A day in the life of a Grade 2 Distance Learner

By Dace Ruņge, Grade 2 Teacher

Ms Dace and Ms Egija take great pride in the courageous, enthusiastic and open minded approach of their grade two students! With five weeks into the Distance Learning journey, the learning experiences, new knowledge and opportunities for sharing are thriving and evident daily!

But what exactly does our average day look, sound, smell, taste and feel like?

In the mornings we greet one another either dressed up as, or with some information about, a pre-selected topic. Student and teacher suggested themes have been collected and assigned for a particular day. You can imagine what interesting ‘good mornings’ have already looked like from characters or details deriving from the following themes: animals, holiday, polka dots, sports, time, jokes, blue and holiday… and what interesting new ones still await?! In any case, Grade 2 look alert, convincing and creative!

The sound of students’ voices in the many online Specialist and Classroom lessons is vibrant, colourful and meaningful. Grade 2 students explored the Unit of Inquiry (UoI), How The World Works, and engaged in hands-on activities and explored Simple Machines within their own home environment. More recently the How We Organize Ourselves UoI challenged students to apply the KWL chart (What I KNOW, what I WOULD like to know, and what I LEARNT), write detailed instructions for building a functional sundial, and calculate elapsed time.

As a part of their next UoI, Sharing the Planet, students will be learning how plants sustain life on Earth and play a role in our lives. Students have already begun in a science project where they are learning to take care of plants while observing different aspects of their growth and other visual changes. They planted three onions of which: one they water and keep in the dark: one they don’t water and keep in the daylight: and the third they water and keep in the daylight. Predicting, observing, recording and finally, assessing outcomes of this project may all vary slightly for each of our Grade 2 students. However, one thing similar for all will be the taste that they will all eventually savour when adding the spring onions to a fresh salad!

Another, of several, ongoing projects is one where students have each chosen a tree, bush, flowers or plant that they can observe as spring arrives. Close observation of the signs of spring unfolding is systematically checked and being recorded on a daily basis. These observations, of the changes taking place within plants, and the arrival of the new season, also involve the season’s specific and fresh scent.

Seesaw is a new and exciting platform recently introduced to ISR, upon which each student is demonstrating their work and their effort. Considering that this has been used only for three weeks, we are very happy to see how students are starting to navigate in Seesaw more confidently and are feeling more ownership of their own work and process! We encourage celebration of this new learning and the courageous efforts that are taking place!

In this exciting, and for each student slightly different, learning environment, it is visible that the Grade 2 students are experiencing new things everyday that draw upon and enhance their many approaches to learning, including those of social, communication, thinking, research, and self-management skills.

Let’s keep up the passionate efforts and the vivid sparks of interest while inquiring into many different and interesting topics into the future!

Go Grade Twos!