Happy Mother’s Day

We hope all our wonderful mothers have a lovely day!

 

 

 

Introduction to contractions

This week we have begun learning about contractions.  A contraction is a shortened form of one or two words.  Here are some examples:

Here are some rules for contractions that we have  discovered so far:

- The first word does not change

- A letter or letters are taken out of the second word

- An apostrophe `fills the space’ of the missing letter or letters

- Some contractions are made by removing only one letter : he + is = he’s

- Other contractions are made by removing all : she + would = she’d

Visit Spelling City to learn more!

We had fun singing along with this song which has lots of examples of contractions.

Can you share some examples of contractions that you know?

Have you noticed any other rules about contractions?

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The Flat Stanley Project

We are off to a flying start in Term 2!  We have begun reading `Flat Stanley’ by Jeff Brown.  In the story a bulletin board falls on the main character Stanley Lambchop.  He’s fine, but now he is flat!  Stanley is able to go on all sorts of exciting adventures. He discovers that one of the advantages of being flat is that his parents can put him in a large envelope and mail him for a visit to his friends in California.

 We decided to make our own Flat people who are just about to go on an adventure of their own!  We have connected with a Year 3 class at South Shaver Elementary, Pasadena, Texas who have also made flat people.  We are going to send our flat people over to visit their class and they will send their flat people to us.  How exciting!!  We plan to take photographs and keep a diary of everything that we do with our flat visitors.

Have you read Flat Stanley?

What do you think would be fun to do with our `flat friends’ when they arrive? 

 

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2D and Sport in Schools Australia

2D and Sport in Schools Australia on PhotoPeach

Easter Hat Parade 2013

Easter Hat Parade 2013 on PhotoPeach

Practising our spelling words

Practising our spelling words on PhotoPeach

2D describe their Night Zoo Animals

2D used Ms Dowling’s ipad to take a picture of their `Night  Zoo’ animals then record their descriptions.

Before recording the 2D kids practised reading their descriptions to a partner.  They wanted to make sure that the reading sounded fluent – just like a speaking voice.  2D thought it was also important to try to make their reading sound interesting.

This was the first time that they have used the ipad in this way and they also did it alone! What a great job!

Here are some for you to listen to at home.

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Practising plurals

Over the last few weeks we have been learning how to change nouns (names of people, places or things) into plurals.  We have discovered some rules to help us.

Rule 1:  For most nouns you simply need to add `s’ to make the word into a plural

cat/cats               bike/bikes                 spoon/spoons

Rule 2: Nouns that end in -ch, -sh, -x, -s or -z you must add `es’

crunch/crunches           fox/foxes       buzz/buzzes

Rule 3:  If a word ends in a consonant and a ‘y’, drop the ‘y’ and add ‘ies’

fly/flies          try/tries        cry/cries

We always keep in mind that English is a tricky language and that these rules don’t ALWAYS apply – sometimes there are some exceptions!

The games below might help you to discover some new rules.  (These games will be also be added to the literacy games page which you can access from the tabs at the top of the page).


 Did you notice any new rules when playing the games?  Explain in your comment.

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2D create animals for the Night Zoo

Here are a few pictures of the 2D kids creating animals that they imagined might live in the ‘Night Zoo’.

2D Paint animals for the night zoo from Jen Dowling on Vimeo.

The children let their imaginations run wild.  Look how they turned out!

We have been working hard on our descriptions and we have begun writing missions too.  2D realises that writing takes time.

Have you been to visit the `Night Zoo’ yet?

 

 

 

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Year 2 Excursion to Bilo

On Monday Year 2 went on an excursion to Bilo as part of our COGs unit this term.  The children worked in teams along with the Parent helpers to buy food from Bilo for a healthy picnic.  We were really lucky because we also got to go into the loading dock and see the cool room where all the frozen goods are stored.  How exciting!

Once the shopping was done we headed over to the park to munch on our delicious picnic lunches.  There was lots of different foods to be seen on the picnic rugs – bread rolls, sandwiches, devon, cheese, apples, bunches of grapes, poppas.  Yum!

After lunch we moved over to the playground equipment to get started on the Maths Trail activities.  This included a circuit of different activities using the playground equipment as inspiration.  Year 2 used their clipboards and booklets to record their answers.

Watch this vimeo to see us in action!

We really enjoyed our day and were very lucky to have such beautiful weather.  Thanks to all the helpers who came along.  We hope you had a fantastic day too!  Thanks to Bilo for having us!

What do you like to eat when you go on a picnic?