Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome to our sixth blog post of 2020. We have been working hard to make sure everything is ready for the rapidly approaching Welcome Expo which is only 5 days away (127 hours and 30 minutes). We know it is already marked in your diaries, but just in case you have forgotten, it is on Wednesday 11 March from 6pm-7.30pm. As Charlotte just calculated, it will run for one and a half hours where you can come and see how the spaces in our Neighbourhood are used purposefully to engage our curiosities and support collaborative learning.
After reflecting deeply these are a sample of the learning experiences we have been engaged in this week:
- We have been mapping with Ruby. We were looking at a map of our local area, and a map of our school. We created a key with symbols to show important places in our community. (Charlotte, Makaila)
- We have continued to work on identifying our strengths as learners. This is important as we can use our strengths to better achieve our goals and be more successful learners. (Eve, Thomas, Vivienne)
- We are finalising the displays of our Learning Spaces, by writing and drawing what they are called and how they are used purposefully. (Aurelian, Louis)
- We have been brainstorming ideas about the characters in our creative stories. We are developing our characters before we write our story so that we know what they do (Aurlien), their names (Heidi), what they like (Evie M), how many centimeters long their hair is (Tuesday), their age (Iggy), what they like to eat (Zoe), how tall they are (Isabella), what animals they like (Sotir), their favourite fruit (Frances), what clothes they wear (Binderiya), where they live (Jack B), what creatures or pets they might own (Thomas), their favourite places they like to go to (Gigi), what instruments they have (Ayshe), their favourite music (Owen), what they want (Mimi. F.Y.I, Mimi’s character Yummo the pig wants Christmas everyday).
- Some students have been writing questions to research for their non-fiction texts. Sotir and Joanna have been outstanding in this regard.
- Rehearsals were being held for the plays about Welcome so they will be ready for the expo. (Sumaye and Ayshe)
- After designing and building our catapults last week, we have been measuring how far they launch and reflecting on and changing our designs. (Isabella, Evie H).
- On Thursdays, a group of us go to Ukulele club with Deb where we are learning how to play the song You are My Sunshine. To play this song we needed to learn how to play C, A Minor, F and G chords (Owen). It is a bit hard for some people to remember where to put their fingers, but everyone is persisting with this new and exciting challenge (Sumaye). Sotir found it hard to switch from C to F because when he needed to start with his third finger and move to his second and first fingers.
- Also on Thursday we were able to work with students from Princes Hill Secondary College. They were helping us with the skills needed to play volleyball, tennis and cricket.
- We have started drafting and publishing letters to people in our Neighbourhood. We are writing these letters to tell our friends why we are friends with each other. (Zoe, Evie M)
We hope you have enjoyed reading our blog post and you all have a wonderful long weekend (Felix B).
Kind regards (Isaiah),
The Year 2 Neighbourhood.