It’s been another exciting and productive week in Year 2! The children have really settled into the new school year and are already showing amazing enthusiasm for learning across all areas of the curriculum. We’ve been especially impressed by their curiosity, cooperation, and growing confidence. Here's what we’ve been up to this week.

English

In Mr. Belsey’s English group, we’ve continued our work with the book “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book?” by Lauren Child. This imaginative and funny story has sparked some fantastic discussions about characters, story structure, and the idea of "falling into a book." The children have been thinking about what makes a story exciting and how illustrations and text can work together to tell a story in creative ways.

This week, we’ve focused on identifying key events, making predictions, and using inference to understand what characters might be thinking or feeling. The children have been practising answering comprehension questions in full sentences and backing up their answers with evidence from the text. They are becoming more confident in explaining their ideas in their own words, which is a really important step in their reading development. You might like to ask your child about their favourite part of the story so far, or what they think might happen next.

Our daily phonics sessions continue to play an important role in developing the children’s reading and writing skills. This week, we have been using Fred Fingers to sound out and spell words, especially trickier ones with more sounds. We’ve also spent time blending sounds to read unfamiliar words more fluently and practising our Red Words – these are words that don’t follow regular phonetic rules and need to be remembered by sight, such as “said,” “because,” and “come.”

The children have also been writing sentences independently, working hard to remember their finger spaces, capital letters, and full stops. They are making fantastic progress in becoming more independent and confident writers. If you have a few minutes at home, going over Red Words or encouraging your child to sound out words using their Fred Fingers can make a big difference. Even a short practice each day helps reinforce what we’re doing in school.

 

Reading

Reading at 3: Every Friday at 3, our doors will open for you to come in and enjoy a quiet read with your child. This will be for the full 15 minutes, and we kindly ask that children are not taken home early during this time.

Reading folders: Some children are bringing home two books – one of these will be a Read Write Inc (RWI) home book, which we ask them to read three times throughout the week to help build fluency. These books will be changed by an adult.

The second book (with the coloured sticker) should be changed independently by your child – ideally first thing in the morning.

Some children have moved onto the Accelerated Reader programme and will be able to change their books once they’ve completed the quiz online.
AR login: Click here
Parent Guide: How to use Accelerated Reader

Please ensure reading folders are placed in the trays each morning so that we can read with your child and update their books when needed.

Chilton Heroes Reading Certificate – Each week, one child per class will be recognised for their fantastic reading in our Chilton Heroes assembly.

 

Maths  
This week in Maths we’ve been working on our addition skills. We began by adding a two-digit number and a one-digit number using number lines and physical resources to help us understand what’s happening. We then moved on to adding tens to two-digit numbers, paying close attention to how the tens digit changes. Finally, we challenged ourselves to add two two-digit numbers together.

We’ve also been using 100 squares to look for number patterns and help build our fluency and confidence. Along the way, we’ve been learning how to explain our thinking clearly and use mathematical vocabulary to describe the steps we take to solve a problem. You can support this at home by asking your child to help with everyday maths – for example, adding items while shopping or working out how many more minutes are left until bedtime. Playing simple number games is also a great way to build confidence and keep things fun.

 

Thematic Learning
In our science and topic lessons this week, we’ve become little scientists, learning about the life cycle of plants and what they need to grow. We’ve talked about the different parts of a plant, including roots, stems, leaves and flowers, and learned about what each part does to help the plant survive.

We then set up an exciting class experiment to investigate what plants really need to grow. Each group planted seeds, but each plant was given different conditions. One was kept without water, one without sunlight, one without soil, and one had everything it needed. We’ve been observing these plants each day and recording what we see in our Science Observation Diaries. The children have been making predictions, asking questions, and learning how to observe changes over time – all important scientific skills. They’re very excited to see what happens over the next few weeks. If you’d like to try this at home, planting a simple seed in a cup and watching it grow together is a lovely way to support the learning.

 

Love to Learn

We have been learning all about plants. We are beginning to explore how plants change through the seasons. We would love you to show everything you know about these changes. You can do this in any way you like.

Be creative and have fun!

Dates to remember 

25th September – Chilton School’s 50th Birthday (please see separate letters for details on how we will be celebrating this)

26th September – Thrive coffee morning 9am-10.30am in the studio – a chance to meet our well-being team

7th October – 9am Reception Harvest assembly and 2.45pm Year 3 Harvest assembly (in school hall with families invited to watch)

8th October – 9am Year 2 Harvest assembly and 2.45pm Year 1 Harvest assembly (in school hall with families invited to watch)

9th October - 9am Year 4 Harvest assembly and 2.45pm Year 5 and 6 Harvest assembly (in school hall with families invited to watch)

16th October – Kent test results sent to families

17th October – Final day of term

 

Have a lovely weekend,
The Year 2 Team

Miss Maddy Kennedy – Team Sapphire – maddy.kennedy@chiltonprimary.co.uk

Mr Josh Belsey - Team Cornflower - joshua.belsey@chiltonprimary.co.uk