Sunday 30 April 2017

Welcome to Term 2!

Kia Ora Whanau and welcome 
to our Year 2 blog! 

Here is a place where you can get information about Year 2 and Thorrington School in general. We will also be posting photos and videos of our learning throughout the year. If you scroll down you can see some highlights from Term 1. 

On the right of the blog page there is the school Facebook feed and Calendar for more information. There are also useful links to learning websites and our new BugClub website (see previous post) and the Coding Club that runs on Fridays after school. 


Below is our newsletter for Term 2
Feel free to leave comments for us to read out in class! You can also subscribe by email (see top right of page) so you can be notified when new content is posted. 

Bug Club


Here is a blog post about our new reading feature for Year 2 this term. We have set up an online reading program for all our students to use both at school and at home. 

We first saw it in Halswell School and used it last year in Year 2. We loved it so much we have decided to set it up again this year. Year 1 are also launching their Bug club this term. At the end of this post there is a short video from BugClub to explain how it works for students, parents and teachers. 


How do you log on? 
Each student has an individual login which will be stuck in their notebooks this week. As well as their password there will be a QR code that will take them to the login page - you can also click on the Bug above or on the Bug on the right hand side of our blog to get to the login page. 

What books will I be able to read?
Each student will have an allocation of digital texts based on their guided reading group in class. This will change as the students move between their groups. 

When shall we read the books?
You can read any book allocated, at any time, on any internet connected device. We will give each student some time each week to read in class using the ipads and once a week this will be their take home reading as part of their normal home reading program. So each student will take home three books a week plus one BugClub book to read at home. For example one student could bring home a book on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and spend Wednesday reading a bug club book. Parents can sign in the notebook that this has been done. 

How does this fit into the Daily 5? 
The component of the Daily 5 called 'Listen to Reading' matches the Bug club text as each book has a read aloud feature. We will encourage students to listen in school on earphones so they get to hear fluent readers reading out loud. However the BugClub is designed to be totally flexible to the reader so the read aloud function can be turned off if desired. 

Anything else?
Yes, there are many features within each text. See the video below for some clues, but it is more fun exploring the texts at home with your child to see how the BugClub can work for you! 



Easter visitors?

Big Thanks to Sophie's mum for organising some Easter Bunnies to pop in and deliver Easter treats for Year 2 at the end of term! 




Inquiry - Turangawaewae - A Place To Stand

A chance for us to collaborate - in small groups we found places on our school map and recorded our thinking about what we do in these places 



We made connections to our Treasure Hunt earlier in the term.








Buzz Groups - a chance to show and tell











Learning maths with materials (and some coding!)

Some pics from our maths sessions - we learn by using materials and we are beginning to code (computational thinking) using Scratch Jrn. on the ipads!








Treasure Hunt!

As part of Inquiry in Term 1 we explored our space - we used QR codes and the ipads to scan the next clue which took us all over the school! 

                    


We then plotted our places on a google map image and brainstormed some thinking about why these places are important to us. 


Here are some pics of us on our treasure hunt! 








Time to share our writing

We love a chance to share our great writing! 


Daily 5 - Read To Someone

We have been practicing our fluency by reading aloud to each other as part of our 
Daily 5 - Read To Someone