24 Feb 2017

Yr2 Weekly Update – 02/24/17

Week 3

This week we read a book called ‘Mad Margaret Experiments With The Scientific Method’ to learn about how scientists study and learn things. Through this book we learned that it doesn’t matter what the scientists are trying to learn, using the scientific method can help them come up with an answer. Students conducted various investigations using this method.

The first thing to do with the scientific method is to come up with a question. Next observe and gather information in order to come up with a smart guess called a hypothesis. Now conduct the experiment to see if your guess is right. A key to good experiments is to only change one thing, or variable, at a time. This way you can check your results. The last step is to draw conclusions and share the results.

Some classes used ramps and different surfaces to test which surface has more friction than the other. Other classes applied their understanding

LITERACY

We have been using the Nelson Program to help us with our handwriting. This week some classes analysed their handwriting and set targets to improve.

We also continued to secure our understanding of different reading comprehension strategies and worked on developing the necessary metacognitive awareness of how and when to use these strategies during our Guided Reading sessions.

Acquisition of knowledge: This week students have worked hard on gaining facts and knowledge through various sources such as books, computers and asking experts. They read books and watched Brain Pop clips to gather new information and used summarising strategy to record the new learning in their own words.

Dance

This week we inquired into how we can use forces to create some special dance movements.

Maths

Students continued to work on understanding the concepts of part-whole and equal sharing as they relate to fractions. Given children’s experiences with fairly sharing items among family members and friends, sharing tasks such as sharing cookies or grapes equally is a good way to develop their understanding of fractions.

While conducting the ramp investigations, students also explored the concept of length and used nonstandard units to measure the distance travelled by the car. Some classes used trundle wheels and rulers to get familiar with standard units. We continued with our Number Maintenance and consolidated our understanding of place value.

Important: In order to provide students with the opportunities to explore questions, build prototypes, fail and retry, bounce ideas off one another and build something together, we are going to create a special space in our shared area. Therefore we are going to request you to send some junk to school. Junk includes empty plastic bottles, egg cartons, fruit trays, ice-cream tubs, cardboard boxes, lids, any plastic and Styrofoam boxes. Please make sure all the plastic bottles, jars and containers are washed and cleaned properly before you send them to school. Thanks a lot for your help!