Armley Park Primary School
Armley Park Primary School
Year 2
Welcome to the Year 2 Class Page!
Class Teacher: Miss Benson
Support Staff: Mrs Hughes
Email: [email protected]
Hello, my name is Miss Benson and I will be teaching in year 2 this year. I am eager and excited to begin a year of learning and fun together! This is my second year teaching at Armley Park as I worked in year 1 last year. I am really enjoying getting to know you all and working as part of the Armley Park team. I grew up in Blackpool but have loved living in Leeds for the last 5 years. A few of the things that I enjoy the most are baking, shopping and cuddling my dogs!
We hope you enjoy looking at our class page. We will update this regularly throughout the year with photographs of what we have been doing and also with key information which you may find useful. If you have any questions, please contact me and I will do my best to help.
We have P.E every Wednesday so it is important that your child has a P.E kit with them each week (a plain white top, black shorts or bottoms and pumps or trainers). Your child's P.E kit can be brought into school at the beginning of each half term and can be left on their peg.
It is important to read with your child at home and to write it in their reading record. Me and Mrs Hughes work hard to read with the children throughout the week but extra reading at home will really help to build fluency and confidence! We bought lots of new books last year so have plenty of exciting books for your child to choose from.
What are we learning about this year?
Learning at Home
Please see the information below about how you can help with learning at home. If you need any advice or support, please contact the class teacher.
W.C 26th April
In Maths this week, Year 2 have been working on division through 'sharing' and grouping'. We have been focusing on dividing by 2, 5 and 10.
D.T -
In D.T, we will be designing and making our own 'Moving pictures'. Over the next few lessons, we will be building on and developing our skills of making different mechanisms. Within this weeks lesson, we focused on 'slider' mechanisms. Miss Benson modelled how to create a slider mechanism following simple instructions, before the children had a go independently!
Our slider mechanisms!
Our slider mechanisms!
W.C 19th April - First week back after the Easter holidays
We have loved our first week back after Easter. We have started off our new topic 'Plants' with some exciting activities.
In Writing, we worked in groups to follow Miss Benson's instructions on 'How to plant a sunflower seed'. We began verbally using bossy (imperative) verbs and time conjunctions to talk through the instructions, in preparation for writing our own instructions over the next week.
In Science, we went on a 'Plant hunt' in our playground, looking for wild plants as well as searching in our school garden. The children enjoyed recognising, finding and naming many of the plants and working together to tick them off their list!
W.C 22nd March
We have been working very hard doing our assessments this week. The children have been determined and resilient and have made me extremely proud! In the afternoons we decided to have some fun completing our Art lessons. In Art the title of our topic this half term is 'Let's Sculpt'. This week we have looked at sculptures made by artists 'Michelle Reader' and 'Eva Rothschild' and have tried to recreate some of their work using similar materials.
Here we are making structures using spaghetti and marshmallows! We thought about the shapes that we were going to create, how we were going to join the shapes together and the size of our structures.
Here we are making monster structures using recycled rubbish! We thought about the body parts and features of our monsters, the materials we were going to use and how we were going to join them together!
Maths -
We have continued with lots of practical Maths work focusing on multiplication and division! Year 2 have impressed me when making arrays, doubling and with their times tables this week. They are becoming increasingly confident and independent with multiplication and writing multiplication sentences.
PSHE -
In PSHE this week, we have been looking at harmful and safe substances. We discussed how harmful substances can make us feel ill and can be really dangerous for our bodies if we eat or drink them. We discussed how medicine should only be given by an adult and stored in a safe cupboard. The children showed a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe and agreed that if they don't know what something is - they should never put it in their mouth! The children sorted safe and harmful substances and created posters to teach other children about them.
It has been so so lovely having all the children back in school this week! The children have loved seeing their friends and we have worked hard to get back into routines,
Our topic this half term is 'Living things and habitats'. In writing, we started the week by watching a clip of Meerkats in their habitat on Youtube. The children loved watching the clip and became really excited to research and answer questions about Meerkats. The children worked in pairs on computers to find out information and write it onto large paper. They found out lots of different facts! We are going to use these facts to write Non-chronological reports.
Maths -
In Maths this week, we have enjoyed lots of practical, hands-on Maths lessons. We have been recapping previously learnt concepts linking to multiplication and division. We focused on making and adding equal groups!
Week 6 - 7th December
We have had an extremely busy week across Year 1 and Year 2! We have had a week full of hands-on learning. We have lots of photo's to share with you all!
In Art, we have been looking at Monet's Cityscapes and worked with pastels to replicate his paintings of the Houses of Parliament. Year 2 were really good at selecting 'warm' and 'cool' colours.
In Maths, we have begun looking at money. We worked throughout this week to recognise and compare the value of coins. We talked about the importance of using money within everyday life as well as some of the reasons why we use money. Year 2 have loved working practically with sets of coins and money fans.
In English, we have been reading and exploring the book 'The Polar Express' by Chris Van Allsburg. On Thursday, the children were lucky enough to go on a very special trip... to the North Pole! The Polar Express arrived at Armley Park to take the children on a journey. Year 1 and 2 loved dressing in their pyjamas, drinking hot chocolate, singing christmas songs and getting a silver bell from Santa Claus!
In D.T, we made our own dips based on our designs from last week. We discussed different food groups, looked at different chopping techniques and talked about food hygiene. The children really impressed me with how well they followed their design and how sensible they were when chopping the vegetables!
And finally... Christmas jumper day selfie!
This week has been our first week working as a mixed class with year 1. We have been extremely busy getting used to new routines and have worked very hard to be excellent role models for the year 1 children. In D.T we tried some dips ready to design our own next week, in Music we worked on our Rhythm and in Computing we drew and labelled animals!
It has also been assessment week across Armley Park. The Year 2 children have been so resilient and determined when completing many different assessments. Miss Benson was so proud that she decided to give everyone a Golden Time treat on Friday...
We decorated the Christmas tree!
Christmas Tree decorating!
Week 3 - 16th November
I have been extremely proud of Year 2's resilience and determination in our maths lessons this week! We have been working on column addition and subtraction (crossing 10) using lots of concrete resources to support us. The children blew me away with how eager they were to challenge themselves and gained more and more confidence as the week went on.
Column subtraction (crossing 10) -
Column addition (crossing 10) -
PSHE
In PSHE this week, Year 1 and Year 2 have been learning about how they can stay safe indoors and outdoors. In Thursday's lesson, we looked at a 'Risk Ladder' and compared six outdoor scenarios. The children worked together to decide where each scenario should go on the risk ladder through lots of discussion. The children were able to share some valuable points to come to an agreement. We then created our own outdoor safety posters!
Week 2 - 9th November
This week has been Science week at Armley Park! We have had lots of fun learning about the human body and our senses. We experimented using each sense. We completed a hearing experiment, taste experiment, touch experiment, smell experiment and sight experiment! The children have loved using their senses to explore different things and have been excellent scientists.
Miss Benson and Mr Kinnes also announced Armley Park's School Council representatives this week. Here we have Year 2's excellent school council members!
Week 7
We have had a very busy last week before half term!
In Geography, Year 1 and 2 have tried food/drink from each country in the United Kingdom. Soda bread for Ireland, Haggis for Scotland, Leeks for Wales and Tea for England. The children were very curious and excited to try the different foods!
In Art, Year 1 and 2 used what we had previously learnt about Andy Goldsworthy and his natural sculptures to create our own sculptures. The children enjoyed using flour paste and the materials that they had collected to independently create their piece.
In Golden Time, to conclude our topic 'Countries of the UK' we had Afternoon Tea with The Queen! In writing, we wrote shopping lists using adjectives to help Miss Benson know what to buy for our Golden Time treat. We enjoyed scones, cucumber sandwiches (one of the Queens favourites!), tea and cake. We had lots of fun!
Week 6
This week in Geography, year 1 and year 2 have learnt about compass directions and how a compass can help us. We discussed how a compass is a good piece of equipment to have if we are going on a trip or a journey somewhere as they can direct us if we get lost. We practised using the vocabulary 'North, South, East and West' and worked in groups to use a compass to navigate around the playground.
In Maths this week, Year 2 have been comparing number sentences using the inequality symbols. We discovered that we don't always need to work out the answer to know which number sentence is greater and which one is less. Year 2 really impressed me with their resilience and determination!
In Maths this week, we have been practising counting in 2's, 5's, 3's and 10's using lots of different resources. We enjoyed listening to Jack Hartmann on youtube, paired socks, drew around our hands and worked hard to spot the pattern on a 100 square.
In Art this week, we collected natural objects and materials from the playground to use for our sculptures in a few weeks! We looked at materials that Andy Goldsworthy had used in his pieces as inspiration.
In Art this week, year 1 and 2 have been looking at Andy Goldsworthy and his natural sculptures. To begin our project, the children used the skill of observational drawing to draw natural objects from the playground. The children used a variety of different sketching pencils and we discussed how shading can be used to create
effect.
Year 2 started the week by following instructions to make their own marmalade sandwiches for Paddington! As you can see, the children worked so well collaboratively to follow the instructions correctly. The children then worked hard to identify and use time conjunctions and bossy verbs to write their own instructions.
Myself, Miss Avison and Mrs Hughes have loved having the children back in school. It was so lovely to see so many smiling faces walking through the door on Tuesday morning! They have all been so excited to learn and to see their friends. The children have been settling in well and have been very busy starting our new topic 'Countries of the UK'. We have welcomed Paddington bear and his suitcase into our classroom which the children have loved!
In Maths, we have been using manipulatives to represent teen numbers within 20.
When we were in Year 1...
