Year 2 curriculum letter Spring Term
Dear Parents/Carers,
This letter outlines the topics and activities that we will be covering during the first half of
our spring term.
Knights and Castles
During our first half term our topic focus is ‘Knights and Castles. During our literacy sessions
we will be using ‘The Adventures of King Arthur’ as a stimulus to plan and write our own
story. We will also write our own information report about castles and their features.
Our science work will look at what kinds of materials were made to build castles and why.
We will also be finding out about people in history who developed useful new materials.
During history we will use books and the internet to find out about the roles of people in the
castle and castles around the world. We will look at the different types of castles that were
built such as ‘Motte-and- bailey’. We will also be comparing a castle home to a modern day
home.
Geography work will focus on different castles around the world and in Great Britain. We
will compare British castles and castles abroad. We will recap on naming major cities in
England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
In Art we will study the work of the artist Paul Klee and we will create our own Castle
picture based on his style. We will use different types of sketching pencil and will use
different tones and shading in our pictures.
Maths
During this half term, we will continue to practise counting on and back
in steps of 2, 3, 5 and 10. We will also be transferring this knowledge to
focus on children learning their multiplication and division facts for the
2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables. Children will be interpreting and
constructing simple tally charts, pictograms and block graphs. We will be partitioning
numbers in different ways. We will be comparing numbers and will using the <, > and =
signs. We will be adding and subtracting and will learn to recognise and use the inverse
relationship between addition and subtraction to check calculations. We will be counting in
fractions and will write simple fractions.
PE
Our PE sessions this term will focus on invasion games and we will practise tactics such as
forward positioning, marking, creating space for a pass and signalling. We will also be doing
dance. We will learn traditional medieval dance steps and learn to dance both with a partner
and in a group. We will use music such as ‘Greensleeves’ to accompany our dance.
RE
During this term we will be learning about celebrations and the special
occasions when we have a meal to celebrate. We will then link this to the
Jewish festival of Passover. We will learn about the different traditions
and how Jewish people celebrate during this time.
PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education)
Our focus during this half term is ‘Going for goals’. We will be
talking about how we learn best and what we could do differently
to learn more effectively. We will be deciding on a whole class
goal and how to best achieve this goal. We will also choose
realistic personal goals and talk about different ways to reach these
goals.
Computing
This half term we will use the internet to research different facts and
information about castles. We will continue to improve our
PowerPoint skills and will create a ‘Knights and Castles’ presentation.
Finally we will be making sure we know how to use the internet
safely. This will be focussed on during ‘Internet safety week’ in
February.
Please do come and see me if you have any other questions or if there is something you aren’t
sure of.
Many thanks,
Miss Bennett