Weekly Update :2nd - 6th October

We had a fantastic week of learning. Our classroom has turned into a science lab and we have been developing our observation skills and paying careful attention to the world around us.

We started the week with science investigations.

We were each paired up with a buddy, and were given one of the following task cards: 

Task Card 1:

Investigate what will happen if you cover a few of the leaves of a plant with tin foil and continue to water and give it sunlight.

Task Card 2:

Investigate what will happen if you water the same plants with equal amounts of different liquids (coke, water, juice, salt water)

Task Card 3:

Investigate what will happen if you plant 3 different bean seeds in different materials - sand, soil, and stones...and give them the same amount of water and sunlight.

Task Card 4:

Investigate what will happen if you plant 3 different bean seeds, and water each one with different amounts of water.

Task Card 5:

Investigate what will happen if you plant a bean in a maze...with the sunlight only getting in through the top of the box?

Task Card 6:

Investigate what will happen if you put cut flowers in containers with different coloured food colouring in them.

Task Card 7:

Investigate what will happen if you give seeds different amounts of light from different angles?

Task Card 8:

Investigate what will happen if you put green beans (mung or soy) in a sealed bottle with tiny air holes and water them daily? Compare this to growing the same beans in a dish with damp cotton wool.

Task Card 9:

Investigate what will happen if you plant bean seeds in different ways up on the edge of a cup lined with damp paper towels? Will the roots recognise down from up?

Task Card 10:

Investigate if you need seeds to grow plants by planting ½ a sweet potato in a jar of water.

Ask your child to explain to you which experiment they are conducting, what their hypothesis was...and what they have observed so far. They have been working on creating a scientific report as part of this process.

UOI - We looked at life cycles and began to investigate pollination and the important role insects play in our environment. In these images we are reading , sequencing and interpreting the life cycle of a sunflower.

Developing Success Criteria:
We got together with the other grade 2 classes and looked ahead to our summative assessment.

We found out our Task:

'Mr Ben needs your help to explain how plants grow. Because you will become experts through this unit, he would like your help to design a book to explain this to younger children.'

Your task is to make a children’s book that will explain the conditions and environments plants need to grow.

We needed to know what we had to include in our book to make it successful. We went away in groups of 4 and did an activity called 'bottoms up' to help us agree on our success criteria. Then we all got back together and agreed on these four ideas;

• I can include useful non-fiction text features and use child-friendly language.
• I can explain the life cycle of a plant.
• I can explain all the parts of a plant and what they do.
• I can explain the conditions plants need to grow.

Minecraft:

Mr Matt has been busy creating a Minecraft world to aid our understanding in this unit. We loved our first lab session and have started to develop community gardens and explore the needs and requirements of plants. We will have two more sessions then we will share our Minecraft worlds with you.

These videos show some of the discussion at the end of the session as we looked at each-others gardens.

Reading: In class reading, we continued to explore non fiction text related to our unit of inquiry. We also explored how to identify what is important as opposed to what is interesting when looking at text with Ms Rachel.


We are becoming more independent with our book selection...and are learning to choose from a variety of titles in the library. We love library time...there is nothing like finding a quiet space to read!


Ms Karyn spent time this week assessing us on our reading. While she worked with individuals, we were fabulous independent learners who self selected from these activities related to our unit. Next week we will meet with the teacher to develop our reading goals. We will share these on seesaw.

Mathematics: We reviewed using the symbols greater than, less than, and equal to. We looked at how many tens ones and hundreds are in numbers. We also precticed counting in tens, ones and hundreds and explored how we can use this understanding to quickly solve problems.

We have been learning to explain our thinking to our peers.

We finished the week with our individual school portraits. Our class photo will happen next Tuesday.