Year Two News 

Dear Year Two families,   

We are excited to be transitioning back to on-site learning with our Year Two students. We started our return with a provocation day for our new Unit of Inquiry. We were able to focus on the way we celebrate birthdays and the traditions behind this special day. This allowed the students to share their positive experiences with their peers, after a long time of not seeing each other. We were able to include many elements relating to mental health and wellbeing into this day, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all students.  

Inquiry  

In Week Three, the Year Two students began exploring our final Unit of Inquiry for 2021 on the Transdisciplinary Theme, ‘How We Express Ourselves’– which really made it hit home just how far through this academic year we really are! We began on our remote learning days by engaging our wondering minds by investigating a provocation video entitled ‘World’s Festival’. Each class worked together to record and share their thinking using a ‘See, Think, Wonder’ chart. The students then chose a second video that sounded most interesting to them to investigate independently. 

The videos were on ‘White Night’, ‘Dia De Los Muertos’ and ‘Holi Festival of Colour’. Using the clues provided and their prior knowledge, the students then worked together to unscramble our Central Idea for the unit, which they determined to be ‘People express important events through celebrations and traditions’. During our days on-site together, the students created posters to share with their classmates which displayed celebrations or traditions that each student felt was important to their own family. Some of these important occasions included Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, Diwali and ANZAC Day. The students really enjoyed our Provocation Day on Friday, during which the students made each other birthday cards, played traditional party games and joined in a range of other activities focused on celebrations!  

Reading 

The Year Two students have begun an author study on Ahn Do. He is a Vietnamese-born Australian author, actor, comedian, and painter, who fled Vietnam with his family via boat, in 1980. He wrote some of the student’s most beloved book series, WeirDo, HotDog and Ninja Kid. We have started this Author study by reading the first WeirDo book in the series. This book is inspired by some of the experience Ahn had as a child. We will also be using this book series as a base for a text innovation later in the term, linking our Literacy units and our Inquiry topic within this text. 

We are excited to be able to implement our Reciprocal Reading groups in the classrooms now that we have returned to school. Students have been focusing on learning about the five roles in Reciprocal Reading: Leader, Predictor, Summariser, Clarifier and Questioner. 

This provides students with a deeper comprehension of the texts that they read and allows them to have conversations about what they are reading.  

Writing  

The Year Two students will be focusing on writing Realistic Fiction texts in Writing this term. This will be linked in with the author study of ‘Ahn Do’ which will allow students to create a ‘realistic fiction’ text, based around the WeirDo series. This text will link with our Unit of Inquiry by having students include a celebration that they are researching and having the characters from WeirDo taking part in this celebration. Students are in the process of analysing a piece of their own writing and setting a goal for the remainder of the term. 

This has been a beneficial structure to support the student’s writing, as they are aware of what they need to do to improve their writing, and what are the steps they need to implement to make these improvements. Making goalsetting more meaningful and achievable for our students. We are looking forward to seeing what the students produce.  

Mathematics 

In line with the start of our new Unit of Inquiry, the students have also begun investigating several new concepts in Mathematics. Building on from our Number and Algebra focus on Addition and Subtraction, we have started investigating Multiplication. It has been great to see so many students quickly making the connection between repeated addition, groups of, skip counting and multiplicative thinking. 

We have also begun investigating financial mathematics, beginning with a focus on Australian currency. However, drawing on the experience of our unique heritages, the students have also been excitedly sharing their knowledge of currencies from all around the world. We have been learning the names of lots of different currencies, such as the Vietnamese ‘dong’, the Mexican ‘peso’ and the South African ‘rand’. Building on from the experiences of our previous Unit of Inquiry, the students have also had (or will soon have) the opportunity to explore the idea of financial mathematics through games.   

Reminders 

Homework:  Studentsare to engage with reading for 20 minutes as a requirement for their home learning every day during Remote Learning. It is an expectation that their reading log is checked and signed from a parent/guardian accordingly. Students can read their assigned books on PM readers, a book from the recent collections on Epic or differently a hard copy book of their choice if available at home. Students are expected to use Mathletics and Reading Eggs to strengthen their Literacy and Numeracy skills by completing assigned tasks as part of their homework.    

ePortfolios

The expectation for ePortfolios on Schoolbox is that students need to upload at least one piece of work per week and correctly reflecting upon their work. Students are encouraged to use the ‘Reflection Sentence Starters’ to reflect accordingly upon their tasks. This can be found on the Year Two Schoolbox page and Classroom pages for their convenience.   

iPads

Every morning students’ iPads should be fully charged and ready to use for Remote Learning.   

Uniform

With the start of Term Four and weather becoming warmer, hats must be worn when on-site and sunscreen is recommended to be used regularly.   

Drink Bottles/Fruit Snacks

When students return to school, please send them with a drink bottle full of water and pieces of fruit and veg for eating on the go! Regular food and water breaks are good for our brains! 

Wellness: To keep our community safe, please ensure if your child is unwell or showing any symptoms, to strictly stay home. If they come to school with any symptoms, they will be sent home immediately.  

Unit of Inquiry Artefacts

Students are encouraged to begin bringing in their artefacts related to our new Unit of Inquiry with the Central Idea ‘People express important events through celebrations and traditions’. Sharing their personal artefacts is a great way for students to connect with the unit concepts. The other students also love hearing their classmates share!   

Thanks again to the students for being so principled and caring throughout remote learning and on their initial return to on-site learning. We understand that this transition back to on-site learning might bring up many different feelings and emotions in both the students and us adults. Please know that we are doing everything we can to help the students transition back as happily and seamlessly as possible. We appreciate all your support during this time too. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your classroom teacher if you have any concerns about your child and their overall wellbeing.   

Take care and be safe! 

Kind regards,  

The Year Two Team