Welcome

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to home learning for Term 3. While we weren't expecting this at the end of last term, we are ready to build on the successes of our first period of home learning.

We will continue to use the same platforms as previously. Daily overviews for the next day will be sent out in the afternoon. Student activities will be posted on Seesaw. Students will be using the same login details as last time. Please contact your class teacher if you need a reminder of these.

Based on our experiences last time, some improvements we are hoping to implement are:

reducing the number of activities posted on Seesaw to make it easier to access work
using other platforms such as Padlet for students to post particular pieces of work for other students to view (when instructed to)
simplifying our reading program by introducing one target skill at the start of the week for students to practise throughout the week
conducting Guided Reading sessions over Google Meet
2 scheduled whole class Google Meets: 9:15am - Literacy overview, 11:15 Maths overview.
Both of these will be followed by one small group with a Literacy focus in the morning and a Maths focus in the middle of the day.
Use of Maths games to consolidate number skills
Hands-on Maths activities focusing on data, measurement and location.

Reading

This week in reading we our learning intention is "I can identify the structure and features of non-fiction texts". We will be focusing on information texts. The students will learn how to introduce a book by talking about its features such as the title, pictures, diagrams, contents, index, glossary and key facts. There will be a selection of activities that they students can choose from to practise this skill. The children are familiar with these activities: read to self, read to partner, listen to reading and work on writing. A Seesaw video will be made on Monday morning explaining these activities and the children can refer back to this as they need to during the week. Over the next fortnight we will be conducting small group guided reading lessons on Google Meet. Please check the daily schedule to see if your child will be involved in that group.

Writing

This week in writing the students' learning intention is "to write with fluency" and "to edit my writing". On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the students will be given a writing stimulus to inspire their writing. They will set a timer for 10 minutes and write as much as they can. This is called Rocket Writing and the objective is to develop confidence in writing their ideas freely. They will analyse their writing and select one goal to improve their writing. We will provide them with a list of suggested goals to choose from. On Thursday and Friday the students will choose one piece of writing to edit, correct letter formation and spelling, and publish a final good copy.

Word Study

This week we will be focusing on syllables. We will introduce three methods of counting syllables in words and students will complete a short activity each day to practise this skill. This is an important building block for the next rule we will begin to learn. Students will also revise codes this week.

Mathematics

Every Monday we will start the week with a number skills game. Students should continue to practise this game every day before their Maths task. This week we will start with a game that is already familiar to the students, Total Recall.

We will be focusing on statistics and data representation for the rest of the week. Our learning intentions are:

-Sorting items into categories and sorting data

-Interpreting data displays

Units of Inquiry

We are beginning our How the World Works unit with the central idea "Living things are connected to their environments." Our concepts are connection and causation and the lines of inquiry are: The adaptation process, the relationship between habitats and their inhabitants and how animals are classified. Our learner profiles are inquirers and knowledgeable. Later in the unit students will have the opportunity to tap into their own interests about animals with some researching and writing about an animal of their choice. This week we will be doing unit provocations so that the students can tap into what they already know about animals and their features, explore nature in their backyards and begin to gather student questions for the unit.

Wellbeing

We suggest that students take frequent breaks. They could punctuate their day with some of these activities:

Colouring or drawing

Playing in the yard

Dance videos

Kids Yoga

Mindfulness

Building or creating

Some useful online resources are:

Go Noodle - has short dance clips, mindfulness, yoga and some printable activities

Smiling Mind - this is a free app that offers short mindfulness activities for different age groups. Parents will need to sign up and select the program for 7-9 year olds.

Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube

Art for Kids Hub on Youtube - guided drawing lessons

Grade 2 Team

2A - Angie Fifer

2B- Angela Alderuccio

2C - Elise Newnham

2D - Breallen Cole

HU - Christie Walsh

Issue 8

Issue 10 · 17 Jul 2020

In this issue