EMP (Explicit Maths Program)

Grade 2 students have been working hard on addition and using the standard algorithm for two-digit numbers with regrouping! We have been learning the process for solving these problems and remembering our key strategy: “More than 9? Regrouping time!” We use this to ensure that when the answer to the ones problem is more than 9, we regroup the ones.

Students have been learning about shapes. They have been identifying shapes based on their properties. Many students have drawn on their Grade 1 knowledge to identify shapes. They have recently learned about polygons, which are closed shapes with straight sides.

Students have also had fun learning about duration. They completed an experiment to estimate, measure, and compare the duration of events. They had a great laugh in class!

Fact Fluency Practice

As part of our EMP Maths program, Grade 2 students practice fact fluency every day. Students are continuing to build their automatic recall of addition facts, both up to 10 and beyond 10. Each day, we rehearse these facts orally as a class, and students are then given two minutes to answer as many facts as they can correctly. This quick daily practice helps students develop confidence, speed, and accuracy with their basic number facts.

It has been fantastic to see the progress students are making. Some Grade 2 students are now almost completing the entire page within the two-minute time, with all their answers correct! We will continue to work on building our fact fluency throughout Grade 2. We also encourage students to jump onto Numbots and Times Tables Rock Stars at home to get some extra practice and strengthen their recall of number facts!

High-5 to our superstar Kashvi (pictured above) in Grade 2! She works so hard every day to beat her personal best and uses maths strategies to support her learning– what an amazing effort!

InitiaLit (Literacy)

Spelling!

Students have been reviewing spelling rules that they have been explicitly taught. Recently, we have been focusing on the different ways we can spell words that contain the phonemes /ō/ and /ū/. Students learned that the /ō/ sound can be spelled in different ways, including ‘oa’, ‘ow’, and ‘o_e’ (bossy e). They also learned that the /ū/ sound can be spelled in different ways, including ‘ue’, ‘ew’, and ‘u_e’ (bossy e). Students practiced filling in the blanks with the correct spelling for these sounds and also had a go at sorting words into the correct columns. This helps strengthen their understanding that the same sound can be represented by different spelling patterns.

Grade 2 students also learned new tricky words: caught and really. They have enjoyed practicing spelling these words by writing sentences on whiteboards.

Grade 2 students continue to practice tricky words daily. We encourage students to practice the following tricky words at home for extra practice!

Comprehension and Fluency!

During our comprehension and fluency lessons, students have been introduced to different types of texts. Over the past two weeks, we have been learning about comprehension strategies. These strategies are like tools that help us understand what we are reading. We have recently learned about predicting. We read the text ‘The Barking Dog Part 1’. We thought about what we knew in the text. Then we made a smart guess to think about what might happen next. Students predicted the next part of the text, ‘The Barking Dog Part 2’.

As part of our comprehension and fluency lessons, students also revisited the importance of punctuation in both reading and writing. They discussed capital letters, full stops, commas, exclamation marks, and ellipses.

Growing Grammar!

In our grammar lessons, we have been focusing on adjectives. Students have learned what an adjective is and when and how to use them in writing. We have discovered that adjectives can tell us what something looks like, feels like, sounds like, smells like, or tastes like, and can tell us how someone is feeling.

Students practiced using adjectives orally in a variety of sentences and then completed activities where they described a picture by using adjectives to describe the nouns. They have become so confident with adjectives that they are now applying these skills across different contexts, independently identifying adjectives not only in their own writing but also when reading texts.

This growing understanding is helping students make their writing clearer and more fluent, and we will continue to build on these skills in more complex writing activities.

Storybook - ‘The Lost Girl’

Our most recent storybook has been The Lost Girl. This story follows an Aboriginal girl who becomes lost. Although she is unable to find her way home, Mother Earth guides her to water, food, and eventually her campsite. Students loved the story and added three new words to our word towers: huddled, glow, and foolishness.

After reading and discussing the story, students used their imagination to plan how the story could continue. There were many excellent and creative ideas! It is wonderful to see students using their imagination and creativity to grow their love of writing.

Handwriting

Grade 2 students have continued to develop their handwriting during our explicit handwriting lessons. Over the past two weeks, we focused on the roundabout letters: h, m, n, and r. Each week, students are also reminded how to sit correctly on their chairs and hold their pencils properly to support neat and accurate handwriting.

Our student Remaya completed her handwriting task, ensuring to Stop, Check and Circle her work.

Students have been working on reflecting on their handwriting. They have been reflecting on three questions each lesson. Examples of these questions are below:

Humanities

Students have started a new geography topic: Important Places. Students have been naming significant places and locating them using Google Earth. They have also been learning to use the information gathered from reliable sources to tell the story of the significant place.

Respectful Relationships

Grade 2 students have recently started their new Respectful Relationships topic: Personal and Cultural Strengths. We have begun discussing and identifying what strengths we use in school and what makes us feel proud. Our next activities focused on how to be a good friend or family member. Students had fun completing a role play and then drawing pictures of their strengths.

Reminders

Please ensure you are reading with your child every night. Students can borrow take-home books from their classroom libraries on their designated library days.
We encourage families to work together to ensure students arrive at school on time. Classes start the day with morning circle time, and we would love all students to be at school by 8:45 am so they don’t miss out.
Please check Compass for information on the Grade 2 Incursion in Term 3. We would love all children to participate in this exciting incursion.

Thank you to all our wonderful Grade 2 parents and families for your ongoing support and dedication to your child’s learning and well-being. We are so proud of how well our Grade 2 students have settled in during Term 1 and of all the learning they have completed!

Keep it up!

Warm regards, PLC 2

Ms. Broskie, Mr. Watkins, Ms. Cope, Ms. Diaz, Ms. Kelly, Ms. Madigan, Ms. Anastasi, Ms. Cadzow, Ms. Hanson, Ms. Elliot, and Ms. Claire

The Fortnight Ahead