Grade 2 Term 4 Newsletter

Grade Two Curriculum Newsletter Term Four 2022
This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

Welcome to Term Four! It has been a long and cold winter, filled with the trials and tribulations of sickness and absences. But as the spring weather brings sunshine and longer days.

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. We will be focusing primarily on 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. Students will learn about various scientific topics, with an incursion about chemical reactions, and will investigate 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 this year. 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 Program, 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 among other key writing skills.

INQUIRY / SCIENCE
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 multicultural, religious, historic and sporting events. Students will learn why we come together with others to celebrate, as well as how people do this. In Science we will be visited by ‘Mad about Science’, and participate in a number of exciting experiments. Students will also be part of science rotations each week, where they will learn about different scientific areas such as physical, chemical and earth sciences.

SPECIAL EVENTS
This term the Grade 2’s will continue to engage in some exciting experiences such as; tennis clinics, science incursion, tabloid sports and 1 week of swimming. Please keep an eye on Compass for communication around these events.

KEY DATES
Wednesday the 19^th of October – Geelong Cup Public Holiday (pupil free)
Monday 24th and Wednesday 26th October - Science Incursion
Tuesday the 19^th of December – Last day of school.

20^th December – curriculum day, no students on-site

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.