Year 2 News
Sharing the Planet – Minibeast Mayhem
What a busy few weeks we have had in Year 2!
We started last week with a Minibeast Mayhem Day celebrating the end of our unit - Sharing the Planet. The year 2s had so much fun dressing up as minibeasts and took part in all sorts of activities to celebrate their learning. The students even got to have a special treat and watch the movie A Bug’s Life.
Sharing the Planet – Showcase
On Wednesday the Year 2s had their Sharing the Planet Showcase. The Showcase allowed students to share their learning and knowledge with their families and the broader school community.
2A
The Primary Years Programme sees students inquire to become knowledgeable about a chosen topic. Allowing students to choose which minibeast they wanted to research promoted enthusiasm and engagement throughout the whole process. We saw independent student action occur.
These included students researching their minibeast at home, sourcing products related to their minibeast, such as honeycomb, bringing in figurines related to their insect and even making welcome posters to make their display look appealing.
2B
We were so very proud of the Year 2s and how they remained focused and principled throughout the unit and during the preparation lessons. The students all loved bringing technology into their display and had so much fun creating their PowerPoint. The Year 2s have become quite capable on the laptops and all managed to include images, a video and a voice recording in their presentation.
We were very grateful to have the support of the Year 9 students from Beaumaris Secondary College for the introductory lessons on PowerPoint.
There was a buzz of nervousness and excitement on Wednesday morning as we prepared for the big day ahead. Throughout the day on Wednesday, we saw the children confidently communicate their knowledge with parents, siblings, peers and students from the school.
2C
Every display was unique with students having made posters, PowerPoint presentations and storybooks. It was impressive to see the cross curricular links to our unit, with the clay artworks, the students’ sketches and the little Japanese books.
Congratulations to all the Year 2 students, we are all so proud of you!
New Unit of Inquiry – How the World Works
Year 2 have moved straight into the next Unit of Inquiry – How the World Works. Students have had the opportunity to unpack the central idea – ‘Forces change the way things move’. We had a particular focus on the words ‘forces’, ‘change’ and ‘move’ to allow a proper understanding of what is to come over the next 8 weeks.
From this, students came up with ‘wonderings’ such as, ‘I wonder if there was no gravity would we just float into space?’, ‘I wonder how a basketball bounces back to you?’ and ‘I wonder how magnets work?’
The students were asked to bring in three toys which used some sort of force. Students had a lot of fun playing with their toys while considering the different forces taking place.
Students have begun to realise that forces are all around us and are at play constantly. The Year 2s worked out that their toys use forces such as push, pull, magnetic forces, air resistance and gravity. It was a very hands-on, fun and informative introduction to the concept of forces.