Week 8 Snapshot

English

Reading

In reading children are learning that authors describe characters by looks as well as mood and personality. Students are learning to infer meaning by using illustrations, text and activating what they already know. They are identifying adjectives that describe characters and sorting adjectives. Students are using literal and inferential comprehension to answer questions and describe characters' thoughts, feelings and personalities. They are learning to give evidence from the text in their answers. 

Home learning: Please read with your child. To support our learning about character traits and inferences, ask them questions about the characters' thoughts, feelings and personality. Other areas you can support your child with when reading aloud are: 

- stopping at full stops

- re-reading difficult sections with more fluency

- re-reading familiar books to develop fluency

- reading easy books and having fun using expression

- re-telling narratives by naming the characters, starting at the beginning and making sure to cover the problem and solution

- checking that they are following the meaning by pausing and re-telling what they have read

- encouraging students to work out the meaning of new vocabulary, or to ask questions about those words. 

Some useful online libraries are Epic and Storybox. Teachers have emailed invitations to Epic to parents. The username for Storybox is Storybox Storybox and the password is brighton.

Writing

Students are learning to plan, edit and publish their own narrative story. They are designing their own characters and showing growth of the main character throughout the story.

Home learning: Students can continue to write narratives based on picture story books. We have used a planning frame:

Somebody ...

wanted to ...

but ...

so ...

then ... 

This has helped students to include a character who encounters a challenge and uses a strategy to overcome it.

Speaking and Listening

Children are learning to share their inferences on character traits with their learning partner.

Mathematics

Over the next 2 weeks Grade 2 will be learning about time.

The learning intentions are:

• Name and order months and seasons
• Using a calendar
• Understand and describe time duration
• Read time to the half and quarters hour using an analogue clock

Home learning: A number of time related Mathletics tasks have been set by the classroom teacher for students to complete.

Unit of Inquiry

Our central idea is 'Self-awareness promotes positive relationships'. Students have been learning about how to identify and label emotions and how to regulate them. We have built a class catastrophe scale for perspective and used the Zones of Regulation to develop strategies to regulate emotions.  Students have been reflecting on their strengths and also setting personal goals for self-awareness and personal growth. They will be applying strategies to meet these goals and evaluating their effectiveness. 

Home Learning:  Set yourself a personal goal and put in place strategies to achieve it. For example, ‘I want to read for 20 minutes every day so I will choose a comfortable place to sit where I won't lose focus'. Attached below are the self assessment statements that students used to recognise their strengths and what they would like to work on. The self-awareness reflection sheet is being completed in class. If you are currently home learning, please complete this at home.

Wellbeing

During these uncertain times, we understand that some students are feeling worried. In class, we have mentioned that students can keep themselves healthy by washing their hands often, coughing into an elbow or tissue, avoiding touching their face and keeping their hands to themselves. 

We will be reading the picture story book "Don't Think About Purple Elephants." (This is also on Storybox). We encourage students to talk about their worries, acknowledge this feeling and understand that adults are there to help them. 

Homework

READING: Write the name of the books read each day in the planner. Children have also been asked to discuss and write about the genre or purpose of the book. For example, “Nonfiction- to learn about koalas or Fiction-to entertain me and make me laugh’

Parents please sign the planner on a daily basis.

MATHLETICS: have a go at some of the tasks that your teacher has set for you. The login in details have been placed in the plastic sleeve at the back of the planners.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Discuss a personal goal you would like to work towards. Discuss strategies that can help you achieve this goal? For example, ‘I want to read for 20 minutes every day’ or ‘I want to keep my room tidy all week’.

Reminders

Please log onto Compass and update any unexplained absences.

Grade 2 Team

Angela Fifer 2A

Angela Alderuccio 2B

Elise Newnham 2C

Breallen Cole 2D

Christie Walsh Hearing Unit