Theme based teaching: Learning pathway in Year 2

In the above video, Mr Oliver Cavender, Year 2 homeroom teacher, will introduce the Year 2 curriculum and the themes plan for this academic year at Wellington College International Hangzhou. We aim to use cross-curricular teaching as much as possible. We split our year into themes, one for each term.

The first theme of the year is ‘Toy Museum’. Within English, we read different stories related to this theme such as ‘The Toy Fairy’ by Stephanie Thatcher and ‘The Tin Soldier’ by Russell Punter. Within our writing, the pupils write about their favourite toys, plan and engage in interviews with each other and invite guests in to talk about their favourite toy when they were younger. We use these answers to write biographies. In science, pupils investigate the properties of different materials that toys are made from and learn specific vocabulary to describe the properties e.g. waterproof, hard, soft, warm, cold etc. In history, pupils learn about toys of the past and use specific vocabulary to describe the similarities and differences between old and new toys. In geography, pupils are taught about directions through the story ‘The Toy Fairy’ to help guide the toy fairy to our classroom. They learn about North, East, South and West to describe where we are in the world and use BeeBots (robots) to direct the toy fairy to our classroom. After this theme, pupils move on to learn about traditional tales (fairy tales) and are taught to retell stories from a different perspective and write instructional texts. They are presented with the opportunity to study plant growth through the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and identify the importance of a healthy lifestyle through ‘Goldilocks and the 3 bears’. In history, they are subjected to a variety of traditional Chinese tales.

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