Year 2 Curriculum News
Term 2, 2025

Welcome to Term 2!

The children have settled back into their learning environments, and we are all looking forward to a fun, busy term.

As a part of our unit of inquiry this term the students will be exploring how a balanced lifestyle is influenced by the choices that they make. The students will also be introduced to the concept of forces and how different types of forces act to make things move.

Units of Inquiry

Who we are

A balanced lifestyle is influenced by the choices people make

Lines Of Inquiry

What it means to have a healthy and balanced lifestyle
Spiritual, social and physical health (mind body spirit)
Making healthy food choices
Different forces
The way different forces work
Impact of technological advances on the way we can move things

How the world works

Forces change the way things move

Lines of inquiry

Literacy

We are looking forward to an exciting term in Literacy as we continue to develop the student’s skills in Reading and Writing. We will be focusing on ‘The Daily 5’ of Read to self, Read to someone, Listen to reading, Work on Writing and Word Work. The student’s Phonological Awareness will be expanded as they learn to identify syllables, rhyming, alliteration and onset and rhyme. Students will also hone their Phonemic Awareness through blending, isolating and segmenting sounds.

Grammar and punctuation

We will continue to focus on capital letters, full stops and adding commas to items in a list. We will be looking at question marks, exclamation marks and learning about nouns, adjectives and verbs. Finally, we will explore synonyms and antonyms.

Writing

During our Writing sessions, we will be focusing on the 6 Traits of Writing including Organisation, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, Voice and Ideas. The students will be learning how to organise their writing with a Bold Beginning a Mighty Middle and an Excellent Ending. They will learn how to add detail to their sentences using the 5Ws (Who?, What?, Where?, When? and Why?), correct grammar and punctuation use, how to gather ideas for writing and how to use their own voice in their writing.

The students will be given many opportunities to write and use their ‘Writers notebook’ to store their ideas, pictures and experiment with their writing.

Spelling

We are continuing with our SMART spelling approach. SMART Spelling is based around whole words with an emphasis on meaning and vocabulary development. Students must be able to read their spelling words, understand what they mean and how to use them.

Reading

During our reading sessions and Literacy groups we will we be explicitly teaching the students comprehension strategies for successful reading, how to read more fluently using expression, how to gain ‘Literal and Inferential’ meaning from the text and how to choose the perfect book when reading.

Choral reading will continue to form part of our weekly Literacy blocks. Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students.

Speaking and Listening

Throughout Term 2 students will be encouraged to actively participate and contribute to class discussions, listen to their peers presenting information, read orally to the teacher and each other, listen to the teacher read and learn how to be a good audience member. The students will also deliver an oral presentation based on one of our units of inquiry.

Numeracy

We are looking forward to an exciting term in Numeracy as we continue to develop the student’s skills in Number knowledge. We will be focusing with the ‘The Math Daily 3’ of Math by myself, Math with someone and Math writing. We will also continue to focus on using concrete materials to reinforce learning and clarify the students understanding of concepts through practical real-life experiences and activities.

Focus Groups

This term we will continue to work in focus groups on a weekly basis. The children complete a pre-test on a topic/concept which we will be covering in class, on a platform called Essential Assessment. We then are able to look at their misunderstandings/misconceptions and work with a small group of children to practice and reinforce the skills needed. The groupings are fluid and we are aiming at seeing all of the children at various times throughout the term.

Number Fluency

Prior to commencing our Maths lessons the students will continue to practise their maths fluency and number facts by engaging in a variety of activities where they are required to share their reasoning and strategies.

Number

Throughout the term the students will be working on their addition and subtraction skills and understanding the link between the two concepts. We will introduce strategies such as counting on, counting back, the jump and split strategy and using number lines and hundreds boards. We will also look at vertical addition and subtraction with and without regrouping.

The children will count and order small collections of Australian coins and notes according to their value and work out change from given amounts.

During our numeracy sessions the students will be explicitly taught how to manipulate and utilise a range of concrete materials such as Unifix blocks, counters, MAB, hundreds charts and number lines to further support their problem solving skills.

The students will be exposed to a range of mathematical concepts through picture story books to support them in rich learning experiences that promote the student’s ability to identify, simplify, organise, express and extend their thinking.

Measurement

This term, students will continue to practice recognising and reading the time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour on both analogue and digital clocks.

Statistics

Throughout the term the students will be exposed to the notion of interpreting and analysing data. They will be explicitly taught how to describe the probability of events through the concept of chance by conducting their own research experiments, learn how to read and interpret data and create and display their findings through graphing.

Inclusive Approaches

Cyber Safety

Being an eSmart school means that our students are provided with the skills and knowledge they require for the smart, safe and responsible use of technology.

This term students in Year 2 will be focusing on the values of responsibility and integrity within the Cyber Safety project that will allow students to:

Understand how we “know” and “connect” with people in the offline world.
Recognise the difference between our personal information and public information.
Explore the different spaces we go online and identify who might be able to see us.
Develop awareness for the need to set long and strong passwords for digital accounts.
Think about potential consequences of our actions when we are online.
Understand that what we share online may be made visible to anyone and can be permanent.

Resilience Rights and Respectful Relationships

Topic 5: Stress Management

Stress is a normal part of life, especially as children get older. Children who cope better with life’s stressors develop good mental health and wellbeing. Assisting students recognise their personal signs and symptoms of stress and develop effective strategies will help children cope with challenges in the future.