Year 2

Plants Here, There and Everywhere

As part of our unit of inquiry into how plants support other living things and play an important role in other people’s lives, Year 2 has been getting their hands dirty!

We learned from our knowledgeable school gardeners how to plant seeds, and then went out into our brand new mini garden to try it out for ourselves. Our mini garden will be a great way for us to learn about plant growth, different types of plants, taking responsibility for the environment, as well as self-management and collaboration skills.

At home, we planted our own spinach plant, and observed how it grew over time. Every week, we reported back to our teachers about what our plant looked like, what we had been doing to care for the plant, and anything else we had noticed about its growth. Being responsible for our very own living thing is an amazing experience!

Let’s Experiment - What Do Plants Need to Grow?

Year 2 carried out an experiment into what plants need to grow. Utilising the scientific method, we made hypotheses based on our prior knowledge, and then planted seeds in 4 different conditions.

After monitoring the growth of the seeds over 14 days, we were able to come to conclusions. Do all plants need soil to grow? What happens to plants that don’t get any sunlight? We made some interesting observations and learned a lot about how plants grow.

Amazing Artists

To better appreciate how humans depend on plants, Year 2 created plant-based paints from suji (green), turmeric (yellow-gold) and butterfly pea (blue-purple). We also explored other possible plant-based colours independently, such as getting a dark red colour from beetroot. We identified which parts of the plant our paints came from, and then showed our creativity and imagination through our paintings

Stop Motion Exploration

Building up our skills in technology is a big focus for us in Year 2. This unit, we have been exploring the use of Stop Motion Studio to animate and create interesting videos from ordinary objects. Over 7 weeks, we have learned the history behind stop motion, practised making stop motion videos. Soon we will have the option to demonstrate our understanding of our central idea by making stop motion animations about plant and animal interdependence.

Check out some of our early creations.