Prep | Year 2 News
Learn to Swim Programme
Over the past two weeks your son has participated in the Learn to Swim programme. Every morning we got on the bus and travelled 5 minutes down the road to Enfield Aquatic Centre. All the staff and teachers were very impressed by the good manners and principled behaviour of the boys and how they displayed appreciation and gratitude to members of the local community.
On the first day each student took a swimming assessment to gauge their ability and confidence in the pool. This allowed the swimming instructors to tailor their programme to each boy’s needs. Some boys worked on their breathing while others practised floating and kicking motions. As the weeks progressed each boy displayed more confidence and a greater enjoyment of being in the water. ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have swimming every day at school in the summer?’, commented one boy.
Next year, your son will be taking part in the House Swimming Carnival. Whether your son is an experienced swimmer or just enjoys being in the water, he is sure to have a great time competing for his House for the first time. Maybe it’s a good excuse to get some extra training in the school holidays!
English
In English we have been doing creative writing to show off the skills we have learnt throughout the year. We wrote ourselves a rubric to assess what a ‘great piece of writing’ should look like’ and then used it to assess our growth this year. We chose an interesting image to describe and, using all our knowledge and creativity, tried to write an engaging paragraph to entertain the reader. Please view your son’s writing on Seesaw and notice where he feels confident and areas that he can practise at home.
For the remainder of the year, we will be practising a strategy called Talk-to-Writing. This technique allows us to integrate all of our inquiries into how symbols communicate meaning and helps us scaffold students’ writing by giving them the opportunity to talk through their sentences before writing. You can already see and hear our first attempts by interacting with the African folktale ‘The Papaya that Spoke’. We plan to share at least one of our stories with the younger years before the term is over. (English photos 1,2)
Maths
The boys have been enjoying inquiring into position in Maths. They found drawing familiar spaces such as their bedroom and classroom from an aerial perspective a fun challenge. Your sons are now well versed at using grid coordinates to navigate around maps. Many found describing the position of one landmark compared to another using compass points a bit tricky. If you get a chance, please play with positional language such as ‘The beach is east of the shopping centre’, at home or in the car with your son over the holidays.
Unit of Inquiry
Our final Unit of Inquiry in Year 2, How We Express Ourselves, has provided various opportunities for the boys to show how they have grown this year. It has been an interesting journey into the world of symbols and the hidden meanings that they communicate if you know how to interpret them. This has led us on an inquiry into colour, icons, signs and logos as we try to search for the messages in the world around us. This has encouraged collaboration between all Year 2 teachers and specialists to build knowledge and conceptual understanding surrounding the central idea. The boys have explored how artistic expressions and imagery in Music, Art, STEAM, English and Mathematics can help us to communicate and to understand our world. (Unit of Inquiry photos 1-5)
