Overview of a Section of Learning

Components that might make up any given day

A Section of Learning

Each section of learning consists of a rich variety of activities for you and your child to explore. Most of the modules contain two or three sets of work and follow a standard format. Each section of learning should take about three to three and a half hours-recommended times are given for each activity. If your child takes more or less time to complete any given activity, that's fine!

Introduction

Each module begins with a brief Introduction that gives you an overview of the skills and activities that will be covered in the module.

Additional Resources

At the beginning of each module you will find a list of additional theme-related books that you can borrow from your local library. If these resources are unavailable, ask the librarian to help you find similar books.

If you live in an isolated area, order library books in advance.

Learning Outcomes

This is a list of skills, written at the front of each Set, that your child will be introduced to or asked to review.

What You Need

Please look at this list before you begin each section. The list contains the resource materials needed to complete the section's activities.

Starting Off

Story Time

Children love to have stories read to them. Start each school day by reading a chapter of a novel, a story, or poetry to your child. This is an excellent time to read stories that are higher than your child's reading level. To change the pace from time to time, ask your child to choose a short story, at his or her reading level, to read to you.

Reading to your child gives him or her the opportunity to:

• hear stories read with clarity, expression, and a sense of emotion
• enjoy a variety of genres-poetry, plays, mysteries, and other types of stories
• learn that different authors have varying styles of writing

• listen and share in the enjoyment of reading

Calendar Time

Calendar Time provides your child with an opportunity to explore the basic concepts of weather, time, counting, money, and measurement. Some ideas have been written into the modules.

In the Appendix you will find additional activities and ideas to use in Calendar Time in the Appendix. You can use these ideas or adapt them to suit your child's developmental level. Your child is not limited to the ideas on the chart-expand and extend the ideas as you see your child developing. It is important to stay within the suggested time frame for this daily activity.

Printing

During the first part of the school year, your child will review the printing skills taught in Grade Two. Your child should be able to print legibly with proper spacing, use upper and lower case letters appropriately within words, and print left to right, top to bottom consistently.

Handwriting

Later in the school year, your child will be introduced to handwriting. A separate book of handwriting lessons, practice, and handwriting exercises accompany the Grade Two program. The completed handwriting exercise sections are to be sent to your child's teacher.

Mathematics

The Mathematics program is found in a separate set of modules that accompany the theme modules. This program aims to make learning fun for your student so he or she will enjoy mathematics. Each assignment is designed to provide valuable learning experiences.

Children learn mathematics by doing first and then they begin to think mathematically. It is very important that children understand mathematical concepts and not just learn basic number facts by rote. Often a child's correct answer to a question is taken as evidence that he or she is doing well in mathematics. It is important that a child not only knows the answer but can also tell you how he or she arrived at that answer.

Whenever possible, use concrete hands-on materials to introduce new mathematics concepts. An effective progression for teaching a new concept is to have your child begin with concrete, hands-on materials, then move to pictorial representations, and to finally work with numerals on paper.

Math Collections Box

Collect a variety of objects and keep them in a mathematics box. Blocks, bottle caps, tongue depressors, and dried beans are some items you can put in the box.

Completed send-in sections from the mathematics lessons are to be sent in with the Student Books from each module.

Please make sure you use metric measurements at all times.

Movement and Music

Daily physical activity plays an important role in the development of a whole person. Movement, music, and play are integral parts of children’s lives. It is important that you include physical movement, music, and singing in your child's day. You can either do this formally or use the activities as a break between lessons. Adults often think that all children are able to hop, skip, and jump. However, not all children can automatically perform these tasks so they need to be taught these skills.

Throughout the year, your child will be introduced to movement, ball and bean bag skills, games, songs, moving to music, and learning about some of the elements of music and instruments of the orchestra.

Language Arts

Working with Words

Working with Words is broken into Phonics, Spelling Time and Using Words or Free Writing.

Phonics

Children use phonics as one way to learn to read new words and as an aid to writing as they move toward becoming conventional spellers.

                                                                                                                                                                   In Grade Two, your child reviews the sounds taught in Grade One before learning new sound/symbol relationships.

By the end of Grade Two your child should know:

• all initial, middle, and final consonants

• all short and long vowel sounds

• the sounds (digraphs): sh, ch, th, wh

• the r controlled vowels: ar, or, ir, ur, er

• all initial and final consonant blends: br, ss, 11, tch

• soft and hard c and g words

• the sound combination (dipthongs):

00                   look, boot

ow                   know, how

aw                   saw

oy                   boy

of                     boil

• double vowel sounds: ee, ea, ai, ay, ey, oe

• the long vowel sound of y: y in candy, y in sky

Your child should be able to use this knowledge to spell many words in standard form.

Spelling Time

The lessons are designed to help your child increase his or her spelling vocabulary and review phonics and language usage concepts.

Information and ideas for teaching spelling can be found in the Appendix.

Using Words

Your child will work on language skills such as parts of speech, punctuation marks, contractions, abbreviations, alphabetical order, and so on. A variety of activities are provided to help your child use words correctly.

By the end of Grade Two your child should:

• know and be able to write all the contraction words: can't, won't

• know and be able to write compound words: backbone, schoolyard

• know and be able to write plural words: lunch/lunches, ­girl/girls, mouse/mice

• know the rules for adding ing, ed, es, er, and est to words

• recognize and use common abbreviations: Mr., Mrs., Ave., Sept.

• recognize and be able to use nouns, verbs, and describing words

• use capital letters and punctuation correctly

• recognize and use  synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms

• recognize and use possessive nouns correctly

Free Writing

To develop as a writer, your child needs to write regularly and be allowed to experiment with written language. During Free Writing time, encourage your child to write short paragraphs, riddles, cartoons, and jokes. No proofreading or corrections should be done to this writing, but throughout the modules your child is asked to evaluate his or her writing and send the best pieces to the teacher.

If your child doesn't know how to begin to write, brainstorm and list words and phrases that can be used. Your child can look at books, photos, and pictures to get ideas. You can also give your child a couple of opening sentences to choose from. A collection of ideas for Free Writing can be found in the Appendix.

When students are encouraged to write on a regular basis, they develop skills in spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. They also become more comfortable expressing ideas and opinions in the written form.

Reading

In the primary years, your child learns to read. After that your child reads to learn.

Reading is a major focus of your child's learning. In each section of lessons, your child is asked to read something from a variety of materials. He or she will read selections from anthologies, novels, storybooks, newspapers, and non­fiction materials.

Reading is a developmental process. Your child may be an independent reader or need assistance in reading the materials in the reading lessons.  Before your child begins to read a story or article, introduce new or unusual vocabulary. Your child's reading will be more fluent if he or she doesn't have to stop to figure out unfamiliar words.

Share the reading with your child. Have your child listen and follow along while you read a story or page of information. Take turns reading with your child. This can be very enjoyable if there is dialogue in the story or it is written as a play.

Encourage your child to read orally. Oral reading develops oral reading skills such expression, pronunciation, clear speech, and pace. Your child must be given the opportunity to read the passage silently before reading it aloud.

Teach your child to use a variety of reading strategies when he or she comes to an unknown word. You will find a tear-out sheet of reading strategies in the Book of Learning Ideas. Tear out the sheet and post it where your child can easily refer to it.

By the end of Grade Two, your child should:

•   use context clues and other strategies to attack unknown words

• classify phrases

• make inferences

• predict outcomes

• recall details and sequence story events

• state the main idea of a story

• use a Table of Contents

• follow simple written directions

• understand why things or events happen

• recognize the elements of a story: problems, setting, solutions

• compare characters

• distinguish between fact and fiction

• answer comprehension questions in a complete sentence

Viewing

In the module lessons, your child will have opportunities to view and discuss photographs, illustrations, charts, posters, signs, magazines, maps, and materials in print and on the computer.

Ask your child to describe what he or she sees, make predictions, sequence story events, and describe the emotions or the mood of the picture. Talk to your child about what he or she sees on television programs, advertisements in magazines, films, charts, diagrams, and newspapers.

Listening

Listening should always have a purpose. Children should be given many opportunities to listen to stories, poems, rhymes, riddles, CDs, and tapes. Listening activities can last as long as your child can concentrate.

Take turns with your child to retell a favourite story. Before reading a story to your child, ask him or her to stop you when a certain event occurs or a character appears.

Talk to your child. It is the best way to turn him or her into a listener.

Tape Recording

During the course of the year, your child will be asked to make tape recordings to send to the teacher. Please make sure your child introduces him or herself, gives the module name, and the Set and Section numbers.

For example: This is Alexandra Martin, Module 3, Set 2, Section 5.

Keep the recording brief and only record what is asked for. Rewind the tape to the beginning of the session so the teacher will know exactly where the recording begins.

If you do not have access to a tape recorder, make arrangements for your child's teacher to phone you and listen to your child read. You can also use the wav. file format and send it over email.

Directed Reading

Your child is introduced to a list of commonly used and theme-related reading words. These words are generally called sight words.

Sight words are important for building your child's reading confidence. By giving your child repeated opportunities to learn individual sight words, it will be easier for him or her to recognize words.

Make learning sight words fun as it helps to make this task less of a chore. It is important to read books where your child can recognize some of the words. This emphasizes to your child the value of knowing the words.

It is important that you practice these words daily. Use hands-on activities where possible. Do not spend more that five to ten minutes daily practicing these sight words. Although these lessons are incorporated into Language Arts, you can choose a more convenient time to complete these activities.

You can find examples of directed reading activities in the Appendix.

Directed Writing

To become a proficient writer, your child needs to

participate regularly in modeled writing lessons. A variety of beginning writing skills such as paragraph and story development, letter writing, poetry writing, research skills and report writing, and experiment reports are taught.

It is important that you, the Home Facilitator, assist your child with editing and proofreading. This can be done by:

• having your child read aloud what he or she has written helps your child think about whether the message is clear

• discussing improvements that could be made and helping your child make changes by adding, crossing out, or moving information around

• helping your child find and correct misspelled words, missing capital letters, and punctuation

By the end of Grade Two, your child should:

• write a minimum of three or four related sentences (a short paragraph or story)

•  print the answers to who, what, where, when, why, and how questions

• use simple picture and word dictionaries

• write a friendly letter and include the date, greeting, body, and appropriate closing

• use descriptive language in his or her writing

• use capital letters, periods, and question marks in creative writing

• choose and write a title for his or her story

• create original poetry

• do simple proofreading and editing with adult assistance

• write a simple research report

Technology

Technology does not just mean the use of computers, television, videos, or cassettes. Technology includes the planning, designing, and making of models, posters, and machines.

Computers

Your child is encouraged to use a computer, with your assistance, to locate information on the Internet or to play games to reinforce skills. The modules provide your child with many theme-related Web sites. All of these sites have been checked, but it is important for your child's safety that you are with him or her at all times.

Finishing Off

These activities provide opportunities for your child to explore and extend the module topics through play, crafts, cooking, and art. Make sure your child tries a variety of activities. Some activities may take more time than allotted.