Grade Two Curriculum Newsletter Term Three 2023

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.

General
WELCOME TO TERM THREE EVERYONE! We hope you had a wonderful and safe break over the holidays. This term we will be continuing to focus on the six ‘Life Raft’ ideals of our Play is the Way program. These include – ‘Be Brave - Participate to Progress’, ‘Have Reasons for the Things You Say and Do’, ‘Treat Others as You Would Like Them to Treat You’, ‘Pursue Your Personal Best, No Matter Who You Work With’, ‘It Takes Great Strength to Be Sensible’ and ‘Be the Master Not the Victim of Your Feelings’. These Life Rafts help to guide students to continue to strive to be the best version of themselves in all aspects of schooling. Please encourage your child to continue to approach each day with positivity and wonderings about the world around them.

A few reminders: There continues to be an issue in the schoolyard with litter. We encourage ‘Nude Food’ wherever possible, with an extra focus on Wednesday’s, to limit the amount of rubbish going back into our environment.

Please ensure your child’s name is on each of their belongings.

Reading
Within Reading this term, students will continue to use their phonics knowledge from our UFLI lessons to decode words. We encourage all students to look at the spellings/letters within the word and then say the sounds that they represent when working out tricky words. Students then blend the sounds together to read the word. We will encourage them to read out loud to ensure they notice when they make mistakes. We encourage students to read aloud at home regularly and change their readers on Mondays.

Writing
In Writing, students have established excellent writing routines and have continued to show enthusiasm as authors. It has been wonderful watching our students increase the volume of writing produced as they work through planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing their texts.

This term, we are working to develop a detailed plan, consider the purpose for writing and add detail to each piece we draft to engage our reader. We will also explore a variety of different text types as well as investigate new vocabulary and spelling strategies. Students will have a strong focus on writing informative and persuasive texts throughout the term.

We are looking forward to celebrating the wonderful writing that will be produced throughout the term!

Maths
Term Three promises to be a busy, but exciting time in Maths! Students are working on their understanding of 2D and 3D shapes through hands-on learning, by building shapes and describing their properties. We will be exploring the relationship between multiplication and division, and how they differ from addition and subtraction. They will be asked to solve a variety of number problems using strategies, such as drawing or building arrays and number lines.

In the latter part of the term, students will also be exploring measurement learning about mass, area, volume and capacity .
Finally, students will read and develop simple maps. They will also learn to give simple directions using language such as ‘left’ and ‘right.’

Inquiry
This term’s Inquiry unit is called ‘Where Am I?’ Students will learn to identify significant places around Victoria and understand what makes them special. We will be exploring Victorian landmarks of cultural and spiritual significance, both manmade and naturally formed.

Students will learn to understand why people have become connected to these special places around Victoria and why visitors come from different places around the country to see them. We will explore these landmarks in detail and engage in rich discussions about places we have seen or visited. We will look at various common Victorian surroundings.

By the end of the unit, students will be able to describe and explain where various Victorian landmarks are located, from our close surroundings like Lara, to further down the Great Ocean Road. They will also enjoy learning how to read and construct labelled maps (linking with Maths), as well as interpret data and information to describe the direction and location of places.

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.