Year 2 Mainstream 

Celebrating Learning

What we have been up to: 

We have soared into the “imagine” stage of the design process, year 1/2 classes started to explore the properties of different materials in the classroom. Students have been testing and tinkering with recycled materials to determine what might be suitable for their flying machines that they are making at home! Ask your child about their discoveries!

Year 2 students had their first “practise for next year” transition session in week 6 giving them the opportunity to meet some of their potential future classmates. They got to spend a session with the year 3s in the 3/4 classrooms and get reacquainted with their classmates from last year. 

“I liked it when my teacher said, in year 3/4 we do a lot of maths games - yay!”  Romeo

“We played the magic card game and I won six rounds. I think I’m going to like Year 3/4.” Martha

“It gave me a good idea of what’s going to come next year, so I won’t be so nervous.” Florence

“I liked ‘transition’ because I was with new people, so I can make new friends.” Arlie

Maths:

Students are loving exploring the maths topic of money and financial matters. We have been sorting and ordering Australian coins and notes and comparing the similarities and differences between these and other countries. Thank you so much for sending in your foreign coins for our money expo, it was greatly appreciated. It generated wonderful engagement, with lots of rich discussions about the differences in size, shape, weight, value, colour and even ‘worth’ in relation to our Australian dollar.

Getting your children to pay for things, count the coins in your purse and estimate or work out the change for any purchases, is a great way to support this unit at home. You may want to ask them what the best strategy for counting it is too:)

Students have continued to discuss analogue and digital clocks and are learning how to tell the time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour (and to the minute when they are ready). Telling the time at home and asking questions around time such as, “If the train leaves at half past three and takes thirty minutes to get to the city, what time will we get to Flinders Street Station?” would be a great support to their classroom learning too.

English:

In writing sessions, we checked in with “persuasive" and “narrative” texts preparation for Year 3. Students are following our writer’s process to plan, draft, revise and edit texts. Persuasive texts are a great way to teach students about how important your “audience” is when writing as this will inform the tone of your arguments.

Students had their first go at a persuasive in week 6. There were some excellent reasons that students came up with as to why there should/ should not be a year 2 camp next year.

“You get to learn new skills like hut building and making billy carts” Bonnie

“Students got bus sick and somebody vomited and that’s disgusting.” Louis R

“The year 2’s next year won’t be ready because they spent the year with preps not grade 2s.” Kai

“You get to make huts and get ice cream for dessert” Roza

This term, year 1/2 classes are continuing learning the Little Learners Love Literacy Stage 7.4 sounds. To reinforce their learning, students could be practising their spelling at home. 

7.4 sounds that we have focussed on for weeks 6-7 are /oo/ sounds: u_e (rude), ue (true), ew (blew) and ui (fruit) and a-e (chase) and ci, ce, cy (city/space/cycle)

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

Students will have another “practise for next year” transition session in week 8 following a similar format to the session in week 6.

Students’ flying machines, which they have been designing and creating at home over the past few weeks, are due in week 8 and 9! Students will bring their flying machines into class and will have the opportunity to demonstrate how high/ far they can fly or how long they stay in the air when dropped from a height. We can’t wait to see what students have come up with!

We will start to focus more heavily on the final stage of the writer’s process in the coming weeks after spending a lot of time planning, drafting, revising and editing. Students will learn about the high expectations of a published piece of writing and how they can ensure their published pieces are the best work that they can produce.

In our phonics sessions in week 8 and 9, we will continue reviewing sounds and spelling patterns we have been working on over the course of the year. All students benefit from a daily routine of reading and being read to at home. 

In Maths, we will begin our unit exploring money- learning about the physical coins and notes that we use in Australia.

As we are now in term 4 and the sun is getting stronger, please remember to pack a hat for your child every day!