Year Two

Communicating with the Year Two Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2023, and welcome your input:

Julie Hall (Class 2A) Julie.Hall@education.vic.gov.au

Zoe Bates (Class 2B) Zoe.Bates@education.vic.gov.au

Reading 

This term we have continued to focus on our accuracy when reading aloud, reading with expression and sounding smooth like we are talking. Students have had the opportunity to participate in a range of activities where they read to a partner and give and received feedback. We have practised layering our feedback to make sure that it is constructive and also includes something that our partners have done well. We have worked on putting together our toolbox of reading strategies to monitor our understanding of a text when we read. By doing this we are also checking that what we read makes sense. To monitor ourselves when we are reading, we have learnt to practise visualising what the text might be about. When we put together the toolbox of strategies we have learnt this year when we read, we are more likely to be able to connect with the text, ourselves, or the world. We are able to answer questions about the text because important details have been located while reading. 

Writing 

In Writing sessions, students in Year Two have been working on a variety of concepts. They have been studying the features of information reports and completed a poster on a chosen minibeast to demonstrate their understanding of non fiction texts. Students were required to research information on their minibeast by using a kid friendly search engine, 'Kiddle', and take notes on important facts that they wanted to put in their report. Learners then brainstormed sub headings to use and organised their researched information underneath. After drafting and editing their information, our little learners created their own report complete with a heading, sub headings, a picture and some facts about their minibeast. Keep an eye out for the finished product in this semesters portfolio!

Another concept students focused on this term in Writing linked to sentence structures and using correct grammatical features in order for writing to be cohesive. To practise this skill and consolidate learning taught in Initialit Grammar sessions, students participated in sessions using 'Colourful Semantics' - a teaching strategy/ resource to assist students with writing clear and cohesive sentences. This hands on activity gave learners the freedom to build their own sentences, check for coherence and adapt words by adding or subtracting, tense words, conjunctions (joining words) or prepositions (words that tell us where of when) in order to construct sentences that were interesting and most importantly - made sense to the reader. We also wrote silly sentences, such as: The cat baked the dog in the kitchen in winter.

Speech marks have also been another focus for learners this Term in both Writing and Grammar sessions. We have been learning to identify when direct speech occurs in text by looking for clues such as punctuation (talking marks) and how a character directly says something, for example: 'STOP! You'll fall!!' shouted the Ms Frizzle to her students. This learning was applied to Writing sessions where students wrote an adventure narrative about themselves and their class. It was further consolidated during classroom activities where students were required to edit sentences to contain the correct punctuation such as speech marks, capital letters, full stops and commas.

Spelling.

Much of Term Four Spelling has revolved around the revision of strategies taught throughout the year, including tricky words. Progress Monitoring results (mid lesson sequence testing) from Term Three were also used to determine the cohorts point of need for some of these lessons and assisted us with planning revision lessons that were meaningful for each class. 

At the conclusion of Week Seven, students will be participating in their final Cumulative Review for the year. These results will be added into the triangulation of evidence used for our learners semester two reports in both Reading and Writing domains. This will also be used to inform our planning for the rest of the year.

Minibeasts

Grade 2 has been looking after stick insects and tadpoles this term as part of our 'Minibeasts' inquiry unit. Mrs Oakley brought the tadpoles from a local pond and we cared for them and watched them grow for a few weeks. We were very sad to see them go, but we were very happy that they were going home to the same pond.

Mrs Rowe brought the stick insects from her home and they are visiting us for the term. Mrs Hall also brought some stick insect eggs, we hope to see them hatch this term. We have watched them shed their skins and grow, and we are learning to have the responsibilty of looking after creatures.

Take Home Readers

As part of InitiaLit-2, students have free-choice of short and extended chapter books to take home and read. Year Two students are able to choose up to four readers from school to take home weekly and read nightly. Students in Year Two are also free to choose books from home to read each night if they wish. Students who choose their readers on a Monday are required to return them the following Monday. After reading, please record the name of the book in the InitiaLit Home Reading Diary for the day.

SPECIALIST TIMETABLE

Please note the following information regarding the days that each grade has specialist classes.  * These times are subject to change during school events (eg: swimming timetables) *