GRADE 2
Term 4 Curriculum Newsletter 2020 - GRADE TWO
This term newsletter will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. These Newsletters are provided to all parents across the school, so that everyone is aware of the great things happening at our school, even if you don’t have a child in this level. Of course, you may choose to read only those newsletters affecting your children. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.
GENERAL COMMENT
Welcome to Term Four! It has been a long and cold winter, filled with the trials and tribulations of remote learning. We’d like to congratulate all students and parents for their resilience and willingness to adapt during these uncertain times. But as the spring weather brings sunshine and longer days, the Grade Two Team is excited to finally return to the classroom and provide a sense of normality for students.
In the early parts of Term Four, students will focus on re-establishing previous learning routines. They will receive support to further develop their ability to work independently as preparation for their move into the middle school. This term, our key focus will revolve around the core subjects of Reading, Writing and Mathematics. In the first few weeks of term, students will also be undertaking a number of assessment tasks as teachers begin preparations for report writing. Whilst ongoing Coronavirus restrictions cast uncertainty over some of our usual end of year activities, students can look forward to participating in numerous Play is the Way activities, as well as learn about various festivities and celebrations around the world as part of our Inquiry topic ‘Celebrations.’
Please remember to check Compass regularly in regards to communication from your child’s teacher and for important events that are occurring towards the final weeks of the year. Also, a reminder that in Term Four, students are required to wear a school hat in the yard as part of our SunSmart program.
READING
In Term Four, students will continue to build on all the literacy skills they have developed during on-site and remote learning periods this year. After beginning the term remotely, students will be back on site in Week Two and able to once again explore their classroom libraries. When browsing their library for texts, children are expected to preview selected reading material to ensure it is ‘just right.’ As part of our Reading Workshop, the children will have daily mini-lessons that include read-alouds, shared reading and a focus on comprehension strategies (summarising/sequencing, monitoring, making connections, making inferences, vocabulary and asking questions). The children apply the skills and knowledge presented by their teachers in the mini-lessons to their own reading during the daily independent reading session, (30 minutes). During independent reading, students and teachers engage in regular reading conferences, in which children are given an individual goal to work on.
WRITING
In Writing, we will be continuing to build the writing culture within our classrooms with the ultimate goal of developing lifelong writers. Each day the children will be given 30 minutes of independent writing time. During this time, students will need to follow the steps of the Writing Cycle. The steps of the Writing Cycle include generating and collecting seed ideas, choosing an idea, rehearsing, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. Teachers will model these steps through mini lessons and the children will be given opportunities to practise them during their own writing time. This term students will continue to build their writing fluency and skills. They will learn to add more detail and richer vocabulary to their writing.
MATHEMATICS
In Term Four, students will consolidate their understanding of place value by breaking apart numbers into hundreds, tens and ones using materials such as MAB and bundles of Paddle Pop sticks. By the end of Grade Two, it is expected that students can count and order numbers up to 1000. Students will develop their ability to use written and mental strategies to solve a range of addition and subtraction problems. In our Fractions unit, students will explore dividing objects and collections into halves, quarters and eighths using a range of material such as playdough, counters, paper and connector blocks. Students will be investigating the properties of 2D and 3D shapes, as well as investigate the effect of simple transformations of slides, flips and turns on 2D shapes. As always, we encourage students to complete Mathletics as part of their weekly homework to help reinforce what they have learned at school.
INQUIRY
The Term Four Inquiry unit is called ‘Celebrations’. Students will gain an understanding and awareness of how we celebrate important events in Australia and around the world. They will identify the different types of celebrations that exist, including multi-cultural, religious, historic and sporting events. Students will learn why we come together with others to celebrate, as well as how people do this. Students will investigate celebrations such as; the Melbourne Cup, Halloween, Day of the Dead, Diwali, Thanks Giving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Easter, New Year’s Eve and many more.
PLAY IS THE WAY
In Term Four, students will be looking forward to our regular Play is the Way activities and the ‘Community Circle’ chats that go along with them. Some of the Play is the Way ‘Life Rafts’ we will be focusing on this term are, ‘Be Brave - Participate to Progress’, where students learn about the importance of having an attitude where they will give anything a try, even if a task seems too challenging, in order to improve. ‘The Golden Rule – treat others as you would like them to treat you’, where children learn about the consequences of their actions, both good and bad, and ways to ensure they are treating others in a way that will ‘fill their bucket’.
INDONESIAN:
This term in Indonesian, P-2 students will understand and follow instructions in Indonesian in order to participate in classroom routines, games, songs and simple activities where they will build upon their previous vocabulary related to numbers and colours.
Students will also learn how to describe their family, identify different types of fruits and express their preferences in short sentences. They will apply their prior knowledge and comprehension skills, such as predicting and making connections to help them understand a story in Indonesian as well as learn about orang-utans and develop an awareness of why they are endangered.
KEY DATES
- Monday 5th October – All students back to on-site learning.
- Friday 21 October. Geelong Cup Public Holiday
- Friday 23rd October. Grand Final Public Holiday.
- Monday 2nd November. Curriculum Day (pupil free).
- Thursday 17th December. Students' last day of the year.
- Friday 18th December. Curriculum Day (pupil free).