Year 2 - Exploring the world around us

The children in Year 2 at Gateway School are always curious. Since being back at school, the children have been beginning to journey into our topic about India. We have read the story of ‘Where Three Oceans Meet’ by Rajani LaRocca and heard all about a little girl called Sejal who went on an adventure to the very tip of India, called Land’s End. Just like Sejal, we will be going on a journey through Indian culture, art, history, dance and food over the next few months. The Year 2 children already knew a lot about India (‘People in India sometimes wear very colourful clothes’; ‘In India, people believe that there are many Gods.’) but they were very keen to find out more and asked some really interesting questions, including: ‘What is the weather like in India?’; ‘How many languages are spoken in India?’; and ‘Are there mountains in India?’ Hopefully we will find out the answers to these questions together.

In our English lessons, we have started to learn about non-fiction texts, focusing particularly on non-chronological reports. On Tuesday, we received a breaking-news report that a unicorn had been spotted in Great Missenden. We went out on a unicorn hunt and discovered footprints and even a sparkling unicorn horn in the school grounds. Along with the horn, we found a report all about storm unicorns. We have spent the rest of the week learning the report off by heart (as part of the Talk for Writing method). One of the best bits of the week was listening to an interview between Anne Frost from Unicorn School and Professor Know-It-All. The children themselves asked our visiting experts some thoughtful questions, including ‘How do unicorns protect their babies?’ and ‘What countries do unicorns live in?’