YEAR TWO
Grade Bulletin - Term One, 2023
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School provides a range of holistic learning experiences to enable students to:
- Participate in the life and mission of the school.
- Deepen their knowledge and engagement with the Catholic faith and tradition.
- Build capacity to continuously reason, reflectively, logically and critically.
- Embrace interdependence of human existence as global citizens, who are responsible to and for themselves and others.
- Engage in learning in a multitude of ways, through personalised and self-paced learning.
Religious Education
2.1 Images of God
This unit introduces and explores a variety of biblical images of God that tell something about what God is like. The unit also introduces and explores the Genesis account of human beings made in the image of God. The final section focuses on prayer as a means of nourishing the Spirit of God in our lives. It reflects on the ‘Our Father’ prayer.
2.2 Lent and Holy Week
This unit focuses on the season of Lent and introduces the Lenten practices of this season. The story of Zacchaeus explores the idea of repentance. The Widow’s Offering explores the practice of ‘giving’. We also look closely at the events of Jesus’ life that are celebrated during Holy Week.
English
This term the new NSW K-2 English syllabus will be implemented. The students will experience opportunities to engage with informative, narrative, persuasive and poetry texts including, but not confined to, "Welcome to Country" by Aunty Joy, "Sophie Scott Goes South", "Penguin in Peril" by Helen Hancocks, "Peggy" by Anna Walker and "Mallee Sky" by Jodi Toering. Students will explore the purpose and importance of an Acknowledgement of Country and the Welcome to Country while making connections to their own context and that of Aboriginal communities across NSW.
Students will continue to display their knowledge and understanding in the areas of:
Oral language and communication
Vocabulary
Phonological awareness
Print conventions
Phonic knowledge
Reading fluency
Reading comprehension
Creating written texts
Spelling
Handwriting
Understanding and responding to literature
Mathematics
This term, Year 2 students will be engaged in tasks designed with increasing complexity and challenge, open-ended high ceiling, differentiated success criteria and enabling and extending prompts. They will be explicitly taught concepts from the new NSW Mathematics K-2 Syllabus with a focus on problem solving, communication, reasoning and understanding. All activities are differentiated in order to cater to all student needs and ability.
The topics taught in Term 1 are: Chance & Time, Combining & Separating Quantities, Geometric Measure, 2D Spatial Structure, Forming Groups.
Science and Technology
In Semester One, students will be learning about Earth and Space. They will observe changes in the sky and landscape as well as explore how the Earth’s resources are used. Students will also investigate how digital systems display data.
Mandarin
This term Year 2 students will continue the Chinese language program called the Meg Language Program. The Meg Curriculum is written by the co-author of the Australian Curriculum. All students and teachers will participate in the digital learning platform via Zoom weekly sessions.
Geography
Through inquiry based learning, students will focus on places within Australia and Australia’s location in the world. They will describe the connections people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, have with places, both locally and globally. The students will also identify factors affecting people’s accessibility to places.
Amadeus Music Program
This year students from all grades will be involved in the Amadeus Music Education program, introduced by Sydney Catholic Schools providing students with a high quality music education program. The program offers students expert classroom music lessons, ensemble lessons, and for primary students, group tuition.
Students will participate in activities in listening, performing and organising sound (Kindergarten to Year 6), within their regular Classroom Music lessons. Within these lessons, students will:
- Sing in unison and in parts
- Play tuned and untuned percussion instruments
- Play available instruments such as Ukulele, Guitar and Keyboard (Grade appropriate)
Creative Arts
In Visual Arts, the students will be developing their skills in drawing portraits and silhouettes based on the English texts we will be studying.
Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
The Stage One Physical Education unit is aimed at providing opportunities for students to develop their skills and build confidence in Athletics using Fundamental Movement Skills.
Fundamental Movement Skills focused in this unit include: static balance, sprint run, vertical jump, catch, hop, side gallop, skip and overarm throw. Students will apply these skills through activities and games. Games are encouraged to build teamwork, communication, strategy and game sense and resilience.
A new program titled Open Parachute will be implemented K-6. Open Parachute aims to provide practical support on mental health to students. The program aims to reduce stigma and generate authentic dialogue in classrooms about the real issues students face. The psychological skills-building exercises aim to increase empathy, self-compassion, self-awareness, mental health literacy, and self-efficacy in students.
Homework
It is recommended that Year 2 students spend up to a duration of 20-30 minutes of homework per day. This includes 10 minutes of reading every night. Homework consists of daily reading, spelling, online Soundwaves activities and Mathematics activities. These activities are to be completed weekly. Homework is due each Thursday and will be brought home every Friday. Homework will commence in the coming weeks and a detailed note will be sent home further explaining the process.
Please record and sign your child’s daily reading log. An encouraging comment is always welcome! It is very important that you are reading with your child each night to ensure they are using their reading strategies, fluency, expression and self correcting at an error. Asking comprehension questions at the end is also essential.
Year 2 also has access to Wushka Readers Online which include comprehension questions on each book. Please refer to the password sheet in their homework books for login information.
A Maths Plus mentals and homework book will be provided to all students. A weekly task will be set and we ask that this be returned each Thursday. Maths Plus follows a graded and spiralling approach, allowing for revision of concepts throughout the year. It will provide students with opportunities to sequentially develop, practise and master their skills and knowledge.
Reminders
Please ensure your child brings a labelled drink bottle and a school hat daily.
- Please label all your child’s personal items and clothing.
- Each day the children have Crunch and Sip during the morning block. Please send some fruit or cut-up vegetables in a small container so your child can eat it easily in the classroom. No yogurt or snack bars please for crunch and sip.
We look forward to continuing to work with you and your child this term. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher via email, a written note or by an appointment through the office.
Thank you for your partnership and support.
We are looking forward to a productive year!
2B - Mrs Katrina Hedges
2G - Mrs Lauren Govers
2W - Mrs Alison Bofinger
Important Dates for Year 2
Year 2 will participate in sport and fitness lessons every Tuesday and Friday.
Year 2 will participate in Library and Music lessons every Friday.
Each week students will have the opportunity to borrow books from our school library. They will keep these books for one week and return them the following Friday.
School Term - Friday 27th January - Thursday, 6th April 2023