Year 2

Dear Parents/ Caregivers,

Welcome to learning at home for Week 7 Term 3. Remember our learning at home tasks give you the flexibility to plan these into your day around other commitments.

This Week’s Story Time

This week our spotlight story is Macca the Alpaca, read by Mrs Wells

Reading

This week for reading, there is a book to read each day. Each book also has some follow up activities for you to complete.

There are also some skill activities for you to do. This week the skills focus on making the long ‘a’ sound, learning what synonyms are and why we use them, and lastly some comprehension practice when reading non-fiction texts.

Sunshine Online provides access to a range of readers for junior children. To access Sunshine Online for digital readers please visit http://www.sunshineonline.com.au/

In the top right corner of this website, select the red login button and in the dropdown select the option ‘Student Login’

User name: Puhinui

Password: Books2015

Books & Activities

Focus: answering questions

Activities: Read these questions and write down your answers.

1. On page 3 - It is dusk in the wetland. What does dusk mean? Is it closer to morning time or closer to evening time?

2. On page 3 it says, Weka speeds along the bank. What does speeds mean in this sentence?

3. On page 4 - Why is Weka running so fast to get to her nest?

4. On page 7 - Who does Weka need to help?

5. On page 8 - Why does Weka need to sit on the soft nest?

6. On page 11 - What does hatch mean? (Look at the picture for a clue)

7. On page 11 it says, Ka pai, Weka, now it’s time to hunt for food. What does hunt mean?

Challenge questions:

8. On page 3 - What is a wetland? (Look at the picture for a clue).

9. On page 7 it says, Weka spots seeds to crunch. What does spots mean? What does crunch mean in this sentence?

10. On page 7 - Why didn’t Weka stop and pick up the seeds to eat?

11. On page 8 it says, He grins at his pink eggs. What does grins mean?

12. On page 11 - Why does Weka need to hunt for food now?

13. What kind of food do you think the chicks would like to eat?

Time to build your own bridge

• Read the instructions below and build a bridge using household items such as sticks, leaves, wooden blocks, pencils.

• Remember to refer back to the Sunshine Online book to remind yourself of different types of bridges.

• Take a look at some inspirational photos to help with building a bridge using household items

Once you have read or listened to the story, try these activities. Talk to someone in your family about this story and ask them for help if you need it.

Questions: You can write your answers on your own paper or you can print out the questions below.

1. What is a vet?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Why is Greedy Cat unhappy about going to the vet?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What is the vet doing to Greedy Cat?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. On the last page, what do you think Dad meant when he said, “The cat is fine. But I’m not sure about the vet”.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Challenge questions:

5. What do you think Katie will tell Mum about the vet visit?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. What do you think the vet will tell her family when she goes home?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Have you ever taken your cat to the vet? How did your cat feel?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

There’s 5 words in the story with the “ch” sound. Can you find them?

Here’s 1 to help you start: much

______________________ ________________________ _________________________ ______________________

Activities

In the words ready and steady, the “ea” makes the same sound. Write some more words that have the ea sound in them

Bread deaf __________ __________ __________ __________

__________ __________ __________

Answer these comprehension questions

1. Which grain does popcorn come from?

2. What happens to an egg when you cook it?

3. How does cake rise?

4. Use the book to help you find the meanings of these words

• Recipe

• Ingredients

• Preparation

• Serving

5. Pretend you are a chef. Draw a picture of you as a chef

6. Use some of these words to label your picture

• Chef’s hat

• Apron

• Whisk

• Gloves

• Recipe

• Knife

• Ladle

• Whisk

• Try the sunshine online quiz

• Talk to the adults in your family and ask them what their favourite recipe is. Write them down, and choose one to try with your bubble

Activities:

True or false: Decide if the following sentences are true or false

• Ducklings are fully grown at about sixty-six days old

True / False

• Adult ducks have a special oil gland at the end of their tail, which helps make their feathers waterproof

True / False

• Ducklings do not like water

True / False

Can you write your own True / False sentences

True sentence: ___________________________________________________________

False sentence: ___________________________________________________________

Comprehension questions: Have a go at answering these questions, you can talk about your ideas with a family member. Remember to write your answers in full sentences.

​​1. Where does Lloyd Warren work?

2. What does an incubator do?

3. Why can’t ducklings have a big bowl of water?

4. How does Lloyd know when the ducks are nearly ready to fly?

5. What do adult ducks have that makes their feathers waterproof?

• Draw a picture: Look at page 11, there is an adult duck and a duckling. Draw a picture of both to show how each is different.

Write some keywords about each duck in your picture.

For example,

Duckling: fluffy, cute, small

Skills Practice

Poems

Focus - Long ‘ i ’ vowel sound

Two Poems: A Windy Day and A Scary Sight

Here are two ways to make the long “ i ” sound:-

i_e = kite wire slide

igh = right bright fight

Read both poems to someone in your family. Can you find all the words with the long ‘ i ’ sound?

Write them down, here’s one to help you start -

bright _______________________ ____________________________ ______________________

_______________________ ____________________________ ______________________

_______________________ ____________________________ ______________________

Read your words to an adult.

Now write a silly sentence with some of your words. Here’s mine -

The night got a big fright when he saw the kite on a bike.

Challenge:

Can you think of more words with the long “ i “ sound?

bite stripe _______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

right ______________________________________________________________________

Synonyms

A synonym is a word that means the same or nearly the same as another word. For example, a synonym for big is large.

Synonyms can be a good way to add ‘wow’ words in your writing and make it more interesting. For example, ‘the ferocious lion’ sounds more interesting than ‘the scary lion’.

Here is a word bank of synonyms for the words said, went, big and small.

Can you sort them into the words they are synonyms for?

Challenge: Next time you do your writing, try to use a synonym to make the word more of a ‘wow’ word.

Long vowel - a

There are different ways to make the long sound a. For example:

ai= rain, train / ey= hey / eigh= eight, sleigh / a-e= cake, make / ay= day, tray

Focus: eigh

See if you can fill in the correct word in these sentences using an ‘eigh’ word from the vocabulary box below

• On the farm, I could hear the horse _____________.

• My _____________ lives in the house next door.

• Santa delivers presents by flying in his _____________.

• My brother had a birthday, he turned _____________.

• The vet measured the _____________ of our dog by using a scale.

Focus: ey

Hey! Can you make a list of ‘ey ’ words you might already know?

______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

If you get stuck, read these: obey, survey, they, grey

Fill in the sentences below with the correct word. Be careful, both words sound the same but are made up with a different long ‘a’ sound.

For example:

The lion was hunting it’s ______________. (prey / pray)

The lion was hunting its prey.

I know the ______________ home from the park. (way / weigh)

I used a kitchen scale to ______________ out the ingredients. (way / weigh)

The cow loved to eat ______________. (hey / hay)

My sister called “______________” to get my attention. (hey / hay)

Focus - a-e, using the magic e

Write these words on a big piece of paper

• can

• man

• mat

• hat

• cap

• plan

• mad

• tap

Read these words. Use the robot strategy to help you if you get stuck.

Watch this video

We are going to do a magic trick. First, you need a magic wand. Here is what my magic wand looks like.

Magic e makes the short sounds long. Practise saying the short and long sound for a, then add your magic e wand to the end of the words from the first activity.

Read them with the short sound, then the long sound.-

Here are some short a and long a words. Can you find the long a words?

Focus - ai

Here are some words with the ai pattern.

Which word goes in the spaces of these sentences?

• I think it might _______ later today.

• I dropped chocolate on my shirt and now there is a ________.

• I went on the ________ to see my aunty.

• I like to _________ pictures of flowers.

• My _________ grows when I do challenging things.

• My dog wags his ________ when he sees me.

Here is a poem to read that has lots of ai words

Long a revision activity

Non-Fiction Comprehension Skills Activity

Read the fact sheet two times

Answer the below questions in full sentences. Remember to use capital letters and full stops in correct places.

1. Which season does spring come after?

2. When does spring start?

3. Name one animal that is born in spring?

4. Which animals come back to New Zealand in the spring?

5. What happens to trees and plants in spring?

6. What celebrations happen in spring?

7. What is your favourite season and why?

Writing

When writing your stories don’t forget what good writers do…

2. The time I saw a lion…

3. 
   

4. We have been learning about habitats at school and one of the habitats we have been focusing on is the Savanna. Close your eyes and imagine you are on a safari in the African Savanna. Can you feel the hot sun on your skin, do you see the zebras and giraffes drinking from the waterhole, are there springboks leaping through the air? Hold on… what’s that over there… oh no, I think there is a fierce predator close by… YES! IT’S A LION!

5. 
   

6. Can you imagine what it would be like to be close to a lion?

7. Plan for your writing, you could set up the table below to help you.

Write a narrative (made up story) about what it would be like to see a lion, tell the reader how you would feel and what you would do?

Read your story back and make sure you are checking for capital letters and full stops.

Challenge: Can you use ‘wow’ words in your story? ‘Wow’ words are more interesting words to use, for example, instead of using the word scared you could say terrified

Write some instructions on how to brush a lion’s teeth. Make sure the reader can follow these instructions. For example if you want the lion to open its mouth don’t say “open your mouth”, say “Open the lion’s mouth” otherwise I might think I need to open my mouth!

Remember to sound out any words that you might not know how to spell.

Here are some words that might help you write your instructions

Challenge:

Can you write a great opening sentence to hook the reader in. Here’s mine: Wow, those lions have large ferocious teeth, I wonder how they stay so pearly white? Well, let me tell you how to brush their teeth. First…

Rain cloud in a Jar

Watch Mrs Virk’s science video

Before you begin your writing- think and discuss with an adult the materials Mrs Virk used/ the steps she took to conduct the experiment and the science behind the experiment

Before you begin writing, make sure you plan for your instructions. See the example below.

Reminder- when planning for writing, only record keywords. Remember keywords give us important information to form our ideas

Time to write a set of instructions for someone else to conduct this experiment.

Give your instructions a title and underline it so if someone else is following your instructions, they will know the name of the experiment

When writing your instructions, use time words (refer to the table below for words)

Challenge: Have a go at explaining the science behind the experiment in your writing

Or

Conclude your instructions by saying whether you liked/disliked the experiment and why.

Penguins

When you went to the zoo did you see the penguins? The zoo is their habitat.

Watch this short and fun video about penguins who live in Antarctica (The Antarctica is their habitat).

* PENGUIN * | Animals For Kids | All Things Animal TV

Let’s write an information report about penguins. An information report has facts in it (facts are things that are real).

Step 1:

Just like we do at school, draw a picture of a penguin or a few penguins and watch the video again, if you need to, so that you can write keywords beside your picture about penguins.

Step 2:

Choose your first key word and think about a sentence you can start your report with. Here’s mine to help you:

Penguins

Penguins have black and white bodies. They have two feet and two wings. They live in cold places like Antarctica but they live at the zoo too. They like to ___________________

Write a sentence about each of the keywords on your plan.

• Remember to read your writing, as you write, to check it makes sense

• Did you remember capital letters and full stops?

• Read your information report to an adult and they can help you if you get stuck

Challenge:

Can you add extra detail to your story to make it more interesting? Here is an example: Penguins have feathers to keep them warm in water because Antarctica is very cold.

MATHS

Skip counting in two’s

Practise skip counting in 2’s using the hundred board

What other things can you find in your house that come in sets of 2? Practise counting them in twos. Remember to draw and record your answer to show your thinking

Some suggestions:

• Pegs on the washing line (it’s a bonus if your child helps to hang out the washing, this is a great fine motor skill!)

• Gloves

• Earrings

• Chopsticks

• Knitting needles

• Skates

• Bike tyres

• Toy cars have pairs of wheels

• Doll hands and feet

Skip counting in 5’s

Like last week, use the hundreds board to practise skip counting in fives.

Here is a picture of my favourite kind of flower

It has five petals.

For my birthday, I got a bunch of 6 flowers to put in a vase.

How many petals are there in my bunch?

What if there were 8 flowers?

What if there were 3 flowers?

What if there were 11 flowers?

Make sure you record your thinking. You can draw the flowers and record your answer like this: 5, 10 15, __ , __ , etc

Challenge yourself to see how far you can skip count in 5’s. Can you get all the way to 100 before you make a mistake?

Follow up game: Buzz

With your family sit in a circle and practise skip counting in 5’s by only saying the 5th number. The other numbers need to be clapped. For example: clap, clap, clap, clap, 5, clap, clap, clap, clap 10 and so on. Challenge: Can you get to 100 without making any mistakes? Practise and see how quick you can do this game.

(This game can also be played to skip count in 2’s, for example clap, 2, clap, 4, clap, 6)

Repeated addition

Here are some examples of arrays:

You can watch Mrs Say make some arrays in her video

In year two, we start to learn to solve multiplication problems by repeated addition.

The x symbol means rows of, or groups of

Making physical arrays will help your child to understand this skill.

Give your child a set of objects (this can be anywhere from 10-30 objects)

Lego, pegs, flowers, leaves, shells, doll’s shoes, playdough to make balls etc.

Ask your child to organise the items into equal rows. When we organise things into rows, we call this an array. Arrays help us to learn multiplication, and there are lots of number sentences that we can write to match.

Once your child has sorted their objects into an array, ask them to write an addition sentence and a multiplication sentence to match, before giving the answer

Can you make a new array with the same number of objects? Does your answer change? How do your number sentences change?

For example 12 can look like 3 x 4 or 2 x 6

Repeated addition using our doubles knowledge

Watch this video of Miss Dreadon using repeated addition to solve a problem

Caterpillars on a swan plant

I had 5 leaves on my swan plant in the garden. On each leaf there were 3 caterpillars.

I know that double 3 is 6 and double 6 is 12. I then had to add on 3 more and I can count on those 3 by locking 12 in my head and counting on 13, 14, 15.

Can you try this problem with more or less leaves on the swan plant?

Doubling Practice

Here is my playdough recipe

• 2 cups plain flour

• 1 cup salt

• 1 tablespoon oil

• 1 cup cold water

• 2 drops liquid food colouring

1. Combine plain flour and salt.

2. Add water, food colouring and oil. Mix until ingredients are combined.

3. No cook playdough

4. Knead well.

5. If the consistency is too wet add a little plain flour.

Because we are at home, my little brother wants to play too. I decided that I want to make 2 different colours of playdough. Can you help me make enough playdough by doubling the recipe?

Re-write the recipe to show each ingredient doubled

What if my little brother and sister wanted to play?

I decided that I want to make 4 different colours of playdough. Can you help me make enough playdough by doubling the recipe, and doubling it again to make enough playdough?

Re-write the recipe to show each ingredient doubled, then doubled again

Extension: How many colours of playdough would you like to make? What would you have to do with the recipe to have enough?

Science

• Pour the water into the jar until it is ¾ full.

• Squeeze some shaving foam on top until the jar is full.

• Use the dropper to put 10 drops of food colouring onto the shaving foam.

• Watch what happens

Now it’s time for you to try this experiment. Make sure an adult is available to help you. Here are some discussion questions for you to think about?

• What did you like/dislike about this experiment?

• When the rain falls from the sky, what colour are the clouds?

Some additional thinking questions

• Why is rain important for our enviornment?

• Would there be rainfall if there is only a small amount of rain in the clouds? Why/why not?

The science behind it

The shaving foam represents the clouds and the water represents the air. The food dye is the rain. As more rain builds up in the clouds, it gets heavy. It becomes too heavy for the clouds to hold, and so it pushes through and the rain falls.

1. Put your finger in the middle of the ice cube for a few seconds. The pressure and heat will melt ice a bit.

2. Sprinkle some salt on another ice cube. Leave it for a few minutes. Observe the result.

Experiment time

Freeze some ice cubes in the freezer. Have a go at recording the time it took to turn water into ice cubes.

When the ice cubes are ready, conduct the two experiments using a timer.

Experiment one

Place some ice cubes on a plate. Do not add salt to it. Using a timer, record how long did the ice cubes take to melt

Experiment two

Place some ice cubes on a plate. Add salt to the ice cubes. Using a timer, record how long the ice cubes take to melt.

Now compare the time difference between the two experiments. Which ice cubes meter faster? Why?

Discuss your results with an adult and talk about the science behind it.

The Science behind it

Pressure and heat make ice melt faster. Another method to speed up melting ice is to use salt. When salt is added as the salt lowers the freezing point of the water, this is known as freezing point depression. The more salt you add the lower the freezing point

Shadows

What is a shadow? Watch this video about light an​​d shadows to find out

Activity one: The science behind shadows.

Write your own definition describing what a shadow is. See if you can use some of these words in your definition

If you get stuck, this is an example:

A shadow is created when light coming from a light source, like the sun or lamp, is blocked by an object.

Activity two: Make your own interesting shadow shapes!

You can do this in lots of ways, you can go out on a sunny day or you could use a torch or lamp inside. Ask an adult to take some photos of the amazing shadow shapes you create

Activity three: Create some shadow art.

Once you have created a shadow shape, trace around the shadow to create an outline. You could do this outside with chalk on the concrete or inside with a piece of paper and pencil. Once you have your outline, you can colour it in. Get creative!