Term Three has started with a hiss and a roar!  We are busy learning in reading, writing and maths as well as drama, the Olympics and in PE, ball skills.

Reading: Each student brings home a reader each night.  Please listen to your child read this as it helps reinforce high frequency words, reading left to right, using the picture and alphabet to sound out words and to help expand their vocab.  

Everyone except the Pears group also has five spelling words a week to practise at home.  Students have an opportunity to practise twice a week in class too.  Please encourage your child to write and say the words which are drawn from their books or are words students are working to remember so they don't have to look it up each time they write something.

Writing: We are focusing on Recounts (telling our audience about something that has already happened) for the first three weeks then moving onto descriptions.  Please encourage your child to write at home - the shopping list, a letter to a relative, a story.  Let them sound out words they don't know using their alphabet.  I would love to see anything they write!

Maths: number knowledge, speed of adding as well as time (ordering events, length of events) and positional language is being focused on.  Students study telling the time on a clock in Year Two. This year is about building the language needed to do this.

Drama: We are discussing what drama is (story telling, making us think and feel) and how it is done.  Today we listened to Peter and the Wolf told with instruments and words, thinking about how this was done without any pictures yet we were all able to feel scared, happy, sad, worried and pleased.  The students asked for the link to watch it again at home so here it is:

 

Topic: The Olympics is a big focus this term.  We are learning about what the Olympics are, what sports are competed in, and about Iceland, the country we have adopted to follow along with NZ.  Next week we will look at things that are the same and different between our two countries.

Handwriting: Our letters this term are: a, u, y t, v, w, x, z and then we will do blends, our first being 'sh'.  We practise three or four times a week, singing a song about how we write (they can perform this for you at home), then a song about the letter (see below for an example) and then we write, using the letter in a sentence as well as individually.  Students are all learning to write their first and last names during handwriting.



Warm regards
Mrs Paxie