Grade 2 Area

Bullying No Way! Action week

Last week was Bullying action week, therefore, the whole school took part in engaging in activities that spread awareness about bullying. This year's theme was 'Everybody Belongs'. The grade twos completed a number of activities throughout the week which enhanced student knowledge around what bullying is and how we can collectively prevent it. We looked closely at how the connections we have in our lives, whether it be with family, friends, teachers or in the wider community can make us feel included and supported. During reading we unpacked what Bullying was, what belonging is and read books such as 'All are welcome'. This was followed by lessons about connection during Wellbeing. To highlight students' connections with one another we made paper chains. This task enabled students to develop an understanding about how connection can enhance feelings of belonging to a community, offer support and in turn prevent Bullying. The students enjoyed the task and had a lot of insight into how they could support their friends and who they can go to for help. 

Writing - Poetry 

Over the past couple of weeks students have been enjoying learning how to write different types of poetry. The students have been learning how to structure poems, use rhyming words, create poetry on different topics and understand the purpose of poetry. They have been successful in learning how to create different types of poetry and have showed growth in their ability to construct the following poems: 

• Acrostic poetry
• Colour poetry
• Shape poetry
• Similes
• Haiku
• Couplets

Poetry has been a success as the students have really enjoyed coming up with their own ideas and using their imaginations in their writing. 

Mindfulness week 

This week grade twos have been focusing on Mindfulness in Wellbeing. We have implemented a number of activities alongside our daily guided meditation in order to teach students different strategies to calm their minds and bodies, check in with themselves and be present. The main activity that the students completed was creating Neurographic Artworks. Students spend a small amount of time drawing a connected line. They then curved the corners of the lines to create an image that looked similar to neurons. Students finished off their artworks by colouring in the white space of the paper. Before completing this task, we had discussion about how colouring can help us calm our minds from focusing on one thing. Colouring can silence our minds as we intensely focus on what we are doing, in turn, reducing stress and calming our bodies.  We also talked about how neurons send messages around our brain and when we overwhelmed or stressed it can trigger us to make choices that we would to make when we are feeling calm. After completing the task students were proud of their artworks and said that they felt relaxed.