Our Grade 2 students have been exploring a range of efficient strategies for solving addition and subtraction equations. Instead of relying on counting by ones, we’ve been learning to look at numbers in meaningful chunks. Students have practised using strategies such as counting on (from the larger number) and counting back, friends of 10, bridging to 10, doubles and near-doubles, partitioning/split strategies, open numberlines and fact families. This unit has helped students build confidence, flexibility, and number sense and they’ve really enjoyed the handson activities and problem-solving challenges.
Grade 2 students have been exploring prefixes and suffixes, learning how adding these word parts can change not only a word’s meaning but also its spelling. We have also been listening to stories for National Reconciliation Week and have painted rocks for our school garden with our buddies as a fun learning experience.
Additionally, the Grade 2s have also been learning about information writing and students have written a report about an animal of their choice. Using our mentor text Market Day, we have been investigating the author’s deliberate word choices and using its structure to guide our own recount writing about our Community Walk. Students enjoyed these learning experiences.
Our Grade 2 students had a great week, reading the story ANZAC Biscuits and learning about why these biscuits were
made and sent to soldiers. After listening to the book, we talked about their importance and then made our own!
Everyone was proud of their tasty biscuits.
As part of our personal and social learning we have been learning about what respect looks and sounds like in different
situations. Students are beginning to identify the strengths that help people show respect to others. They are also
learning how to be responsible online and create safe and secure passwords to protect their information online.
This term, our Grade 2 students inquiry unit of study is titled Places and Spaces. We are learning about how different people in the community provide us with goods and services. We enjoyed a sunny morning walk investigating our local community. We have also been fortunate to have parent volunteers as guest speakers to share how their jobs help our community. It has been interesting so far to have Rory’s mum and Aine’s mum share their experiences. Students liked asking their prepared questions to find out new information.
In Reading in Grade 2, we have been learning to read and spell words with common and uncommon long vowel sounds. Students have been practising every day, starting with Speed Sounds, Speed Words, Heart Words and mini whiteboard spelling tasks. The Grade 2 teachers are very impressed with how much the students’ spelling has improved.
In Writing, we have been reading mentor texts such as Let’s Get a Pup! and Fox and engaging in a variety of lessons inspired by these pieces of quality literature. Fox is a powerful and emotional picture book about friendship, betrayal and loyalty. In the story, a cunning fox separates a dog and a magpie, forcing them to navigate jealousy and loss. The story ends without the reader knowing whether the two friends will find their way back to each other. Students used their imagination to write their own ending to the story.
In Grade 2, during our inquiry unit titled Sound Stories, students have been immersed into thinking deeper about how music is connected to a community’s country and culture. As scientists, they used maracas to investigate, explore and rank how objects move and make loud or soft sounds depending on their shape, size and the material from which they are made. Students then used Garage Band on iPads to explore how digital technologies can make sounds. We have brainstormed ideas and created designs to make our own musical instruments using reusable materials and have been busy creating and making changes to their instruments ready to share with the class.
This week in maths, Grade 2 students have been exploring place value by working with numbers to 1000 and beyond. Through engaging in hands-on activities and place value games, they investigated different ways to build and represent numbers using hundreds, tens, and ones. As part of this learning, students also created a Teen Number Cloud, showing the many ways a teen number can be made. We are so proud of their enthusiasm and growing confidence as mathematicians!
In Grade 2, we have set up our Routines for Success for the different curriculum areas, including reading, writing and maths. We have also spoken about our classroom expectations and have come up with some rules we will follow for the rest of the year. Students have learnt lots about one another and have made some new connections through talking about our holidays, getting to know you games and all about me activities. We have learnt about having a growth mindset and a can-do attitude rather than having a fixed mindset.
