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Inquiry Based Learning in Year 2

Inquiry Learning Year 2 002This Term in Year 2, we are integrating Science, Art, Technology and Enterprise, ICT, as well as some Literacy and Mathematics, into an exciting program we call “Inquiry”. The inquiry sessions run on Thursday afternoons with the help of some very kind and willing parents.

Inquiry-Based Learning involves students actively seeking answers to their questions, working collaboratively, developing deep understandings of concepts, building on pre-existing ideas, and experiencing real-life situations and problems. All this is achieved through research investigations, scientific experiments and hands-on activities, which happen to be much fun! At the end of the Term, the students will have chosen and produced a way of displaying all their findings, for example with a PowerPoint, oral presentation, written report or a poster.

Groups moved between stations and conducted a range of exciting scientific experiments involving chemical mixtures. Each station covered a different category of mixtures: cooking/food, art, things you find in the shed, and health and beauty. We made elephant toothpaste, cement, lava lamps, swirly oily artwork, home-made bread, sugar crystals, exploding milk, milky plastic, home-made glue, bath salts, and fake blood!

Inquiry Learning Year 2 001

Writing

Each Term the Year 2 class covers one or two different writing genres. This Term, we are learning about expositions and persuasive texts. We have learnt that a persuasive text tries to convince the reader or viewer to agree with your stance, so we have to think of very good arguments!

We do whole class writing, paired writing, independent writing, viewing of advertisements and images, and making persuasive posters. Some of our topics included: What is the best food?; Animals should not be kept in zoos; Soccer is better than AFL; the Bible is true; People should look after the environment; Pizzas are better than burgers; Jesus was not just a normal man; Robots should do all our work for us; and Weekends should be three days long.

Life Cycles

At the end of Term 3, we showed Mrs Verdouw how much we had learnt about different life cycles in Science. We used non-fiction books to research different animals, plants and insects, made informative posters, and created models of life cycles out of plasticine.

We also had a special visit from a woman who works with orphaned children in Cambodia, making scarves and clothing out of silkworm cocoons. She brought in some silk scarves for us to feel, and lots of photos and information for us to learn about the process of how they are made. Some of the children have to walk many kilometres and then work on the machines for hours at a time to earn money and provide for their communities. It made us feel very grateful for all the blessings God has given us and we spent time praying for those children. Our silkworms have now all hatched out of their cocoons, laid hundreds of eggs and passed away, reaching the end of their life cycle.

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