Grade 2 Term 1 Curriculum News 2020
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
WELCOME TO TERM 1, 2020! We hope you have all enjoyed a safe, relaxing and happy break with your families and friends. The Grade Two team is excited to be back and has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know your child both personally and academically over the past couple of weeks. We have such a busy term ahead full of fun-filled learning!
This year, the composition of the Grade Two team has seen some major changes. Mr. Schubert and Mr. Hill have farewelled the Grade Four Department and will once again be team-teaching in 2MS and 2RH. With them they have the ever-capable Mrs. Willmott. Miss Dixon and Miss Gezun round out the team and will also be team-teaching in 2PD and 2EG.
The Grade Two team believes that open, honest parent-teacher communication is vital to ensure your child is safe, happy and learning. If there is any correspondence that requires the attention of your child’s classroom teacher, feel free to contact us directly via Compass. Alternatively, you can still choose to write us a quick hand-written note and place it in your child’s take home pouch. For more urgent matters, please contact the office directly. The team will endeavour to reply to any queries as soon as possible.
Students should have brought home their Home Reading Log by the end of Week 2. In Grade Two, students are expected to read for a minimum of 10 minutes, four days a week (40 minutes per week). Please make sure that this reading is entered into your child’s log and is signed. Students will also be relying on their green Lara Lake ‘take home pouches’ to take home borrowed books from our classroom library. If you have any questions in regards to homework, please contact your child’s classroom teacher. J
Literacy
One of the best things about a new year in a new classroom is for students to participate in setting up their classroom library! This involves students previewing a wide variety of texts as well as categorising and labelling them. Students are currently learning about the expectations of the daily Reading program within their classroom including ways to select texts which are ‘Just Right’.
DID YOU KNOW that a child who reads for 67.3 minutes a day will read a total of 4,733,000 words a year? This puts them in the 98th percentile rank! This includes any form of reading such as signs, books, notes etc. Whilst we do not expect Grade Two students to read for this amount of time, clearly the more they read, the better they will get!
This year in Grade Two, students will continue to learn about the key ‘comprehension strategies’ of predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarising, visualising and inferring. As parents, encouraging your children to use these strategies during their home reading is imperative to develop their reading development. Some strategies you might choose to employ are:
- When reading a new book, encouraging them to make predictions before, during and after reading.
- Check their reading comprehension by asking them to visualise and describe the setting, characters or their actions.
- Encourage your child to point out unknown words. Encourage them to read around the word, or use text clues to figure out its meaning.
- Support your child to ask questions about the text and author.
- Encourage them to summarise or retell what has occurred in the book.
- Encourage your child to read a balance of fiction and non-fiction.
- Discuss the characters. Who was their favourite? Why?
- Ask them whether they enjoyed the book.
Research has shown that the best readers are those who read for the most amount of time….who knew!? It is essential that we work as a home/school team. Please monitor your child’s home reading to ensure they are reading daily.
In Writing, children have personalised and set up their Writer’s Notebook. During the first few weeks of term, students will be engaging in a range of Writer’s Notebook ‘Seed’ activities designed to stimulate their imaginations and inspire them to write. Of course, students will also have daily opportunities to engage in Independent Writing. Also this term, students will be learning about the ‘Writing Process’ which includes; selecting seed ideas, planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. Students will also be exploring different text types as well as investigate new vocabulary and spelling strategies. We are looking forward to seeing the wonderful work that will be produced throughout the term!
Mathematics
During the first parts of Term One, students will be developing their understanding of Place Value (one, tens, hundreds) and Skip Counting by a range of numbers (e.g. 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s) from zero and other given numbers. In our mid-term Measurement unit, students will be learning about length and area. They will be using a range of formal (cm, m) and informal (hands, paddle pop sticks) units to help them measure. Finally, students will be learning about Chance and Data at the end of the term. It’s going to be great term of learning together!
Inquiry
Our Inquiry unit for Term One is ‘You, Me, We.’ Together with our Play is the Way program, students will be exploring ‘who they are, how they are similar and different to the people around them, how they can understand those who are different,’ as well as ‘how culture influences peoples’ way of living.’ Throughout this unit, students will be comparing and contrasting different cultures, explore the meaning of right and wrong, good and bad as well as the importance of respecting people’s differences.