Year 2 Home Learning Statements

Term One

Reading

Students begin each reading session by reading a mentor text together as a weekly focus. Through this shared reading, we focus on vocabulary and comprehension. Some of the words we have learnt so far include, ‘disappointment,’ ‘discovered,’ ‘delighted’. Students have learnt the definition of these words and how to use these words independently in sentences.

 

We will also review the reading comprehension strategies of Predicting, Connecting, and Questioning. To practise fluency skills, students read to a partner focusing on expression, accuracy, and paying attention to punctuation.

 

As a part of our literacy program, we will focus on learning about the sound parts in words. As a class, we focus on several activities which strengthen their phonemic awareness, spelling, recognition of high frequency words, fluency, and decoding skills. 

 

We will be using the Sound Waves program to explicitly teach spelling. Students will review  consonant digraphs (ch, sh, wh, and th), vowel digraphs (ai, ay, eigh, ee, ea, igh, ie,-y, oa), and review and extend their understanding about suffixes (ed, ing, er, est, es). This will in turn deepen their understanding of base words so that they can apply it to both reading and writing.

 

To support this learning at home:

  • Encourage your child to read a book at home and remember to change the book regularly. Some students may have a home reader and take the same book home over a few nights – this also helps to strengthen their fluency skills. Some students may have a chapter book from the library to read.
  • Utilise the local library for additional books
  • Focus on suffixes such as the ‘ing’ in running or the ‘ed’ in ‘jumped‘, and make sure that your child is reading the end of the word.
  • Ask your child questions about the story they have just read, or stories that you have read to them such as: 
    • Prior Knowledge: Do you already know anything about [the topic of the book]? Did you learn anything from this book? 
    • Summarising: What was the story about?What happened first, second, third..?  
    • Connecting: Did it remind you of any other stories you know? 
    • Questioning: I wonder why the character…? ‘I wonder what is going to happen next?
      Note: some take home books have comprehension questions at the end.
  • Ask your child what new words they have learned in vocabulary lessons. Can they remember the definition and use it correctly in a sentence?
  • Any time that you are practising spelling or handwriting, you are also helping to build their reading skills.
  • Practise forming lower-case letters, and using spaces between words as well as identifying words that need capital letters.
  • When writing with your child, celebrate plausible attempts at spelling and give feedback on one goal at a time i.e.: using the ‘ch’ over ‘tr’ in some words.

 

Writing

This term we are focusing on writing Recounts and Poetry. We will develop the students’ understanding of these texts by exploring the language and structural features. Students will also practise forming lowercase and uppercase letters correctly using Victorian Modern Cursive Script.

 

Recount writing is the retelling of past events or experiences in sequential order. Recount writing consists of:

  • Orientation (who? where? when?)
  • Sequence of events (what? – first, then, next, after)
  • Conclusion (personal comment)

 

Poetry follows specific patterns, rhythms, structures, and/or rhymes to express ideas and emotions. Students will be supported to explore and understand the importance of vocabulary and word choice to enhance the meaning of their poems.

 

Students will examine sentence structure and types, and focus on using full stops, capital letters, and exclamation marks consistently.

 

To support this learning at home:

  • Create a special ‘writing box’ to store your child’s pens and pencils to help them see writing as an important activity.
  • Encourage your child to read their writing aloud.
  • Create an ‘ideas bag’ or ‘ideas folder’ to use as a writing prompt. To inspire writing ideas, collect objects such as photographs, pictures cut from magazines, brochures, movie tickets, or any other found item.
  • Encourage your child to create a picture, drawing or collage that visually represents their ideas.
  • Encourage your child to write in all kinds of real-life contexts.
  • Read poetry aloud with your child.
  • Discuss any unfamiliar words that your child may encounter when reading poetry.

 

Mathematics

This term our focus in Number is counting and place value.

  • Counting is an essential skill that underpins the understanding of number and algebra. Students should be able to count forwards and backwards by 1s as well as skip count by 2s, 5s, 10s from zero and non-zero starting points.
  • Place value is the ability to know the value of each digit in a number; e.g. 24 is 2 tens and 4 ones. This is an essential skill that supports addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Students should be able to read, write, order and compare numbers up to 1,000, using concrete materials to support their understanding.

 

To support this learning at home:

Counting:

  •  You may count the letter box numbers to count by 2s (e.g. 242, 244, 246). Identify the odd and even mailboxes.
  • Play a game such as ‘beat your score’. Students choose a counting pattern to count by. They count for 1 minute and record their counting. When the timer goes off, reset the timer and students count by the same counting pattern; trying to beat their previous score.

 

Place value:

  • Hunt for larger numbers around the house/neighbourhood. Encourage your child to read 3 digit numbers on a calculator.
  • Use playing cards to make two, three or four digit numbers and ask your child to read the number and say the value of each digit. For example 27, 2 tens and 7 ones or 27 ones. You could extend this by asking them to find the number that would be 10 more/10 less.
  • Play ‘guess my number’. Choose a secret number, and students have to guess the number using place value to describe the number. For example, “Is there a 2 in the hundreds place?”
  • Make the largest/smallest number using dice. Students can roll 2, 3 or 4 dice to make 2 digit, 3 digit or 4 digit numbers. They should rearrange the digits to make the largest number possible and the smallest number possible. Ask your child what the value of each digit is. For example in 345, the 4 represents 4 tens.