Weekly Update - Year 2 - October 16th to 20th

Dear Parents,

We had so much fun this week with our bat focus. All our Literacy and a lot of our Maths has all been bat themed and this high level of interest in the topic has kept the momentum going at a happy pace. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon has been our fiction focus for this week. Although it it a work of fiction, the text cleverly weaves facts about fruit bats (or flying foxes) throughout the text. Ask your children what they know about fruit bats and you will be impressed by the sophistication of their responses. 

In Maths we measured out bat wingspans and compared the body weight of various species bats and to classroom objects. Did you know that at 2g, the mass of a bumblee bee bat is the same as that of a plastic unifix cube? We paced out classroom areas in metres and measured height and body length in centimetres. This practical application of Maths was enormous fun. 

Creating lapbooks about bats has been our key activity and enthusiasm and engagement has been very gratifying. All the children are creating a bat lapbook in order to acquire research skills and different ways and methods of presenting information in writing. After their completion, the children are free to select an animal of their choice to research and later share with you one morning at school. The date and time for this event is December 1st at 8.10 AM. 

You can support your child at home by using and discussing the following vocabulary words which will be integral to our unit Living Things are all Connected. When discussing an animal, talk about the following;
Appearance - what it looks like - fur/feathers/scales/skin.
Classification - mammals/reptiles/amphibians/birds/insects/fish
Diet - what does it eat? Is it predator or prey or both?
Habitat - where does it like to live? Caves/trees/underground/rivers/ocean etc.
Babies - born alive/from eggs/from a cocoon.
Adaptations - does it use echolocation like dolphins and bats? Can it camouflage? Claws?
Food chain -  Look at where animals fit into a cycle of connectedness. 
eg. nectar + butterfly + frog+ python + eagle

In week 2 after break, the children will begin researching their animal of choice. During the holiday, you can talk at home about their animal of choice so they are ready to go when  they come back. 

Halloween Celebration at school - In the first week back on Tuesday, Year 2 will join Year 1 for a mini Halloween celebration. To get them ready, send them to school in a simple costume such as hat, cape or mask. No make-up please. 

Money - We will be learning about money soon after break. If you have small denominations of money (coins) that you can spare, we would be grateful.

As always we appreciate your support in all we do. We wish you a relaxing and restful mid-term break with your children and look forward to seeing you on October 30th. 

Dates to Remember

21-29 October - School breaks for Mid-term holiday, School finishes at 2:35pm

30 October - School resumes for Term 1b
3 November - Loy Kratong
24 November - 2JC Assembly
1 December - Year 2 Workshare event

Our Last Week Before Mid-Term Break