retelling the story, preparing to tell it to your classmates at school. Perhaps you could make stick puppets to bring the characters to life?

• Record some sounds at home to create a sound quiz. What about the sound of the washing machine, the babbling of your baby brother or sister or the theme tune to your favourite TV programme? Can your classmates identify the sounds?

• Find a poem, nursery rhyme or song about marching. Learn it by heart to perform at school.

• Using the web, find out about interesting drums from other countries. Draw a picture of your favourite, locate its country of origin on a world map and watch an online video of someone playing it.

• Find out if any local bands perform in your area – many parks have a local bandstand with summer performances. Perhaps you could attend a show and pick out your favourite instrument?

• Do some online research to find out about some of the commands used to instruct marching bands, such as ‘left face’, ‘horns up’, ‘ parade rest’ – what do they mean?

Home learning ideas

Beat Band Boogie! Copyright © 2017 Cornerstones Education Limited

What will you choose to do?• Invent games and try them out with your family and friends. Write the rules, bring

them into school and test them with your class to check they are easy to understand.

• Make a scrapbook containing pictures, captions and photographs about your favourite sport. If you’ve been to watch a sports match or event, you could include the tickets, programmes or souvenirs that you kept!

• Choose a famous sportsperson and write a fact file about them.

• Design a new kit for your favourite team. Don’t forget a team badge!

• A ball is sphere shaped. Go on a sphere hunt around your house and garden. Take photographs or draw pictures of the spheres you find.

• Survey your family and friends to find out their favourite sports.

• Make an information booklet about the ‘jumpiest’ animals! Perhaps find out about the amazing jumping spider, the terrific tree frog, the fantastic flea or the kangaroo rat!

• Plan a weekly exercise routine for your family. Perhaps a weekend walk, or 10 minutes on the trampoline? How fit are the adults you live with?

• Show parents and carers how to relax. Ask them how they feel after taking part – that’s if you can wake them up!

• Write some instructions for a game or another activity. You could create instructions on how to tidy your room, how to get ready for bed or how to take a pulse.

Home learning ideas

Bounce Copyright © 2017 Cornerstones Education Limited

What will you choose to do?• Search the web or non-fiction books to find out about a famous boat or ship. Make

an information book by writing down interesting facts, downloading images or making drawings. Famous ships to choose from include RMS Titanic, the Santa Maria, the Cutty Sark or HMS Belfast.

• Design and make a boat to take part in a class boat race. What materials will you use? What shape will your boat be? What name will you give it?

• Visit a maritime museum, boat show, lighthouse or harbour with your family. Take lots of pictures to show and talk about at school. Maybe you could interview a family member who has worked at sea or has been on a cruise, to find out about their experiences.

• Take the pirate puppet home for a night. Write about all of his adventures in his pirate diary.

• Visit your local library to read and borrow story and information books about the sea. Write or film a book review about your favourite.

• Make a pirate treasure chest using a lidded box and other recycled materials. What will you keep in your treasure chest? Bring it to school to show your class and explain how you made it.

• Write a letter to Captain Longbeard to tell him what you have been up to at school and home. You might want to invite him to visit again!

• Make a map of your home and local area to show all the main features. Include physical landmarks such as beaches, hills or forests, as well as human features such as shops, farms or harbours. Where would be a good place to hide treasure? Can you plot a route to find it?

• Find and learn some pirate jokes. Practise reading them at home to perform in school and make your pirate friends laugh! Aye, that be funny!

• Look at holiday brochures or travel websites and talk about holiday destinations around the world. Which seas or oceans are close to each destination? Locate them on a world map, noting their locationin relation to the Equator and the North and South Poles. How does the location affect the weather? Where would you most like to go?

Home learning ideas

Land Ahoy! Copyright © 2017 Cornerstones Education Limited

What will you choose to do?• Keep your street diary updated with all the exciting things that happen in your

street. Remember to use interesting adjectives and verbs.

• Look in detail at the outside of your own house and make a careful observational drawing.

• Draw a plan or map of your ideal neighbourhood. Who would you like to have living on your street? You might choose fairytale characters, sports champions or pop stars. What type of house would your ideal neighbours have? Create a key to show features on your map. What local amenities would your residents need? For example, Harry Potter might need a wand shop, and Rapunzel might need hairdressers!

• Visit your local museum with your grown ups. Handle some artefacts from homes in the past. Draw and write about them to show your friends at school. Can they use the pictures to guess what the artefacts were used for?

• Watch a clip of a film made to show what family life was like in the 1900s. Talk to your grown ups about how life was different for children in the past. Draw pictures and write some sentences to share at school.

• Arrange with your family to do something to improve the local community. This could be litter picking, helping a neighbour with some shopping or volunteering at a local charitable organisation. Take a picture of the work you did for your class blog. Write about how it made you feel.

• Interview someone who has lived in your community for a long time, perhaps an elderly relative or neighbour you know well. What changes have they seen? Which things are better or worse today?

• Draw and label a design for your own fantasy home. What will your home be built from? How will you get in and out of your house? What will you have in your garden? Make a model of your fantasy house using junk materials.

• Watch time-lapse footage or look at step-by-step photographs of a house being built. Find out and list the types of building machinery needed to build a house. Draw or download images of each vehicle and write a description of what it is used for. Perhaps you could make a non-fiction book or PowerPoint presentation to show what you have found out?

• Visit a local shop with your grown up. Write a shopping list before you go. Pay for your shopping and work out your change.

• Make a leaflet or short film all about your local community. Include drawings, photographs or footage to show what you can see and do in your local area. Write or record your thoughts on what it’s like to live there as well as ideas for improving it.

Home learning ideas

Street Detectives Copyright © 2017 Cornerstones Education Limited

What will you choose to do?• Plant bulbs and seeds at home and watch them grow. Bring in your plants (or

photographs of them) to show your class.

• Grow a sunflower and keep a record of its height. Who can grow the tallest in the class?

• Keep a plant diary, explaining how you grew a plant. Include photographs or drawings of each stage of your plant’s development.

• With an adult, search the web for examples of amazing plants and make your own weird and wonderful plant book.

• On a visit to the supermarket, find and discuss plants you can eat, including herbs, vegetables and fruit. Which part of the plant are they? The roots? The leaves? The flower? The stem?

• Visit a garden centre, florist or plant sale, or take a walk in your garden or local area. Amaze your adults with your knowledge of plant names. Find out the names of any plants you don’t recognise.

• Read and talk about stories and poems with your adult on the theme of flowers and plants.

• Visit the local library and find non-fiction books about planting. Look for information using the contents and index pages. Write down any new facts you have learned and bring them in to share with the class.

• Grow a herb garden at home and use your herbs in some delicious recipes for your family and friends.

• Learn how to spell the names of some common flowering plants such as rose, daisy, iris and tulip.

• Paint or draw flowers growing in the local environment or in a vase or pot in your home. Find pictures online of famous flower paintings and talk about your likes and dislikes with your adult.

• Press flowers between the pages of a book and use them to make gifts or cards for your family and friends.

Home learning ideas

The Scented Garden Copyright © 2017 Cornerstones Education Limited

What will you choose to do?• Find out about famous engineers. Search the web and use non-fiction books to find

out about their life and work. Draw a picture to show one of their most famous achievements and think about why their work was so important.

• Play a tumbling tower game such as Jenga, with your family. What are the best ways of keeping the tower upright? See if you can take some action shots or videos of the tower falling!

• Go on a bridge hunt with your grown ups around the local area, taking photographs to show your class. What types of bridge did you see? Choose the most interesting bridge and see what you can discover about it online or at the local library?

• Make a detailed diagram of a castle, labelling interesting features which might be found inside, or out. Perhaps you could find out about murder holes, garderobes or loopholes?

• Make an information book about castles, bridges or tunnels. Include downloaded images, as well as drawings and diagrams. What fascinating facts can you find out to amaze your family, friends and teacher?

• Design and create a model of a famous structure from around the world, using junk materials found at home. Will you choose London Bridge, the Leaning Tower of Pisa or perhaps the Statue of Liberty? Find a photograph of your chosen landmark to use as inspiration.

• Find, on a world map or globe, all the famous landmarks you would like to visit. Which continents are they in? How would you get there? Talk to your grown ups and explain your choices. Make a digital display showing images of your favourite places and giving information about each country or city.

• Design a fantastic new landmark for your local area! What materials would you use and what special features would it have? Think about how to make it stand out from other landmarks in the world. Plot your landmark on a map of your local area. Present your ideas to your class and perhaps take a vote for the winning design.

• Look at websites telling the story of The Three Little Pigs. Draw a storyboard with six or eight sections. Add captions and images which could be used to help you create a short stop motion animation. Make the animation if you have time.

Home learning ideas

Towers, Tunnels and Turrets Copyright © 2017 Cornerstones Education Limited