Home Learning Technologies and Updates

Dear Parents,

Thank you so much for your ongoing support and patience as we work together to optimise student learning at home. It is evident that you are committed to our home learning journey and working alongside teachers to ensure the best academic and pastoral care in these times. Congratulations on your hard work and taking on the challenge to help make week 1 of home learning so successful. Please remember that while we appreciate your efforts, we are not expecting you to take on full-time teaching obligations. It will not be possible to replicate the classroom environment at home. Each family is in a different situation and we hope that you can use the lessons provided and find a best-fit approach for your home situation.

We received positive comments from the students about their experiences learning to use the platform Seesaw.

This week we are also introducing Google Meets. Parents were emailed instructions about Google Meets on Friday. Our first session will be on Monday morning at 9:30am. We are trialing the first session with the whole class at the same time but will need to be flexible and monitor the quality of the sound and graphics and students' ability to focus and turn-take in this environment. We are excited about the opportunity to connect with our whole class and see and hear each other. We may move to split students into smaller groups and stagger start times between 9:30 and 10am for the following days. Initially this will be a chance for students to ask questions about the day's learning as well as report back on some of their learning or ideas from previous days.

The link for our Google Meets will be sent as an announcement to students that should always be accessible in the same place.

Based on some parent feedback, we are making a few changes:

- Work will be posted the night before to allow parents to plan logistics for the day ahead

- We are highlighting the essential activities that are the ones students must complete. Parents who are juggling commitments may like to focus their assistance to their children on understanding and completing just these tasks. During the course of the school day, those students may complete optional, fully independent activities such as reading, writing own-choice texts or Mathletics (or other options that your family may have available).

- Where possible, we encourage students to complete all of the day's activities.

- We will link directly to the day's specialist subject in their iNewsletter

- Students will have the chance to ask their teacher questions regarding the day's work during their Google Meet sessions, in place of the daily welcome videos.

Write to Read

This week we are introducing short Write 2 Read lessons to develop students' phonemic awareness. We strongly encourage students to practise this skill for approximately 10 minutes per day.

Students may pause and repeat the videos as necessary to practise to achieve automatic recognition of the codes.

Writing

This week in Writing students will be spending the full week learning how to write a book review of a fiction book. It will be the same book assigned to them for Reading this week, which they will find when they log on to Epic.

Each day they will focus on one section of the review (setting, character, problem, resolution, opinion) so that by Friday they will be able to write the full review. Friday’s task is to draw or use digital technologies to create a book review in poster form.

We will incorporate using adjectives and connectives (eg. then, until, because). Extension tasks include learning about similes and metaphors, and writing a blurb.

Reading

This week the children are learning how to retell a story. Retelling a story is an important skill that helps students demonstrate their understanding of what they have read. When students are reading they need to be able to "make a movie in their minds" and to do that they need to know what's happening, who's involved, and where it's taking place. We want students to be able to visualise the setting, the characters and understand the plot of the story including problems/conflicts and solutions/resolutions. A retell needs to include important information, without too much detail, and it needs to be given sequentially. This weeks learning tasks will help the students consider the important information in a story and provide a retell that demonstrates their understanding.

Each student has been assigned one story on Epic. They will use the same text for all reading and writing tasks this week. On Monday the students will be considering the setting of their book. On Tuesday they will learn to identify the problem(s). On Wednesday, they will learn to identify the problem(s) and solution(s). And on Thursday and Friday they will be learning skills in retelling. Finally, they will be recording their retell of the story and uploading it to Seesaw. This can be done by using the "add a video" or the "add a note" function. Happy reading!

Maths

Finally, on Friday the students may select an addition worksheet. The worksheets can be printed but if you don’t have a printer just write the questions and answers in an exercise book.

If you would like more maths tasks for your child to complete, log onto Mathletics and complete the task your teacher has assigned for you. However, this is optional.

This week we are beginning to learn about addition. On Monday we ask that all student complete an online test about addition using Essential Assessment. This is a tool all students are familiar with and have used many times in the classroom. Most students already know their username and password. If not they can ask their teacher via Seesaw. The school code is BPS3186.

The learning intentions are:

Recalling simple addition facts
solving addition problems using a range of strategies

Students will need a tape measure and a deck of cards for their maths tasks this week.

To assist with the recalling of addition facts the student will play a game called High Card on Tuesday. There is video instructions and an option to play with a stuffed toy if your child needs to work independently. You can see the video instructions made for students here. They will then have the option to play High Card for 5 to 10 minutes for the rest of the week as a maths ‘warm-up’.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, they will learn about their first addition strategy: jump strategy.

They will complete the same task on Thursday with the option to extend. You will find the video instructions for students here.

Unit of Inquiry

Last week's UOI activities provided some insights into student knowledge and interest in our unit of inquiry. Our Lines of Inquiry are:

How we use water

How water is accessed

Being a responsible water user

The core content we will cover includes the water cycle, the urban water cycle (how water gets to and from our homes) and making responsible water use choices.

This week begins with some practical, off-screen activities about water usage at home, with the learning intention to understand the importance of water. Later in the week, we will learn about the Water Cycle. The water cycle activities are highlighted as essential learning for UOI this week.

Wellbeing

Frequent breaks to refresh are important. Here are some ideas:

Colouring or drawing

Playing in the yard

Dance videos

Kids Yoga

Mindfulness

Building or creating

Some useful online resources are:

Go Noodle - has short dance clips, mindfulness, yoga and some printable activities

Smiling Mind - this is a free app that offers short mindfulness activities for different age groups. Parents will need to sign up and select the program for 7-9 year olds.

Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube

Art for Kids Hub on Youtube - guided drawing lessons

Hearing Unit message

Parents of Hearing Unit students, please continue to refer to your child’s weekly HU program. Please contact your child’s Teacher of the Deaf with any queries.

Grade 2 team

Angie Fifer (2A)

Angela Alderuccio (2B)

Elise Newnham (2C)

Breallen Cole (2D)

Christie Walsh (HU)

Issue 8

Issue 3 · 19 Apr 2020

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