Welcome to 2H!  My goodness, is it just me or did the Christmas holidays just fly by?!  I hope you all had a fabulous break and are ready for the 2014 school year.

I’m very excited about meeting everyone and getting to know you as the year progresses.  For those of you who don’t know me my name is Mrs Hodsman and this is my 9th year at Oatlands.  If my name isn’t ringing any bells then that’s probably because I’ve changed my name this year after getting married last year (my maiden name is Miss Strong).  This is my second year in grade 2, having previously taught grade 3 and 4.

 My goal is to provide your child with the highest quality education and a love for learning, while teaching them the personal responsibility necessary to become an exceptional student for years to come.  To achieve this I believe it is important to establish and maintain close working relationships with families.  During the first few weeks of the school year I will be sending home many notices and information.  Please take the time to read through these so that you understand and become familiar with the routines and expectations of 2H.

Feel free to pop in and visit our classroom before or after school to see where all the magic happens!  If you wish to speak to me throughout the school year I can be contacted via email, phone, send in a note or swing by the classroom.  If it’s regarding something particularly important then please make an appointment so that I can ensure we have enough time and I don’t have to rush off to a meeting.

This year will be an important (but very exciting) year for your child as they move away from the junior school and towards middle school.  Please help them to develop their independence by encouraging them to carry and unpack their own school bag, maintain regular homework routines and ‘owning’ their behaviour.  By this I mean acknowledging when they have made a mistake and accepting consequences or taking steps to rectify the situation as well as recognising and celebrating successes and good choices.

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to teach your child and work with you this year.  We are going to achieve some amazing things!

 Kind Regards,

Jess

We had a fantastic afternoon when our grandparents came to visit us last week.  Here are some photos from the day.

After a couple of weeks revising some of our CAFE strategies, we are ready to learn another new one.  ‘Use the Pictures’ fits into the accuracy part of CAFE and is quite often one of the first strategies that children learn when starting to read.  As adults, we continue to do this when we look at graphs to interpret statistics, when we use maps or when we glance at photos in the newspaper.

Why it’s important

Illustrations can provide hints to help students to decode words.  Using the pictures also helps them to develop their inferential comprehension and can be a form of cross checking as they ask themselves, ‘Does the picture match what I’m reading?’

When reading with your child this week, begin with looking through the pictures.  Can you work out what’s happening in the story? Talk about what’s happening in the pictures.  Look at the expressions on the character’s faces, look for links between the pictures and a word or group of words within the text or talk about what pictures they would draw if they were the illustrator and why?

Remember, it is vital that students read regularly at home.  It is also essential to listen to the students as they read and to discuss the books.  Talking about the book will help them to develop new understandings and with a reading strategy to practise each week, you should have lots of new things to talk about.

Have a go at some of these doubling games.

• Doubles Shootout
• Monkey Drive
• War of the Words

We’ve been busy this week making  something special for Mother’s Day.  The kids were super excited about this little activity and we’re sure each mum is going to be just as thrilled about getting it.

Here are a few clues, any guesses?

Shhhhhh kids, don’t tell Mum what it is!

In other news…

Hopefully you all received the notice about our new approach to teaching reading strategies – CAFE.   We’ve been slowly building up strategies on our CAFE menu and will continue to do this throughout the year.  Most weeks I’ll try to keep you updated with our reading strategy, otherwise ask your child what they’re focusing on, they should be practising each night when they read their school reader.

You’re child should be able to decode their reader independently.  If they appear ‘easy’ then this is a great indication that they are reading at an appropriate level and can work on their comprehension strategies instead of focusing on decoding the text.

I love to hear about families fostering a love of reading and books.  This can be done by signing up to your local library, using books as a reward for positive behaviour or even by modelling reading as a preferred activity to TV.  Is there anything better than snuggling up on the couch with a good book on those cold winter days?

Keep your eye out for more tips and information from our English Coordinator, Lisa Mills, in the newsletter or drop in and have a chat if you would like more information on CAFE.

Happy reading!

This week our reading strategy is all about using prior knowledge.  This can help students connect their own experiences with the text to better understand and make sense of what they are reading.  It is also a great way to bring lots of dialogue into reading time!

Some questions to help you with this strategy are:

‘What experiences have you had that might be similar to what this book cover is telling you?’

‘How did you feel in a similar situation?’

‘Does this part of the story remind you of anything you have done before or read before?’

Happy reading everyone!

I started this activity by asking the kids to classify several pictures as living or non-living and to provide a reason as to why it belonged in that category.

It was really interesting to listen to the children’s thoughts on this topic:

‘The car is living because it moves.”

“The tree is living because it grows like us.”

“A rock can’t see or breathe, it’s not living.”

Then we looked at all the similarities between living things.  They breathe, move, need food, grow, respond to their environment etc.  Once we had a good understanding of this we ventured out into the playground to classify some of the things out there.  The kids loved this task and had their pencils to paper before we had even left the classroom!

Check out our work on the science board next time you’re walking past.

I have set some great Mathletics tasks for you all to complete.  If you haven’t done them already, jump on a computer over the holidays and get stuck into them.

Click here to head over to Mathletics.

Maths games are a great way to reinforce learnt concepts and practise our basic number facts.  Here are are couple to get you going…

Rock Hopper

Bug Race