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Friday 3rd October 2025: Week 4
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Year 2
What will my child be learning about this half term?
Autumn 1
Friday 24th October 2025: Week 7
Another fun week in Year 2! This week we have made chairs for Baby Bear in Design and Technology; they were absolutely superb! In Maths, we have been looking at multiplication whilst using arrays to help us. What a brilliant final week of a brilliant half term! Have a fun and safe week off and see you soon!
![IMG_0766[1]](https://balksburyfederation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_07661-150x150.webp)
![IMG_0778[1]](https://balksburyfederation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_07781-150x150.webp)
![IMG_0772[1]](https://balksburyfederation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_07721-150x150.webp)
![IMG_0795[1]](https://balksburyfederation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_07951-150x150.webp)
Friday 10th October 2025: Week 5
This week, we continued our learning of ‘Team Building’ within our P.E. lessons. In a small group, we had to move from one area to another without stepping outside of the hoop. This required us to communicate and work collaboratively to achieve our goal. We also joined hands in a circle and moved the hoop around all of us without breaking the circle. It was great fun and we really enjoyed trying to solve the task.
Friday 3rd October 2025: Week 4
It’s been another great week in Year 2! Children started to explain why the fire during The Great Fire of London spread so quickly. Additionally, in Maths, we have been comparing a range of two-digit numbers. We have used terminology such as ‘greater than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’. We also used a range of concrete manipulatives and pictorial methods to represent numbers.
Friday 26th September: Week 3
This week, we started an exciting new Learning Journey in English with Goldilocks and the Three Bears! We went on a hunt around the federation to find the bears and ask them questions. Using clues and our inference skills, we worked together to guess what our new Learning Journey would be.
Friday 19th September: Week 2
A big thank you to everyone who brought in their special books. The children loved sharing their books with everyone. In Maths, we portioned a wide range of two-digit numbers into their tens and ones. We used concrete manipulatives which helped our understanding of each number.
Friday 12th September: Week 1
We had a fantastic time learning about the Great Fire of London thanks to a brilliant workshop delivered by Open Box. The children were completely immersed in the story of 1666, exploring how the fire started, why it spread so quickly, and how London was rebuilt afterwards. Through drama, storytelling, and hands-on activities, the children stepped into the shoes of Londoners from the past and discovered how life was changed forever by the fire. It was a fun, engaging, and memorable way to bring our History curriculum to life and we all learned so much!
Friday 11th July 2025: Week 6
Arts Week has been fantastic! It has been lovely to see the creative side of all the children who have shown enormous resilience and perseverance when working on their art designs. We hope you managed to see the amazing showcase they have contributed to at the Arts Festival. See you next week for the final week in Year 2!
Friday 4th July 2025: Week 5
Lights, camera, action! Thank you to all the parents that came to watch the children in their Production of ‘Whiz Wham Alakazam’. The children were fantastic all week and should be very proud of themselves. We also took part in our country dancing performance today. Everyone remembered their routines very well, especially considering the heat. We hope you all enjoyed it!
Friday 27th June 2025: Week 4
We were all very excited to take part in our re-scheduled sports days this week. The Year 2 team were extremely impressed with how the children showed resilience and perseverance throughout. We are looking forward to seeing you again next week to showcase our swimming, production and country dancing!
Friday 20th June 2025: Week 3
This week, we have been learning 10 different colours in French — it has been lots of fun and very exciting! In Art, we began by sketching out our ideas. We have been exploring the work of artist Natsumi Tomita, who creates animal-inspired sculptures using recyclable materials. We then planned out our own creative designs, ready to bring them to life.
Friday 13th June 2025: Week 2
Another great week in Year 2. We started off the week by exploring our new artist for Summer term, Natsumi Tomita. Natsumi collects all kinds of waste materials and combines them together to create unique animal sculptures. We looked through lots of different sculptures she made and discussed what we liked most about them.
Friday 6th June 2025: Week 1
Welcome back Year 2! We have a busy half term coming up and we can’t wait to share it with you.
This week we have started a new English Learning Journey ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare. We then had a go at re-enacting some scenes to help us understand the play, we had lots of fun! We have also started to rehearse our production, which we are very excited about!
Friday 23rd May 2025: Week 5
What a great final week in Year 2! This week we have made our own healthy wraps in Design and Technology, they tasted brilliant. We also had a lovely treat – Open Box came to teach us even more about the Titanic! Have a great half term everyone.
Friday 16th May 2025: Week 4
We have had another exciting week in Year 2! On Monday, we began our new learning journey of ‘Amazing Africa’ by playing some African drums. We had so much fun playing different beats and getting a glimpse of African culture. Next, we practiced crossing the road safely as part of our Health and Wellbeing. We remembered to look to both ways and wait for no traffic! Finally, to help expand our knowledge of Africa, we explored different videos through VR headsets.
Friday 9th May 2025: Week 3
We had a very exciting visitor this week, we found The Truth Pixie hiding inside the teepee and we tried to persuade her to come out. We thought carefully about our reasons and used all persuasive techniques we learnt during our English learning. Unfortunately, she never came out! We have then written her a letter, hopefully she will come out this time! We have also been watering our beans ready for Summer 2 and have been observing the life cycle of butterflies. We will keep you updated with how they grow.
Friday 2nd May 2025: Week 2
This week has been so exciting! We ventured over to Southampton and visited the Titanic museum as a part of our History learning. We explored our enquiry question ‘What was life like on the Titanic and was it the same for everyone?’ We learnt lots of new information and can’t wait to implement our recent findings into our work back at school!
Friday 25th April 2025: Week 1
Welcome back Year 2! Even in this short week, we have been taking part and completing lots of fun activities! Firstly, in History, we explored how on The Titanic, the ship had different areas depending on the different classes. We looked at the bedrooms and the facilities the people in First class would have compared to people in the Second and Third class. In Science, we started our learning on seeds and bulbs. We discussed how different fruits contain seeds and plants from bulbs don’t have seeds. We finished our learning by looking at seeds within fruit under a magnifying class and a microscope.
Friday 4th April 2025: Week 6
A fantastic end to Spring term in Year 2! In Maths, we were looking at the properties of 2D and 3D shapes and then finding which 2D shapes we can see on the 3D shape. We then moved to Geography where we decided what clothes we would need to pack for a cold or a hot holiday. We used this knowledge to write an invitation to a friend to ask them to come on holiday with us and we listed the clothes they would need to pack. We hope you have a fantastic break and we are looking forward to seeing you in the Summer term!
Friday 28th March 2025: Week 5
This week in Year 2, we had the wonderful opportunity to watch the Year 1 performance of Rockpool. We created amazing artwork inspired by Abel Rodríguez, explored telling the time in Maths, and wrote brilliant book reviews about ‘Don’t Let Them Disappear’ in English.
Friday 21st March 2025: Week 4
Another fantastic week completed in Year 2! We started the week off by sharing our new text in English ‘Don’t Let Them Disappear’. The VR headsets were a perfect opportunity to see wildlife in their habitats and helped us to write down adjectives to describe animals that are endangered. In Science, we looked at how energy is transferred through food chains. We showed multiple examples where animals get their energy from and are able to survive in the wild.
Friday 14th March 2025: Week 3
Year 2 have really enjoyed learning about measure in Maths this week, to start we looked at weighing items in grams and kilograms. We thought carefully about what items we should measure in grams and which ones are heavy enough to be weighed in kilograms. After this, we moved onto capacity and experimented with measuring liquid. It was lovely to take our maths learning outside and everyone collaborated well with all the equipment and water!
Friday 7th March 2025: Week 2
Another fabulous week completed! This week in Art we have looked at how we can identify expression within artwork. We visited the tepee and looked at different artwork created by Abel Rodriguez and shared our likes and dislikes about his work. In Maths, we have been exploring how to find fractions of amounts and in PE we have been developing our skills in invasion games. On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day and all the children made such a fabulous effort and looked incredible. We had a lovely afternoon of sharing our favourite books with Year 4 and then coming back to class to do some fun activities!
Friday 28th February 2025: Week 1
What a fantastic week, we’ve had, back from half term! In Music, we explored using bells for the first time this year. We rang them in time with popular songs to create a brilliant classroom song. Next, in P.E. we have begun to learn the skills for invasion games by passing a ball to our partners to keep possession. Finally, in Science, we continued our learning of habitats by creating our own microhabitats around the Federation. We can’t wait to see which insects use them for their new home!
Friday 14th February 2025: Week 6
A great end to the half term! We have really enjoyed using VR headsets to support our English, the children came up with great adjectives to describe the animals they could see. To finish off our Design and Technology unit of work, we created our own moving monsters using linkages. We decorated them to match our design criteria. Have a lovely half term break!
Friday 7th February 2025: Week 5
What a brilliant week it has been in Year 2! On Friday this week, we celebrated Anti-Bullying Day. We read our text driver ‘We’re All Wonders’ by RJ Palacio and discussed how we can be kind to others, what makes us special and how we can celebrate other people. We all traced around our hands on coloured paper and inside our handprint we wrote a way we can be kind to others.
Friday 31st January 2025: Week 4
What a fantastic week it has been in Year 2! We ventured over to Year 5 for our Free Reading Friday. It was really nice to see all the Year 5s reading stories and looking after us. We had a great time and hope we can visit again. In Science, we looked around our outdoor area to see which animals and plants live in our local habitat. We found lots of animals that live here and shared our knowledge why they chose our habitat.
Friday 24th January 2025: Week 3
Another great week in Year 2! We became Historians and searched for evidence around the classroom to find out more about seaside from 100 years ago. We used different types of sources to gather our evidence and then we used this information to make our own posters to persuade people to visit a Victorian seaside. In Maths, we recapped addition two digit numbers and then applied this knowledge to different number problems.
Friday 17th January 2025: Week 2
What an extremely fun week we have had! Firstly, in English, we ventured outside to collect some natural resources to create our very own topiaries. There were some very creative and imaginative ones. We also had the excitement of using Bee-Bots in Computing and we were learning how to explain what happens when we change the order of instructions. Furthermore, in Health and Wellbeing we discussed the importance of washing our hands and did our own little experiment to figure out why soap is so important in the process of washing our hands.
Friday 10th January 2025: Week 1
What a fantastic week it’s been, welcoming everybody back from Christmas and the New Year. We began our learning by writing numbers from 0 – 100. We added sound buttons to the words and matched them up to the correct value to show our understanding. In music, we had lots of fun performing with BoomWhackers! Finally, in history, we explored a mystery historical box. Inside was lots of possessions people would have taken to the beach around 100 years ago. The children loved finding artifacts they haven’t seen before and to get a glimpse of the past.
Friday 20th December 2024: Week 7
What a lovely Christmassy week we have had! The children have enjoyed singing Christmas carols, a visit from Santa, Christmas lunch, a production from Openbox and a Christmas disco. What a great but busy week! Within our English we have been looking at the poem ‘The Magic Box’. We discussed what we might put it our own ‘Christmas box’ and thought carefully about what makes a poem different to a narrative. Have a lovely holiday and we will see you next year!
Friday 13th December 2024: Week 6
Our penultimate week before the holidays has continued to be packed full with lots of learning and lots of fun! We completed our science experiment, looking at the best material for an umbrella, thinking about the different properties and testing whether they were waterproof or not. One solution was to’ use nylon because it is strong but cover it with clingfilm because it is waterproof’. In Maths we have been looking at different types of graphs – we particularly enjoyed creating our own pictograms, ensuring that we looked at the key to see how many votes each symbol represented. We have been learning how to skip in PE, a skill where many of the children were able to help those who had not skipped before. Seeing the enthusiasm and hearing the words of encouragement the children were giving each other made us teachers very proud! We performed our final pitch patterns to each other in Music and we visited the pond in our Longitudinal Studies. We can’t wait to visit it again next term and see what changes have happened since the Autumn.
Friday 6th December 2024: Week 5
This week in Science, we have been investigating which material would be the most suitable for a waterproof umbrella. We used our prediction skills and our scientific thinking. In Maths, we have been exploring the properties of 2D shapes and have looked at the vertices and sides of different shapes. Finally, in Religious Education, we made a paper advent wreath as a part of exploring why people use candlelight at Christmas.
Friday 29th November 2024: Week 4
What a busy week we’ve had! We spent a whole afternoon focusing on our final pieces in Art and Design. We designed a interesting building with lots of different shapes inspired by Hundertwasser. We used both paint and collage to create bold designs. They look great! In Maths this week we have been learning about money! We started by identifying the different coins. Then we used the money to buy different items.
Friday 22nd November 2024: Week 3
Another exciting week has come to an end! In Art, we used dry and wet media to create different textures. Our Art work this half term has been inspired by the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. In Maths, we have been focusing on measure both in time and length. We used rulers to measure different objects around the classroom and then compared them to other objects we found. Finally, in Geography, we identified the 7 continents around the world. We then cut the paper up to create a jigsaw and pieced it back together. We had so much fun!
Friday 15th November 2024: Week 2
This week has been full of fun! In Maths we have been exploring fractions of amounts and have been focusing on halves and quarters. In Religious Education, we have been looking at exploring light as a symbol and we created our own candles using oil pastels.
Friday 8th November 2024: Week 1
What a great first week back! On Monday, we began our English Learning by using the fire pit. We watched carefully to see how the fire spread from the middle outwards and then thought about the different feelings we had when looking into the fire. On Tuesday, we continued this learning by stepping back in time to 1666, we used the VR headsets to show us what London looked like all those years ago.
Friday 25th October 2024: Week 8
This final week has been so exciting! On Monday, the fire service came in to teach us all about fire safety. We were taught how many times a week we should check our fire alarms at home and how long a firefighter has to get changed into their firefighting uniforms. In Maths, we have been continuing subtraction and Art was an exploratory lesson.
Friday 18th October 2024: Week 7
their street to ensure a fire would not have spread so easily, for example, they drew their houses further apart or made out of bricks instead of wood. In our Music learning, we have been using tuned percussion instruments to play a song. We thought carefully about the pitch of the song and how it gets higher and lower.
Friday 11th October 2024: Week 6
This week in English, we started our new English learning journey. The children explored the Federation’s outdoor area to look for clues. They worked out the new text is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Further on in the week, we used finger puppets to show our understanding of the story. Finally, in P.E. we have begun gymnastics where we have been focusing on our balance and using our core muscles.
Friday 4th October 2024: Week 5
This week in D&T we have looked back at our designs for Baby Bears chair and we brought our creations to life. We worked so hard on these and ended up with some astonishing chairs! Additionally, in History we sequenced events about the Great Fire of London and worked together to answer our enquiry question ‘What caused the Great Fire of London and how has this affected the way we live today?’
Friday 27th September 2024: Week 4
Year 2 have been extremely excited to have the wonderful Openbox in school this week to help us with our Great Fire of London History topic. The children showed great respect throughout and partook in the activities with enthusiasm and excitement! We started by travelling back in time to 1666, Pudding Lane, London in a bakery…
What a fantastic day we had!
Friday 20th September 2024: Week 3
Another week full of new learning and exciting activities has passed! In English we started our new learning journey of ‘Rapunzel’. Throughout the week, we read new parts of the story which resulted in children today acting out their favourite scenes. In Maths, we have been representing a variety of two-digit numbers in different ways. We began the week by using our concrete manipulatives to demonstrate our understanding of tens and ones. Finally, in Science we have continued to explore different animal groups. This week, we looked at fish and what features they have on their body that allows them to live in the sea.
Friday 13th September 2024: Week 2
This week has been full of exciting learning! In English we have been looking at how to enrich our writing by using nouns, verbs and adjectives. Furthermore, we have been exploring partitioning in maths by finding how many tens and ones a number has, we have used concrete manipulatives to help us. In Design and Technology, we have been investigating stability in 3D shapes. It has been so lovely to see so many children bring in their special book from home and share them with us in our Religious Education lesson.
Friday 6th September 2024: Week 1
Wow what an amazing start to Year 2! It was lovely to see all the children back in school with smiling faces and ready to learn. They all seem to have grown so much over the summer, we are really excited to see what this year brings!
In Health and Wellbeing this week we have been thinking about our responsibilities in school and how we can keep each other safe. The children had some great ideas which they have already put into action.
We started off our Design and Technology unit by exploring stability, the children tried out different ways to make structures stand on their own, this will help them with their learning throughout this unit.
Well done on a fantastic week Year 2!