Dear Parents,

In September your child will be beginning Year 2 and it is important

they are secure in what they have been taught in Year 1.

In particular, when starting Year 2, your child should be able to spell

most words containing the phonic patterns learnt in Year 1, as well as

most of the Year 1 common exception words.

Having a good understanding of number is vital, so your child should

now be able to read and write numbers and count to 100 and back again,

use their knowledge of numberbonds to 20 to securely solve addition

and subtraction problems and count in 2s, 5s and 10s.

We feel it is important to offer support to parents to ensure they are

ready for Year 2. Therefore please find below a few ideas and games

that you can do with your children over the summer holiday. It is not

compulsory, however we feel all children will benefit from spending a

little time regularly practicing these key areas in a fun way.

It includes:

Literacy Activities and Games - suggestions for effective and

enjoyable ways for helping your child to practice their spelling.

Word Lists - of the most common words used in our reading and

writing - please use these lists to play games as suggested.

Maths Activities and Games - effective games that can be played

at home with lots of discussion.

Many thanks for your continued support from home. It makes all the

difference to your child’s learning.

Happy Summer!

The Year 2 Team

Literacy Activities and Games

Cloudy Words

Choose a word from the list which your child is learning to read and

write. Give an example of how the word is used in a sentence and

support them to think of another example. Write the word for your

child and ask them to trace over the letters with a glue stick or a

finger dipped in glue. Lay cotton wool over the glue until the entire

word is covered. Ask your child to write a sentence on the paper and to

draw a picture to go with their sentence. You could do this with other

words and make a ‘cloudy book.’ You could sprinkle sand over the glue

instead of cotton wool.

Pipe Cleaner Words

Ask your child to listen carefully while you say a word. Challenge your

child to use the pipe cleaners to form all of the letters they hear.

Show your child the word card and support them to use their pipe

cleaners to add or change the letters they need to spell the word

correctly.

Water Words

Write several words on separate pieces of card or paper.

Ask your child to write a word two or three times on the patio or path

with a paintbrush dipped in water. Repeat with a different word.

Challenge: can they write a sentence that includes the word?

Snowman

Write a selection of words from the Word List on a large piece of

paper. Choose one of the words. Write one or two letters of the word

on another piece of paper, with blank lines for the remaining letters.

Ask your child for a missing letter. Write it in if they are correct and

if not, draw the head of the snowman.

The object of the game is for the child to guess the word before you

have completed the drawing of the snowman.

Spelling Aloud

Using flashcards, read a word out loud to your child. Your child then

spells out that word. If they spell the word correctly, they ‘win’ the

card. If they are incorrect, the card is put to the bottom of the pile.

Take it in turns to read the word or spell out the word.

Guess Who

Write some words on paper. Read the words with your child. Ask them

to tape a word to your back. You have to ask a question e.g. does it

begin with ’th’? Can I sound it out? Now your child takes a turn to

answer your questions.

Concentration

Make a set of matching word cards from the word list. Put them on the

table face down. Turn two cards over at a time. If they match you or

your child can keep them. The winner is the person with the greatest

number of words. Make sure your child can read the words they turn

over.

Silly Sentences

Ask your child to write ten silly sentences using a spelling word in each

sentence. Encourage them to underline their spelling words. Example:

My dog wears a blue and purple dress when he takes a bath.

Pyramid Writing

Ask your child to pyramid write 10 of their spelling words. When they

are finished, draw a pyramid around their word.

e.g. Home h

ho

hom

home

ABC Order

Encourage your child to write their spelling words in alphabetical order.

Bubble Letters

Ask your child to write their spelling words in bubble letters, using

different colours. They could also use squiggly, zigzag or dotty letters.

Playdough Spelling

Give your child a flat piece of playdough and a sharp pencil. Ask them

to carefully write the word in the playdough. Smooth it over and write

a different word.

Magnetic Letters

Say a word out loud. Ask your child to make the word using magnetic

letters.

Spelling Scramble

Write one of your child’s spelling words with the letters scrambled up.

Can your child unscramble the letters to spell the words correctly?

There are many apps to help learn to spell both sight words and sound

patterns. Here are a few suggestions:

Squeebles is a popular choice for practising spellings.

www.keystagefun.co.uk/spelling-apps/

Hairy phonics 1, 2 & 3 is a good way to learn the vowel

digraphs (when 2 letters combine to make one sound).

www.nessy.com/uk/apps/hairy-phonics-1/

Hairy words will help reinforce the Top 100 words

https://www.nessy.com/uk/apps/hairy-words-1/

Froggy-Match-it is an app for practising reading

and spelling of sound patterns

www.froggy-match-it.co.uk/parent-information

Maths Activities and Games

Simply play as many games as possible! As well as traditional games like

snakes and ladders and dominoes, here are some effective games that

can be played at home - with lots of discussion to encourage

understanding and vocabulary:

Card games

Twenty-one

Deal 2 cards to each child and ask them to add them together (K, Q,

J=10). Children can “twist” to add another card or “stick” to remain

with their total. Top score is 21. 22 or more is “bust” so strategic

thinking is required! Play the game with all players’ cards face up and

encourage children to check each other’s totals. 5 cards which total

<=21 beats a high score.

Snap

Aside from the traditional game which is useful for number

correspondence (counting pictures and seeing them represented by

numerals) there are several variations:

Number bond snap – Snap when 2 cards add up to total 10 or any

number from 5-20

‘1 more than snap’ – Snap when a card is 1 more than the previous

‘1 less than snap’ – Snap when a card is 1 less than the previous

‘2 more than snap’ – Snap when a card is 2 more than the previous

etc.

Dice games

Race to 100. Using a 100 square (yellow maths challenge folder), child

rolls a dice and counts on from 1-100 to win. Variations include rolling 2

dice and adding them together first before moving the counter or

starting at 100 and counting back.

HTU game. Establish that the aim is to make the biggest or smallest

number. Write HTU for Hundreds Tens Units on paper. Take it in

turns to roll a dice and place the number in one of the 3 columns,

considering that H have more value than T which have more value than

U. e.g. if making the biggest number, then a 6 rolled would be put in the

H column, where as a 1 would go in the U column.

Physical games

What’s my number? Think of a number from 1-99, say 35. Partition the

number into Tens and Units. Jump the 3 Tens and hop the 5 units and

2nd player must guess it. This links directly to the open number line

method.

Number bond catch/’down on one knee’. Establish which number we

are finding bonds for, say 7. Player one says a number from 0-7, say 2

and throws a ball/bag to player 2 who must say the bond else go down

on 1 knee. Stand up if they get the next answer correct, or down on 2

knees, then sit, then lie down progressively if they are incorrect.

There are several useful books, websites and apps to help your child be

secure and feel confident using number and doing basic arithmetic.

Fran Mosley has produced two books

full of ideas for card and dice games:

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks covers very basic

concepts of numbers.

www.mathplayground.com/ has a variety of maths games on a range of

topics.

Squeebles Times Tables 2 is a super app for learning times

tables.

www.doodlemaths.com is another child-friendly maths app that we

recommend.

Hundred Square Challenge