Glen Waverley Primary School Level 2 Newsletter

LEVEL TWO, TERM TWO NEWSLETTER

Dear Parents and Guardians,

 

The Level 2 Team would like to begin by welcoming all the new members of the community to the Glen Waverley Primary School family and also welcome back all current members of the school.

 

During Term 2, the Level 2 students will participate in an engaging and explicit learning experience developing on their current knowledge and understanding in the areas of Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Mathematics, You Can Do It, Inquiry and Personal and Social development and growth. The Level 2 team have planned and created purposeful learning opportunities designed to support the students’ learning needs to extend and challenge their current abilities in all areas of the curriculum.

 

Through the students’ learning journey they participate in opportunities to deepen their understanding of the school foci ‘Appreciate Togetherness’, Curiosity through Challenge’ and Explore New Possibilities. 

 

Please take a few moments to read what we have planned for this stimulating term as we look forward to an exciting term of development and growth of each student.

 

REMINDERS

  • Home Learning – Home Learning will be distributed on Friday and will be due the following Friday.  It is expected that it will be fully completed and to learner’s personal best.
  • Home Reading – It is important that the students read for at least fifteen minutes each evening to consolidate the concepts and strategies they have learnt in class. Please sign their diaries after they have read and encourage them to read a wide variety of material at home. 
  • Communication Diary - The students in Level Two have been provided with a school diary. This diary can be used to track home reading and aid communication between the teacher and parents. It would be fabulous if parents could communicate via the diary, which is checked by the teacher daily. 
  • Before School – Students arriving prior to the 8:50am bell should be supervised outside. If you are unable to supervise your child, other arrangements, such as Before School Care, should be arranged. Students can enter the classroom between 8:50-9:00am to organise and prepare for the day and complete morning routine. If your child arrives after 9:00am, please take them to the office to sign in, and bring a yellow ‘late slip’ to the classroom teacher.

ENGLISH

Reading:

In Term two, Level Two learners will continue to explore the whole school approach, CAFÉ. Our learners have set themselves reading goals using the CAFE learning areas of Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expand Vocabulary. Through reading workshops, learning conferences and sustained reading, the students are working on their reading skills through the lens of their goal. To align with our Writing units, the students will build their knowledge of Procedure and Persuasive text through explicitly taught lessons focusing on structure and language features for each text. Through the continued use of mentor texts in the classroom, students will be exposed to new and interesting vocabulary that they are able to use in their writing thus transferring their knowledge across subjects. 

 

Writing:

In Term Two, students will continue to develop their authorship through the lens of the VOICES whole school approach. They will therefore develop their skills at integrating Voice, Organisation, Ideas, Conventions, Excellent Word Choice and Sentence Fluency throughout their writing pieces. Personalised learning goals will be organised by students through conferencing with their teacher and regularly reviewed in order to support them to continue to challenge themselves. This term we will specifically focus on persuasive and procedural writing as students will learn how to use a range of persuasive techniques to convince their audience, and also learn the importance of sequencing their steps to clearly explain how to complete a process.

 

Spelling:

In Spelling, students will develop their spelling concepts and skills throughout Term Two through an inquiry approach. As defined by student data and the school’s scope and sequence linked to the Victorian Curriculum, our foci this term will include long vowel sounds, double letters and syllables. Students will undertake individual Spelling Inquiries into personal words in order to enable them to be able to spell and understand a greater collection of words.

 

To support your child’s learning at home, you could: 

 

  • Encourage your child to write at home for authentic purposes, for example in a personal diary, a story to entertain a sibling or a thankyou card for a loved one.
  • Ask your child what their writing goal is and discuss their successes and challenges. 
  • Build word family posters to help your child see the connection between spelling a range of different words (for example, dance, prance, stance).

Speaking and Listening: 

Speaking and Listening will continue to be integrated across areas of the curriculum. Throughout each learning session, students are provided with opportunities to share their thinking, reflections and learning with their class. Students are also given the opportunity to collaborate with their peers on learning tasks which allows them to continue to build upon their listening and vocal communication skills. Students will learn to speak in a clear and concise manner as they will be provided with the opportunity to present their learning to one another throughout the term, allowing learners to improve their confidence and also develop their listening skills.

 

MATHEMATICS

In Term Two, students will be deepening their understanding of Fractions as they consolidate the idea that a fraction represents a part of a whole or, any number of equal parts. We will also continue learning about Statistics and Probability as learners will be exploring different ways to collect, analyse and represent data through a range of graphs. 

We will also focus on Measurement and Geometry, as students will use informal measuring tools such as a water bottle and formal metric cups to measure the volume and capacity of different objects. They will explore and make connections to real life everyday experiences such as cooking as they transfer their knowledge outside of the classroom.

Year 2 learners will continue to develop their understanding of Time, exploring multiple ways to represent ‘quarter to’ and ‘quarter past’ using digital and analogue clocks. Students will be encouraged to identify time during authentic experiences that will further the connection and transfer of their learning.

 

To support your child’s learning at home, you could: 

  • Ask your child what their current SURF goal is. What have been their successes and challenges? What is their ‘next step’? 
  • Encourage them to engage in everyday mathematical activities with the family (such as measuring in cooking, adding up while shopping). 
  • Ensure your child completes their Maths Home Learning weekly. 
  • Make connections between related ideas and concepts.
  • Explain their thinking through abstract, pictorial and concrete methods.
  • Break numbers into fractions or equal parts.
  • Describe strategies using step-by-step thinking.
  • Encourage your child to read both analogue and digital clocks and tell the time in different ways using the language ‘past’ and ‘to’.
  • Encourage your child to assist you with the cooking by measuring out the ingredients, for example 1 cup of water.

INQUIRY

Throughout Term Two, students will investigate the Inquiry question ‘How can we make choices about the products we use to look after our environment?' Students will unpack the meaning of key words in our inquiry topic and make links to the Global Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production. Learners will compare the difference between natural and man-made chemicals, and also investigate how the aboriginal community created a number of natural medicines and skin care products which have had a positive and sustainable influence on our land.

 

YCDI

The You Can Do It Program will continue to deepen throughout Term Two. There will be a particular focus on the keys of Persistence and Resilience this term as the students develops their understanding of ‘challenges’. They will explore strategies to identify, react and overcome to challenges in a range of learning, physical and social experiences. As the learners prepare for Student Led Conferences, they will learn about the Confidence and Organisation keys and how to use particular strategies to present their learning portfolio as in an orderly and positive way.

 

To support your child’s learning at home, you could:  

  • Read with your child each night.  
  • Ask your child questions about their nightly reader book. 
  • Create a gratitude journal to write for the purpose of reflection on their day. 
  • Practice with your child on his/her weekly spelling words. 
  • Practice with your child a variety of number fluency skills such as counting to and from 1000 from any point and different strategies to solve Addition and Subtractions problems.