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Grade 2

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Literacy

In Grade 2, we have a daily literacy block that usually runs through our morning sessions. In this time, we develop a variety of different skills. To consolidate our students’ knowledge of phonics, we conduct a 30 minute session using the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) system, where each day we review previously learnt phonemes and concepts, and then add new knowledge to their repertoire. By the end of Grade 2 we want all students to be confident decoders that can access more complex texts and read unfamiliar words.

Each week we have one or more ‘mentor texts’, which we use to introduce students to new vocabulary, writing techniques and information that is linked with our writing or inquiry units of work. To improve students’ comprehension of a variety of text types, we have weekly reading groups in which they practice phonics and comprehension skills, as well as participating in a teacher-guided group where we teach them how to understand more difficult texts.

Each day, students wilk participate in fluency reading, where they will read aloud a teacher-selected text to a partner and receive feedback on their accuracy and expression. Throughout the week, they will see their word count increase as their mistakes decrease, improving their confidence in their reading ability.

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Writing

At Mullum Primary School, we teach writing through the Talk 4 Writing system, which involves learning a text by heart before learning how to replicate the writing techniques used in that text. In each unit, students memorise the text whilst participating in comprehension and drama activities to expand the world of the story and understand it at a deeper level. We then explicitly teach the writing techniques presented in the text, the effect they have readers and how to use them in writing pieces. After that, we innovate on our focus text, which means that each student creates their own version of that story where they alter key aspects such as characters, settings and topics. Finally, the students are challenged to use all their learning to create their own, original text based on what they have learned. Each term, we complete a fiction unit and a non-fiction unit to ensure students are developing confidence creating a variety of text types.

Maths

In Grade 2, we are focused on developing students’ problem-solving skills, alongside their fluency in working with two-digit and three-digit numbers. We begin our sessions with review of previously learnt skills and concepts, either through direct question and answer or through maths games.

Our learning time focuses on developing students’ ability to problem solve through open-ended questions and a variety of individual and group-based activities. We encourage students to learn to work with others by sharing their ideas; to facilitate this, we use vertical workspaces, where three students work together on a whiteboard with only one marker between them. In this setting, students take turns sharing their thinking with each other and recording it on their workspace. For all activities, we ensure that materials are available so that students can model their thinking.

Our central focus each year is ensuring that students can use their place value knowledge to compare, sequence, add and subtract two and three-digit numbers. We begin to develop their fraction knowledge by finding halves, quarters and eighths. We alternate our units between a focus on number and focus on measurement, geometry, chance and data.

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Inquiry

Each term, we have an inquiry focus which guides the planning of all the other subjects, including which books we read and which text types we learn. We build the students’ knowledge of these topics through these texts, and we often conduct excursions that relate to these areas.

Our inquiry focus for each term this year is:

  • Term 1 – Who We Are

  • Term 2 – Where We Are in Time and Place

  • Term 3 – How We Organise Ourselves

  • Term 4 – How the World Works

 

Science

Each term we have a different science focus. Once a week, we have access to Mullum’s Science Lab to investigate these concepts and conduct experiments. In 2024, our science topics are:

  • Term 1 – Earth and space

  • Term 2 – Physics

  • Term 3 – Chemistry

  • Term 4 - Biology

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