Grade 2 Community News

We are halfway through Grade 2!

EMP (Explicit Maths Program)

Grade 2 students have been working incredibly hard during our explicit instruction sessions this week! In mathematics, our focus has been split between two exciting areas: multiplication and capacity. We have been learning how to multiply using skip counting, helping students quickly and efficiently process numerical groups. Alongside this, students dove into estimating the capacity of a container using informal units. It has been wonderful to see them exploring how many different objects can hold and applying their skip-counting skills with increasing confidence

Fact Fluency Practice

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!

InitiaLit (Literacy)

Spelling!

Our Grade 2 spelling superheroes have been continuing to review the spelling rules they have been explicitly taught. This week, we introduced a brand-new concept: focusing on 'ph' saying /f/ as in 'phone'! Students practiced identifying and writing words containing this unique letter combination to strengthen their reading and writing skills.

In addition to our focus phoneme, the students also practiced their tricky words! We spent time reviewing how to spell three very important words: tomorrow, school, and cousin. We practiced reading the words, saying the letter names out loud, and writing them down to build up our automatic memory. We encourage students to keep practising these tricky words at home whenever they get a chance!

The spelling adventures didn't stop there! Our Grade 2 students explored the vowel digraphs 'oy' (as in boy) and 'oi' (as in coin). The children did a brilliant job practicing how to look at a word, determine the correct spelling choice, and write it down accurately. 

Comprehension and Fluency 

We took a deep dive into our reading comprehension skills this week,  focusing on  Inferring. Using the text Wet Socks, students became text detectives! They practiced looking for clues in the story to answer complex questions, such as figuring out what the weather was like at the beginning versus the afternoon. They worked hard on structuring their thoughts using the prompts "I infer the weather is..." and "I know this because...". Learning to read between the lines is a huge milestone, and the teachers are so proud of their growing critical thinking skills! 

For our storybook sessions this week, we introduced the beautiful text Under the Southern Cross by Frané Lessac. We kicked off our first session by looking at the cover and making detailed predictions about what might happen in the story and why. The students loved reading through the book together, talking about the story elements, and exploring the text's themes. To wrap up the week, they used their brilliant imaginations for an imaginative writing task based on the book. It is always a joy to see their unique ideas and creativity come alive on the page!

Growing Grammar

In our grammar and writing lessons, our focus has been all about prepositions. Students have been learning what a preposition is and how these words help show the relationship between different nouns in a sentence. We practiced how to use prepositions correctly to make our sentences much more descriptive. This is helping our students become incredibly clear and fluent writers!

Handwriting

Grade 2 students have continued to refine their neatness and letter formation during our explicit handwriting lessons.

Humanities 

In Humanities this week, we learnt about Connections to Country, starting with Lesson 1: Stories on the Land. The students spent time exploring history by learning to identify the features and the content of various sources. We had fantastic classroom discussions about the perspectives of people in the past and present, as well as the deep importance of people's attachments to places. It was wonderful to see the students show such respect and deep curiosity as they learned about the land's history.

Respectful Relationships

For our Respectful Relationships session, Grade 2 students jumped into a brand-new topic focused on Problem Solving. Our learning intentions for the week were centred on thinking of possible actions to take when faced with problems and identifying options for who can help us solve them. Through collaborative activities, students discussed different real-world scenarios and evaluated the best choices to make. Building these social and personal capabilities is a massive step in helping our students handle challenges both in the classroom and out in the schoolyard!

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.
• Please make the payment and give consent for our upcoming excursion to the Melbourne Museum. The learners are going to have so much fun!
• We encourage families to work together to get students to 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.
• Continue to use Numbots and TimesTable Rock Stars at home. Logins were provided at Parent-Teacher interviews—please contact your child’s classroom teacher if you need a copy of their login details

• We congratulate Ms Diaz on her new position as an acting LT at Tarneit Rise Primary School. We wish her all the success in her new, well-deserved role. PLC 2 looks forward to our continuous work together.

   

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. 

Warm regards, 

PLC 2