Here are the links to some of the online mapping activities the children will be exploring during learning agreement.
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/media/geogames/?ar_a=1
http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/maps/atlas/puzzles.html
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
Weekly update (what's on, learning concepts and how you can help) - please read
Hi everyone,
The children continue to be read Pippi Long Stockings and a daily serial and are developing vocabulary, reading and comprehension strategies by responding to these texts through discussion, illustrations, and reflections in their reading logs.
Encourage your child to use Mathletics at home to practice their basic number facts, to improve their fluency in mental calculation and to challenge themselves. Your child has their mathletics password in their reader’s and writer’s notebook.
Please help your child to borrow and return from the junior school library in the mornings, there is a new borrowing system whereby a parent volunteer should be available to help your child scan in books from 8.50am-9am.
What’s on this week:
Tuesday 22nd October: Parents Alison Kealy and Matt Duckham from Melbourne University Engineering department visited the neighbourhood for the second time to explore mapping and puzzlement.
Wednesday 23rdth October 9.10am: Book Talk
Tuesday 22nd October: Parents Alison Kealy and Matt Duckham from Melbourne University Engineering department visited the neighbourhood for the second time to explore mapping and puzzlement.
Wednesday 23rdth October 9.10am: Book Talk
Wednesday: Pyjama day (gold coin donation)
Friday 25th October 1:15pm: Year Two has Talent Time
Friday 25th October 1:15pm: Year Two has Talent Time
19th-27th October: Children’s
Week http://www.childrensweek.org.au/
20th-26th October: Water
Week http://www.sawater.com.au/interactivehouse/
Forthcoming:
Thursday 6th November: Tabloid
Sports begins 9am-11am
Wednesday 13th November: walking
excursion to Engineering Department, Melbourne University
Learning Concepts:
The children will be finishing their autobiographies and we will be asking if any parents could spare a little of their time to help type them up in the next couple of weeks.
Learning Concepts:
The children will be finishing their autobiographies and we will be asking if any parents could spare a little of their time to help type them up in the next couple of weeks.
Our Inquiry
is taking a new turn – toward mapping!
Our major conceptual understanding and question is: “what constitutes knowledge?” Exploring maps from the past and present show
that knowledge is contextual and is set in time and place. We have puzzlement
and questions about the world which leads to investigations and research, which
then develops our knowledge of the world. This week we are exploring different
types of maps, why we use them (to make sense of our world, to record our
knowledge, to pass on information to others etc.), and how we can use them.
Workshops for Learning Agreement will include mapping our thoughts and feelings
through artistic expression, using Atlases and grids, categorising maps,
scaling up and down, exploring non-fiction texts about mapping, exploring how
indigenous people mapped, and producing other types of maps like timelines,
mind maps, diagrams etc.
The children continue to be read Pippi Long Stockings and a daily serial and are developing vocabulary, reading and comprehension strategies by responding to these texts through discussion, illustrations, and reflections in their reading logs.
Buddy Reading is continuing this term where
Year two children buddy up with a year one child and they read together for 20
minutes on Tuesdays after Assembly.
The children are working in target concept groups in number, developing their conceptual understandings of place value, addition and subtraction, multiplicative thinking and number patterns and investigations.
The children are working in target concept groups in number, developing their conceptual understandings of place value, addition and subtraction, multiplicative thinking and number patterns and investigations.
The children are trying out reciprocal
reading whereby they lead their own guided reading groups, taking on the roles
of summariser, questioner, clarifier and predictor.
Spelling Investigations this week include
the sound ‘oo’ (made by ‘ue’, ‘oo’, ‘u_e’, ‘ew’, ‘ou’, ‘u’, ‘oe’, etc). Please help your child to discover some of the words that have unusual letter combinations that make this sound.
How you can help:
Please return your forms for both Tabloid Sports and 1-1 computing that your child should have given you last week.
How you can help:
Please return your forms for both Tabloid Sports and 1-1 computing that your child should have given you last week.
Please let one of the Neighbourhood
teachers know if you would be free to help type some autobiographies in the
next couple of weeks.
Please donate to the bazaar hampers by
putting items in the baskets outside of the Year Two Neighbourhood.
Encourage your child to use Mathletics at home to practice their basic number facts, to improve their fluency in mental calculation and to challenge themselves. Your child has their mathletics password in their reader’s and writer’s notebook.
Also have a look on http://www.puzzlechoice.com for some fantastic puzzles that incorporate mathematics and
literacy. Click on the ‘Kids Choice’ button down the side to explore them. You
have to print the puzzles to work on them.
Please
come along to Book Talk on Wednesday Morning, parent involvement is so
important to us and the children love sharing books with families. Parents who
attend read a story to a small group of children and discuss the book with a
particular focus in mind.Please help your child to borrow and return from the junior school library in the mornings, there is a new borrowing system whereby a parent volunteer should be available to help your child scan in books from 8.50am-9am.
Monday, 7 October 2013
'What's On' in the Year Two Neighbourhood
Hi everyone,
Welcome back to Term 4! The year is flying by and we are looking forward to an exciting term of beautiful weather and great learning.
Here is our 'What's On', 'Learning Concepts' and 'How you can Help'.
Please come along to Book Talk on Wednesday Morning, parent involvement is so important to us and the children love sharing books with families. Parents who attend read a story to a small group of children and discuss the book with a particular focus in mind.
Please help your child to borrow and return from the junior school library in the mornings, there is a new borrowing system whereby a parent volunteer should be available to help your child scan in books from 8.50am-9am.
Thanks everyone,
We look forward to lots of conversation, collaborations and laughs this term!
The Year Two Team.
Welcome back to Term 4! The year is flying by and we are looking forward to an exciting term of beautiful weather and great learning.
Here is our 'What's On', 'Learning Concepts' and 'How you can Help'.
What’s on this week:
Tuesday 8th October 12.10pm-1.30pm: Cricket Clinic open to all
Wednesday 9th October 9.10am: Book Talk
Friday 11th October 1:15pm: Year Two has Talent Time
Tuesday 8th October 12.10pm-1.30pm: Cricket Clinic open to all
Wednesday 9th October 9.10am: Book Talk
Friday 11th October 1:15pm: Year Two has Talent Time
REMINDER: PUPIL-FREE DAYS next Monday and
Tuesday 14th and 15th October
Welcome to our new student, Ethan who has
joined us from Sydney.
Learning Concepts:
Learning Concepts:
The children will be developing autobiographical writing skills and develop
their own short autobiography. They will experience the biography of Roald Dahl
this week.
The children will be exploring poetry to use rhyming words to explore spelling and sound patterns.
The children are being read Pippi Long Stockings and a new daily serial and are developing vocabulary, reading and comprehension strategies by responding to these texts through discussion, illustrations, and reflections in their reading logs.
The children will be exploring poetry to use rhyming words to explore spelling and sound patterns.
The children are being read Pippi Long Stockings and a new daily serial and are developing vocabulary, reading and comprehension strategies by responding to these texts through discussion, illustrations, and reflections in their reading logs.
The children will be investigating the
different letter combinations that make up the vowel sounds in words.
The children are working in target concept groups in number, developing their conceptual understandings of place value, addition and subtraction. It is of particular importance that children can connect symbol, materials and stories when dealing with addition and subtraction problems.
The Learning Agreement will be introduced for weeks 1 and 2 this week with a focus on exploring our new Inquiry into puzzlement and puzzles.
The children are working in target concept groups in number, developing their conceptual understandings of place value, addition and subtraction. It is of particular importance that children can connect symbol, materials and stories when dealing with addition and subtraction problems.
The Learning Agreement will be introduced for weeks 1 and 2 this week with a focus on exploring our new Inquiry into puzzlement and puzzles.
We are in the process of organising an
exciting new collaboration for our Inquiry with two parents who work in the
Engineering department at Melbourne Uni. The ideas are around exploring
puzzlement and mapping.
How you can help:
How you can help:
Please ensure your child is coming to school with a
wide-brimmed hat for outside learning and play. This is compulsory in terms 1
and 4.
Please return your green
notice if you would like to attend the 1-1 Macbook
Information Evening on Wednesday 16th October 4:30-5:30pm. See Julie if you
have not received a notice.Please come along to Book Talk on Wednesday Morning, parent involvement is so important to us and the children love sharing books with families. Parents who attend read a story to a small group of children and discuss the book with a particular focus in mind.
Please help your child to borrow and return from the junior school library in the mornings, there is a new borrowing system whereby a parent volunteer should be available to help your child scan in books from 8.50am-9am.
Thanks everyone,
We look forward to lots of conversation, collaborations and laughs this term!
The Year Two Team.
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Action Required: 1-1 Macbook Information Evening
Dear Parents,
Tonight you will receive a green notice regarding a 1-1 Macbook Information Evening on 16th October 4:30-5:30pm.
Please send back the RSVP at the bottom of the notice if you would like to attend. It needs to be returned by 8th October but this week would be preferable. There is no need to return the slip if you cannot attend.
Please see Simone if you did not receive a green notice.
Have a wonderful evening.
The Year Two Neighbourhood Team
Tonight you will receive a green notice regarding a 1-1 Macbook Information Evening on 16th October 4:30-5:30pm.
Please send back the RSVP at the bottom of the notice if you would like to attend. It needs to be returned by 8th October but this week would be preferable. There is no need to return the slip if you cannot attend.
Please see Simone if you did not receive a green notice.
Have a wonderful evening.
The Year Two Neighbourhood Team
Saturday, 14 September 2013
Puzzles in the art work of Escher
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/0203-2-03-Escher/main3.html#Translation
For me it remains an open question whether [this work]
pertains to the realm of mathematics or to that of art.”
- M.C. Escher
What do you think? What makes you think that?
For me it remains an open question whether [this work]
pertains to the realm of mathematics or to that of art.”
- M.C. Escher
What do you think? What makes you think that?
Friday, 13 September 2013
English learning experiences
Students bring with them to school a wide
range of experiences with language and texts. These experiences are included in
the curriculum as valid ways of communicating and as rich resources for further
learning about language, literature and literacy. Throughout the inquiry exploring
‘Our impact on culture’, students engaged with purposeful listening, reading,
viewing, speaking and writing activities for different purposes and contexts.
English and the “Divercity” Group
Excursions and Guest Speakers
At ACMI in the 75-minute
program, clips and short films were screened to help students
understand narrative structure and the importance of stories. This
experience included the work of Shaun Tan.
It aimed to promote positive self-esteem and appreciation of people, places and things that are important. It stimulated discussion about what it means to be part of a family, focusing on roles, cultural backgrounds, celebrations and traditions.
It aimed to promote positive self-esteem and appreciation of people, places and things that are important. It stimulated discussion about what it means to be part of a family, focusing on roles, cultural backgrounds, celebrations and traditions.
At
CERES the students were absorbed in ‘hands on’ activities with a focus on
sustainability.
Through
the talk by an anthropologist, children learnt about his work with a focus on
life and culture in Papua New Guinea.
Research
1.
What
is a Flag?
The first thing that we did was talk a
lot about what a flag is. We asked lots of questions like:
What are flags? Where did flags come
from? What are flags used for?
We discovered that a flag is a symbol
for a country and can tell you things about the country that it represents.
Then we looked at lots of flags from
around the world. We noticed that most flags have a symbol on them. Flags are
very colourful. Most flags have only a few colours. Flags can be lots of
different shapes: rectangles, squares and some are triangular.
2. Our
country’s culture
We started to think about
creating our own flag. We looked at the South African Flag and the Aboriginal
Flag of Australia and thought about what the flags tell us. We realised that we
needed to find out more about Divercity before we could make decisions about
how our flag would look. So we had a conversation with the whole Inquiry group
about the culture of Diversity, what we would like our country to be like and
what we would need to have in it. We came up with a very long list of values
like Multiculturalism, Sustainability, Friendship, Respect for Nature, Love and
Freedom. We also decided that Divercity would be an island nation, in the
middle of the Coral Sea because it is warm there and it is close to Australia.
3. What
is a symbol?
We talked about what a symbol is and
thought about how we could represent all of the values that we had discussed
with the rest of the Inquiry group in our flag.
We thought about what colours could be used to show those values, like
blue can represent Freedom because the sky is blue and the sky has no
boundaries. A yellow sun could represent warmth and warmth can represent
friendship.
We researched symbols of
multiculturalism and sustainability and discovered that the best symbols were
the simple ones.
We experimented with different colours
and symbols by making paper flags and discovered that our shapes had to be
simple enough to be easily cut out of paper (and later fabric).
4. Keep
it simple, make it meaningful.
We talked about the differences between
good and bad flags. Good flags have no more than five colours, no more than 2
charges (shapes or symbols), no letters or numbers and can be easily recognised
from a distance. We came up with 2 rules to follow:
Keep
it simple
Make
it meaningful
We decided to choose a few important
values to work with and a few strong symbols: a leaf, a sun and a blue sky, and
chose 4 colours: blue, green, red and yellow.
5. So
many ideas!
Working with the limited symbols and
colours, we tried to put those symbols together in as many different ways as we
could think of. We came up with 31 different ways! To decide which design we
would make, we each chose 2 of our favourites and the Inquiry group voted for
the final design. We were a bit surprised by the one that the group chose- it
was one that we had all created together.
6. Sewing
the flag
The design that the group chose didn’t
have a sun in it and we all felt that the sun symbol was an important one so we
added a sun. We also added another colour, orange so that the sun and the leaf
could be distinct from each other. Taking turns to sew the main flag using a
sewing machine, we slowly put our flag together. While waiting for our turn at
the machine we each made a smaller flag in our favourite designs. Sewing took a very long time but was really
fun.
7. Flags
can be powerful
‘It’s easy at the start to
think of ideas but it gets harder when you have to make something’
‘You need no more than 5
colours’
‘Deciding which design to
use was hard’
‘Simple is hard’
Constitution
Group and the Celebration Group
Researched constitutions and listened to each other using interaction skills, including initiating ideas,
making positive statements and voicing disagreement in an appropriate manner,
speaking clearly and varying tone, volume and the children varied the
constitution sentence beginnings.
Sim
City Group
Together, the
children were assisted to address real global challenges such as climate
change, the search for renewable resources and natural disasters. They decided how
to collaborate to shape the world of tomorrow.
The National Anthem Group
The children were scaffolded to Identify,
reproduce and experiment with rhythmic, sound and word patterns in poems,
chants, rhymes and songs. The whole group talked about a play on words from
diversity to Divercity.
Research Viewing Reading Writing
The children viewed films on the use of
plasticine and learnt about scale and perspective from artists. They read books
about famous buildings throughout the ages.
All the children created short imaginative
narratives, informative and persuasive texts using growing knowledge of text structures and language features
for familiar and some less familiar audiences, selecting print and multimodal
elements appropriate to the audience and purpose. They
composed an invitation, wrote explanations, reflections and justified their
thoughts.
For the celebration and display, students published their composed texts, created images to support
the meaning of the texts. They accurately spelt
familiar words and attempted to spell less familiar words and used punctuation
accurately. They legibly wrote unjoined upper- and
lower-case letters when publishing.
When learning the songs “We are
Australian”, “Man in the mirror” and the original composition “Divercity”, the
students used comprehension strategies to build
literal and inferred meaning and began to analyse texts by drawing on a growing
knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal
text structures.
The children continuously shared their work
with each other throughout the process of this inquiry.
Monday, 9 September 2013
Communicating 'what's on' in the Year Two Neighbourhood
Good Afternoon to our lovely Year Two Families,
After having some conversations with parents in the neighbourhood, we have decided to try and keep you 'in the know' a little more with what is happening in the neighbourhood. We would like to offer you opportunities to be involved and share with you the major concepts we are working on with your children so that you can stimulate discussion at home as well.
We will endeavour to make this a regular update and we welcome feedback on any other aspects of your child's school experience that you would like more information on. There are three sections: What's on this week, learning concepts, and how you can help.
What’s on this week:
Tuesday 10th September: Sharing our Inquiry learning with teachers and students from Singapore and seeing some of their learning experiences.
Wednesday 11th September 9.10am: Book Talk
Friday 13th September 1:20pm: Year Two has Talent Time
Learning Concepts:
The children have been introduced to the images of Shaun Tan’s work and we will continue to study his work as an author and illustrator.
The children will be exploring poetry to use rhyming words to explore spelling and sound patterns.
The children are being read Kumiko and the Dragon and Pippi Long Stockings as a daily serial and are developing reading and comprehension strategies by responding to these texts through discussion, illustrations, and reflections in their reading logs.
The children are working in target concept groups in number, developing their conceptual understandings of place value, addition and subtraction.
The Learning Agreement has been focused on portfolio pieces of work in the various areas of learning including publishing narratives, reflections on our Inquiry celebration, demonstrating their mathematical development, and reflecting on and setting new learning and personal goals.
The children are entering a new Inquiry into Puzzles and puzzlement. We are in the initial stages of exploring ‘what is a puzzle?’, ‘what are the purposes of puzzles?’, and ‘Is puzzlement the same as a puzzle and the same as a problem?’
How you can help:
Please assist your child to type their narrative at home if this is a possibility.
Please help your child to borrow and return from the junior school library in the mornings, there is a new borrowing system whereby a parent volunteer should be available to help your child scan in books from 8.50am-9am.
Please come along to Book Talk on Wednesday Morning, parent involvement is so important to us and the children love sharing books with families. Parents who attend read a story to a small group of children and discuss the book with a particular focus in mind.
Parents are invited to next week’s assembly on Tuesday 17th September to hear Nicola and Deb’s lunchtime choir perform.
We are commencing an author study into Shaun Tan. There is currently an exhibition on Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’ at ACMI that you may be interested in visiting with your child.
Please note that school finishes at 2.30pm on the last day of school, next Friday 20th September.
After having some conversations with parents in the neighbourhood, we have decided to try and keep you 'in the know' a little more with what is happening in the neighbourhood. We would like to offer you opportunities to be involved and share with you the major concepts we are working on with your children so that you can stimulate discussion at home as well.
We will endeavour to make this a regular update and we welcome feedback on any other aspects of your child's school experience that you would like more information on. There are three sections: What's on this week, learning concepts, and how you can help.
What’s on this week:
Tuesday 10th September: Sharing our Inquiry learning with teachers and students from Singapore and seeing some of their learning experiences.
Wednesday 11th September 9.10am: Book Talk
Friday 13th September 1:20pm: Year Two has Talent Time
Learning Concepts:
The children have been introduced to the images of Shaun Tan’s work and we will continue to study his work as an author and illustrator.
The children will be exploring poetry to use rhyming words to explore spelling and sound patterns.
The children are being read Kumiko and the Dragon and Pippi Long Stockings as a daily serial and are developing reading and comprehension strategies by responding to these texts through discussion, illustrations, and reflections in their reading logs.
The children are working in target concept groups in number, developing their conceptual understandings of place value, addition and subtraction.
The Learning Agreement has been focused on portfolio pieces of work in the various areas of learning including publishing narratives, reflections on our Inquiry celebration, demonstrating their mathematical development, and reflecting on and setting new learning and personal goals.
The children are entering a new Inquiry into Puzzles and puzzlement. We are in the initial stages of exploring ‘what is a puzzle?’, ‘what are the purposes of puzzles?’, and ‘Is puzzlement the same as a puzzle and the same as a problem?’
How you can help:
Please assist your child to type their narrative at home if this is a possibility.
Please help your child to borrow and return from the junior school library in the mornings, there is a new borrowing system whereby a parent volunteer should be available to help your child scan in books from 8.50am-9am.
Please come along to Book Talk on Wednesday Morning, parent involvement is so important to us and the children love sharing books with families. Parents who attend read a story to a small group of children and discuss the book with a particular focus in mind.
Parents are invited to next week’s assembly on Tuesday 17th September to hear Nicola and Deb’s lunchtime choir perform.
We are commencing an author study into Shaun Tan. There is currently an exhibition on Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’ at ACMI that you may be interested in visiting with your child.
Please note that school finishes at 2.30pm on the last day of school, next Friday 20th September.
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