Ultranet

Wendy our Regional Ultranet Coach and Meredith 5/6 teacher have been working with the teachers and groups of children on the Ultranet.
Our ICT technican Willie worked hard at the beginning of this term to make sure all children could log on.
Wendy and Meredith train groups of children in using the applications featured on the Ultranet. These children then train other children.
Currently the children are learning to insert a word document into their Ultranet space, to customise the background, to use wikis, vokis and the blog.
In term 3 we aim to have the children to insert their learning agreements into their Ultranet space and to use their individual blogs to write goals and to reflect on their learning.
Thank you to Wendy, Meredith and Willie and to our talented children.

Spelling

The children have commenced sound investigations.
They are enjoying learning that letters have names and only make sounds when they are part of a word. We have looked at words and have studied the sound 'e' eg 'ee' as in bee, 'ey' as in key, 'ea' as in each.
The children's names were used as a starting point for these investigations.
This week we are investigating the sound 'a' in words and will collect words that show graphs, digraphs, trigraphs representing the 'a' sound eg 'ay' as in day, 'ai' as in snail, 'a-e' as in came.
Each child has a spelling book to record their discoveries.
We encourage you to discuss these sounds and how they are represented in words. The children could collect different examples of words with the 'a' sound and bring them to school.
The children also choose two or three words to study through spelling activities every week.

Parent Teachers Interviews

We are looking foward to celebrating the children's achievements and discussing their future learning directions with parents. The children are welcome if they wish to attend. The duration of these interviews are 10 minutes.
Tuesday 28 June interviews for Rita's homegroup will be held in the conference room opposite Julie's office.
Thursday 30 June Interviews for Jessica's homegroup will be held in room 14. Jessica and Rita will conduct these interviews.
Ethan's homegroup interviews are to be held early in term 3 with Ethan and Kevin.

Learning Wall

A learning wall has been created in the writing space in room 14.
This learning wall will feature the strategies and concepts that are continually being developed in literacy, mathematics and inquiry learning across the whole neighbourhood. Congratulations to Maddie and Bassi our first two students who are currently featured making their learning visible.
This learning wall will be a place for children and parents to constantly review learning. It also connects to our school values which state that we are a community of life long learners and it makes learning visible.
As we are all learners, throughout the second half of the year parents will be interviewed by their children about what the parents learnt during the week. The children are also asked to take a digital photo of the parent they interviewed and prepare a short report to feature on the wall.
All parents are invited to come and view our learning wall.
Thank you very much to Olivia Kelly for her work in establishing this important home school link.

Alison Lester and University High Authors visit the Grade 2 Neighbourhood

As part of the Grade 2 Neighbourhood’s inquiry investigation about ‘What is a story?’ the children read ‘Are we there yet?’ by Alison Lester. The children related to many of the events that took place in the holiday recount and were inspired to present their own school holiday recounts in a similar style.

Beth Jackson wrote an email to Alison Lester explaining what the neighbourhood had been doing and how much we would appreciate and enjoy a visit. Beth captured Alison Lester’s imagination and she agreed to speak to the grade 2 neighbourhood. In preparation for Alison’s visit the neighbourhood has been reading her books in Book Talk with parent helpers. The children have been conducting word investigations while reading her books and have been making text to text and text to life connections.

Alison Lester and the students from University High visited the Grade 2 Neighbourhood on Thursday the 23rd of June. The Year 7 students from University High School were first to visit arriving a little after the 9 O’clock bell. The Year 7 students had published their own picture books and shared their books and experiences as writers to small groups.

The children were buzzing with excitement and were ready and waiting when Alison arrived a little after 12. The hour visit flew by as the children asked questions about her inspiration, the process she goes through when writing a book and her illustrations. Alison brought in her new book ‘One Small Island’, which is not in stores yet and read it to the class. To finish the session Alison kindly signed children’s books and donated 3 of her books (Noni the Pony, My Farm and Magic Beach) to our school library. Alison Lester is a wonderful story teller.

Rita, Jessica, Ethan and Emma would like to thank all the parents who have participated in Book Talk this term, our Year 7 authors from University High School, Clare Watson for organising the year 7 visit, Alison Lester and our very own Vicky and Beth Jackson.

Book Talk

Book Talk has been one of the many highlights of term 2. Students, teachers and parents have all thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Ethan, Rita, Jessica and Emma would like to thank Jo Horsburgh, Gabi Mira, Meredith Gunn, Clare Watson, Michelle Tenace, Laurel Gormn, Julie Markovic, Tina Winn and Leah Ramfos for leading book talk reflections.


We look forward Book Talk in Term 3.

Learning Agreement

The Children have been working with the learning agreements for the past 2 terms. The learning agreement encourages children to take control of their own learning. The learning tasks on the agreements have been workshopped and further covered in target teaching sessions as required. The children are eager to share their learning with you. Please feel free to look over this terms learning agreements and discuss the learning with your children.

The children are also selecting, reflecting and publishing their pieces of conferenced work at the moment. These pieces will be available to be shared in your child's portfolio.

The children are recording their personal narratives onto an ipod. These stories will be uploaded onto our blog and eventually the children's individual ultranet profiles. This ongoing process with continue into early next term.

A Story from Grade 2.

Our class was asked 'what is a story?'. A note was sent home asking if you knew an author or an illustrator who would come and work with our class. I didn't know anyone, but I had a look at Alison Lester's website, and I decided to email her. Alison Lester writes really good books, like 'Are we there yet?' and the 'Bonnie and Sam' series. I sent an email asking if she could come to visit our school. I was nervous doing this, but also excited. On Wednesday Alison Lester contacted Rita, to arrange to visit out school. I told my learning neighbourhood about how I had sent the email to Alison Lester. Everyone is excited, and I can't wait to meet her.

Bethany Jackson

Grade 2

Alison Lester will be visiting the neighbourhood on Thursday 23rd June.

Walk-a-thon

Last Tuesday we had a beautiful sunny day for the winter walk-a-thon. A lovely day was had by all. Sponsor money now needs to be collected and brought back as soon as possible. Thank you to those families who have already collected the money and handed it in.

Library Helpers

The Grade 2 Neighbourhood have 3 library sessions each week, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. All sessions are from 2:45 to 3:30. We are looking for 1 parent helper for each session to assist the children with borrowing books and reading a story to the group. If you can help please sign up on the noticeboard outside the learning space. If you require further information please see Jessica.