The Doorbell Rang.....Division

We read the book 'The Doorbell Rang' written by Pat Hutchins and realised that each time the doorbell rang the children in the story used division to share the cookies evenly with their guests.

We then used the dialogue from the story to complete our own division equations. We used counters to represent the cookies, then drew them and completed the written equation.

We later went to challenge ourselves more by using a larger amount of cookies that did not share evenly. The students realised they could use their fraction knowledge to share all the cookies out evenly.

Maths is always around us!

Money Rotations

To revise the maths topic 'money' we completed some rotations. We revised making different amounts of money, adding money amounts and calculating change by the difference or shopkeeper's method. The students completed different activities and rotated between a focus group with Miss Bennett, independent money activities and completing money activities on Mathletics on the computer.

Focus group practicing the

shopkeeper's method in pairs, to work out how much change is required.

Mmmm Mini Pizzas!

We decided to tie our writing topic of Procedural Texts with our Integrated Studies topic of Healthy and Happy Me. First we got to make our own delicious mini pizza and then we recorded our procedure. We included the title, ingredients and all the steps we followed.

We used English muffins as the base and could choose from toppings of cheese, pineapple, ham, mushrooms and capsicum.

They certainly were a delicious snack!

Healthy and Happy Me Incursion

The students participated in an interactive and very entertaining incursion run by Pete. They learnt the importance of healthy food choices, parts of the body and about digestion.

Pretending to be food travelling down the oesphagus.

Food in the stomach.

Travelling from the small intestine to the large intestine.

Maths: Symmetry

In Maths we have been learning about symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes. We have had lots of fun drawing the other half to pictures and investigating symmetrical patterns.
















Three students using a mirror to check if the pattern they made was symmetrical.

Healthy and Happy Me- Term 3 Integrated Studies Topic

As we were learning about healthy food choices, the Grade Two's all made their own healthy sandwhich. Some students tried sandwich fillings they had not had before and everyone had either wholemeal or multigrain bread. The students could choose to have cheese, lettuce, tomato, carrot, cucumber or beetroot (with many deciding to have a sandwich with the lot!) They did a great job preparing all the food and most importantly enjoyed eating a healthy lunch.





















An example of a student preparing their sandwich and a finished product YUM!

Term 3 Writing: Procedural Text

In Term Three we wrote many different Procedural Texts. This type of writing includes a title, headings, a series of steps, list-like structure, bullets and ingredients/equipment/materials. The students got very good at writing procedures for others to follow and we even learnt how to do some new things from our peers.

Here one student is demonstrating all the steps involved in 'brushing our teeth.' We needed to include little things like turning the tap on and off and putting the toothpaste cap on and off.

Students working

hard on their

'Brushing Your

Teeth Procedure.'

Water Investigations

To finish our Term 2 Integrated Studies topic 'Water' we completed some water investigations, to celebrate what we had learnt during the term. The students had a lot of fun and were able to express their new knowledge of water saving creatively, through various ways.

The students were given many choices of how to present their knowledge including, dioramas, posters, plays, commercials, songs, poems, word searches, written activities or power-point presentations on the computer.

The finish products all looked fantastic and demonstrated that the students now have a deeper understanding of why we need to save water and how we can save water. It was wonderful to see how proud the students were of their creations and to hear them verbalising their thoughts, ideas and knowledge behind their creations.

Wash your vegetables in a bowl of water, rather than the running tap and water your garden in the morning or night- not in the middle of the day.

Use a water tank or buckets to collect rain water to water your garden.

Use water tanks to collect rain water. Use this

water to wash your car.

A bright and colourful poster, asking people to reuse water

from the washing machine to water their garden.

These girls acted out a fantastic play. Their message was to show people to use buckets to wash the car instead of using the hose.

Walkathon

What a tiring and very enjoyable day!
The grade 2 students made an excellent effort to complete 3 or even 4 laps at the Rowville Walkathon. The students were very determined to walk for as long as they could and get as many marks on their hands as possible! Thanks to the parents who came along and marshaled for the morning and to the parents who joined in and completed the laps as well. We couldn't have done it without you! The students had a great morning, improved their fitness and motivated them to improve their fitness further :)

This came at a great time as it links in with our "Happy, Healthy, Me" topic for next term. We will be learning about how important exercise if for us, as well as a healthy diet, rest and recreation.

On the final lap.

Hands On Maths Activity: Pictures out of icy-pole sticks

We love to do maths that involves 'hands on' components. This particular activity allowed us to use our imagination and creativity to create a picture of our choice, out of icy pole sticks. We then estimated how many sticks we thought we used to make our picture. After we counted our icy-pole sticks we worked out the difference by taking-away the smallest number from the biggest number. We used a calculator to check our answers. Once we knew our actual amount, we grouped them into groups of 10. We could then record the multiplication equation and repeated addition for our sticks.

What a lot of maths out of a bunch of icy-pole sticks!

Creating our pictures.

Using a calculator to find out 'the difference'

and grouping our sticks in 10's to help us

with multiplication and repeated addition.

Grade 2 Singing

Every Friday morning all the Grade 2's get together for a sing-a-long. They have a great time and get to catch up with their friends from the other grades. They have learnt many songs such as Splish Splash, Shake Your Tail Feather, Mama Mia, Superman and The Underwear Song!

Their singing has really improved! They have learnt lots of new words and meanings of words, developed new friendships, improved their rhythm and you should look at their dance moves!

Piano Performance At Assembly

We were lucky to watch and listen to many piano performances at assembly. It was extra exciting to have two students perform from our grade! Congratulations to the performers, what a magnificent job you did in front of the whole school. We look forward to your next performance!

Is There More Water Or Land On Earth?

We were wondering if there is more water or land in the world, so we decided to find out. This was great as we could integrate our Term 2 topic and maths. To do this we covered a map of the world with counters. We used one colour to represent the water and another colour to represent the land on earth. We then counted all the counters to see which colour there was more of. Many of us were surprised to find there is more WATER in the world than land.














Two students ready to count up their counters.

PJ Day!

As part of Education Week we had a PJ day. It was nice to do our Independent Reading while being all snugly and warm in our PJ's.

Look at those pyjamas!

The Water Cycle

To help to further our understandings of 'The Water Cycle' we went out into the sandpit to create it.

We imagined that........

the sun had heated up the water so that it went up into the sky and turned into a gas called vapour (evaporation).

The vapour became colder and the air could not hold anymore vapour, so the vapour was turned into fog, mist or clouds (condensation). We pretended that polystyrene cups with holes in them were the clouds.

The clouds became dark and heavy and we saw the water return back to the land as rain (precipitation).

Some of the water soaked into the ground/sand for the plants and animals to drink (ground water).

We saw that most of the water formed small creeks and streams in the mountains (surface runoff).

We noticed that the water continued to flow and collected in the rivers and the oceans (collection).

The water was returned to the land by precipitation.

The water formed small creeks or streams.

The water collected in rivers, lakes or oceans.

Term 2 Writing Genre: Information Reports

We have been busy writing reports about topics which we believe we are experts at. We have come across many features of reports such as, titles, headings, contents, labelled diagrams, glossaries and indexes and have tried hard to incorporate these into our own non-fiction information reports.

We performed a simple experiment of placing celery in red food dyed water. The reason we did this, was so we could write a report on what we did, why we did it and what happened.

We saw how the celery had used the water and had transported it around the plant, through the veins, up the stem and out to the leaves.

Taking the celery out of the red food dye water and about to dissect the celery to see what happened.

Term 2 Integrated Studies Topic: Water

So far we have learned that water is very precious and is important for survival. We brainstormed many ways that we use water at home and at school. We know how important it is to save our water and have come up with a lot of water saving ideas. We know that water can be solid (ice), liquid (wet and fluid) and a gas (vapour) and that pure water is tasteless, odourless and colourless. We have learnt about the water cycle and the following terminology: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, ground water, surface runoff and collection.

Students showing their labelled diagrams of the Water Cycle.

Festa Italiana

What a wonderful week!
We had such a busy week filled with puppet shows, chalk drawings, soccer clinics, cartooning, pizza and gelato. We also participated in a sensational Italian parade, where we could showcase the lovely masks we made in art. All of the grade 2's sang and danced to an Italian song about colours. We learnt and performed the whole song in Italian!

Working with Grade 4G to create our chalk drawings.
Showing great teamwork!

Exploring our creativity.
Having fun and developing friendships along the way.
Performing a song about colours in Italian, during the Italian assembly.

Look at those lovely Italian clothes and masks!

Term 1 Integrated Studies Topic: Relationships

In Term One we learnt all about 'Relationships'. We investigated the attributes of good friends, how to make new friends and how to maintain friendships. We realised that everyone is different in their own way and that it is important to be sensitive to these differences. We also used Fairy Tales and other story books to look at various types of relationships.

We brainstormed all of the attributes and qualities 'good friends' have.

We displayed our thoughts and ideas using a mind map, which is graphic organiser.

Here two students are learning about each other and developing a relationship. During this activity students needed to interview each other to find out what they had in common and any differences they could find. Their information is presented in a Venn Diagram, which is another graphic organiser.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our Blog. We will be updating this Blog with some of the exciting activities we have done and the experiences we have had, during our Grade two year. We are very excited to be able to share our learning and school life with our families. We hope you enjoy following our journey and progress throughout the year.







We are a great team!