24 Nov 2017

Year 2 Update Wk 14

Tuesday 28th November – Mandarin Parent Consultations. Booking is closed on the Gateway and we are fully booked from 3pm to 8pm.

Thursday 30th November – 60s Dress Up Day & PTA Disco for Year 1-3

Friday 8th December – Sunshine Action Day

Wednesday 13th December – Christmas Party (More details to follow)

Thursday 14th December – Christmas Concert 7pm

Friday 15th December – Last day of Term 1, 12pm finish

Friday 15th December – Mid-year reports go live on The Gateway. We will we reporting on our second unit of inquiry and on the children’s progress in Maths and English, so don’t forget to have a look to see how your child is developing.

The weather has cooled down in HK and many of the children are coming to school dressed very warmly. Please help your child to dress in layers so that they can be removed when they are hot. The classroom is very warm with 30 children inside it and the children are often very hot after breaks, lunchtimes and PE sessions. Unfortunately, some children have very thick vests and leggings under their trousers that they are sweating and very uncomfortable in the classroom. When the weather turns colder, we have heaters in the classroom.

On Thursday 30th November for Years 1-3 there will be a 1960s Dress Up Day & Disco

To continue our BHS 50th Anniversary celebrations, we will have a 60’s themed dress up day next week. Children can dress up in 60’s style for school and then be ‘Disco ready’. All children should come dressed up even if they are not attending the disco after school. The fashion trend in the 1960’s was varied; hippy style, swing dresses, twin sets and more!

JUNIOR CHOIR

Five children from each Year 2 class have joined the Junior Choir. Due to the limited number of spaces the children’s names of those wishing to attend were all put into a draw. An e-notice has been sent to those in the choir about the Christmas concert. Although the children will each be offered a performers pass, accompanying family members will need to buy a ticket.

All children in Year 2 will be invited to join the choir after Christmas if they would like to participate in our Afternoon Tea Easter Concert.

SUNSHINE ACTION

I am very pleased to announce, thanks to your generosity and the hard work of our students, we raised $150,000. This is a tremendous sum and I think it shows what a special community we belong to. We can now start to purchase the food so on 8th December our students can work with Sunshine Action at school to make the food parcels for the different charities. To help our students with the food parcels we need parent volunteers, approximately 30. These parents will be working with groups of students to help them make the food parcels. If you are interested please click here.

Well done to 2D for their fantastic assembly about sustaining the environment. Hopefully everyone will try to make some of the good environmental choices they talked about.

The children have started their new unit of inquiry all about different celebrations. They have begun by inquiring into Christmas; why it is celebrated, the features of the celebration and how people celebrate it in different ways.

The children enjoyed finding out how a ‘green screen’ works with Ms Kannis and tried to video themselves. They also enjoyed some drama activities.

During their first clay session, the children have started to plan and create a candle holder. The candle holder is based on a celebration of their choice.

The Year 2 teachers benefited from observing Professor Sullivan leading a lesson on fractions in 2D. This followed a staff meeting and workshops for our professional development. Thank you if you were able to attend his parent session on Wednesday night.

Central idea:People recognise important events through celebration and traditions.

Lines of inquiry:

Features of traditions and celebrations (form)
Why people celebrate (causation)
Different approaches to celebrating (the same celebration) (perspective)

This week the children will be continuing to inquire into Christmas. They will be finding out why people celebrate Christmas, the different features of Christmas celebrations and how people celebrate Christmas in different ways. They will be learning about the Christmas Story concerning the birth of Jesus.

In this unit of inquiry, the children are very fortunate to have Ms Cassie working with them to produce some clay work. This week the children will be creating the body of their candle holder by sticking together two pinch pots.

The children will be taking part in drama activities where they will concentrate on using their body language and facial expressions to create freeze frames to describe Christmas celebrations.

We would love you to send in one or two photos of your child celebrating. It could be a photo of them at a Birthday/Christmas/Easter/CNY celebration. We would like to display them so the children can talk about how their family celebrates.

Central Idea: Measurement involves comparing, ordering and sequencing objects and events

The children will be learning to:

Read and write the time to the hour and half hour.
Identify and record dates of events on a calendar.
Name and order the months of the year and seasons.

This week the children will continue to practise reading the time to the hour and half hour. They will also be going over the months of the years and talking about events, celebrations and seasons that happen in the different months. They will also be completing some problem solving activities to do with time.

Perhaps over the next week, please use language of time with your child (o’clock, hour, half past, bed time, lunch time, before, after, in a minute, next, a few minutes, longer, shorter)

Please continue to practise number bonds to 10, 20, 30 and 40:

https://www.mathplayground.com/number_bonds_10.html

The children will be looking at ways in which people write to socialise. They will be reading and sharing some poems. If you have a favourite poem please encourage your child to bring it in and share it with their class.

The children will be continuing to ask questions. They will be considering whether their questions are closed questions, or open questions which require more thinking and inquiring. The children will also be learning to determine the importance of information they find; is it relevant to their question or is it just something interesting?

In phonics we will be looking at the long a sound: a, ai, ay, a-e.

Please continue to read with your child at home and ask them to retell the story. Please encourage your child to write down the title of the text they choose from Big Universe.

Well done to:

2K – Katie Chu

2D – Yan Yan Yip

2A – Hill Liu

Spelling

Your child will be given a new set of words to learn!

Your child will need to learn the 3rd list of words. They will be tested on these 8 words next Friday in school.

Your child will need to choose two activities to complete – one from a yellow box and one from a white box. They are not completing these activities in the spelling book. These activities are designed to help your child to learn their 8 words. It is up to you where your child completes these activities (they could buy a notebook or use scrap paper). When the activities are completed, please sign your child’s spelling card to let us know that they have been done.

Your child will also be doing some handwriting practise to help them learn the words. This is done in the spelling book.

Your child is only learning 8 spelling words this week, not all 32 words.

Reading

Please be reminded that in Year 2, your child will not bring home a reading book on Tuesday or Thursday they will need to read on Big Universe. Children login and select ‘My Library’ from the top of the page. At the right hand side in the ‘Filters’ section they can select the ‘Grade Level’ of books. If the children select kindergarten,grade 1 and 2 this is the most appropriate reading age for them (5-8 years).

Mandarin – All children are encouraged to take a reading book home on the days when they have Mandarin lessons.

Year 2 Update Wk 14

Communications

News

Upcoming Events