Grade Two Unit Letter

Unit 3: Where We Are in Place and Time

Central Idea:

Vocabulary List

Physical geography influences lives and communities.

Geography

Rivers

Key Concepts:

Communities

Canyons

Form- What is it like?

Location

Nature

Causation- Why is it the way it is?

Settlement

Valley

Connection-How is it connected to other things?

Human Interaction

City

Places

Continent

People

Delta

Relationship

Migration

Landforms

Adaptation

Village

Culture

Town

Farming

Volcanoes

Mountains

Related Concepts: Geography, Settlement, Modification

An inquiry into:

Variability of physical geography around the world.

The relationship between location and settlement.
Impact of human interaction.

Teacher Questions:

How do you describe the place where you live?

Do all places look alike?
Why are there more people in certain places?

Islands
*Whilst inquiring this unit, we will be focusing on the following learner profiles and attitudes.*
Learner Profiles
Inquirer They develop their natural curiosity. They acquire the skills necessary to conduct
inquiry and research and show independence in learning. They actively enjoy learning and this
love of learning will be sustained throughout their lives.
Knowledgeable- They explore concepts, ideas and issues that have local and global
significance. In doing so, they acquire in-depth knowledge and develop understanding across a
broad and balanced range of disciplines.
Attitudes
Curiosity- Being curious about the nature of learning, about the world, its people and cultures.
Enthusiasm- Enjoying learning and willingly putting the effort into the process.
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Grade Two Unit Letter

Transdisciplinary Skills
Social Skills

Accepting Responsibility: Taking on and completing tasks in an appropriate manner;

being willing to assume a share of the responsibility.
Cooperating: Working cooperatively in a group; being courteous to others: sharing
materials; taking turns

Self-Management Skills

Organization: Planning and carrying out activities affectively

Safety: Engaging in personal behaviors that avoid placing oneself or others in danger or
at risk

Research Skills

Formulating Questions: Identifying something one wants or needs to know and ask
compelling and relevant questions that can be researched
Planning: Developing a course of action; writing outlines; devising ways of finding out
necessary information

Communication Skills

Reading: reading a variety of sources of information and for knowledge and pleasure;
comprehending what has been read; making inferences and drawing conclusions

Thinking skills

Comprehension: Grasping meaning from material learned; communicating and

interpreting learning
Analysis: Taking knowledge or ideas apart; separating into component parts; seeing
relationships; finding unique characteristics.
Language Outcomes

Reading

Decoding two- syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into
syllables
Retell stories, including keys details, and demonstrate understanding of the central
message or lesson
Explain major differences between books and stories that give information, drawing on a
wide range of text types
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting or events
Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories
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Grade Two Unit Letter

Writing Content and Conventions

Write narratives in which they recount a well elaborated event or short sequence of
events and include details to describe actions, thoughts and feelings.
With guidance and support, recall information from experiences or gather information
from provided sources to answer a question
Use reflective pronouns
Use commas in greetings and closing in letters
Determine the meaning of the new word formed when known prefix is added to a
known word
Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives

Speaking and Listening

Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented
orally or through other media
Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive
details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences
Mathematics Outcomes

Use addition and subtraction within 100 to solve one-step word problems involving
situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, and taking apart with unknowns
and in all positions by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown to
represent the problem.
Add up to four two-digit numbers using strategies based on place value and properties
of operation
Sort, describe and model regular and irregular 2D polygons and 3D figures by geometric
properties such as number of sides, vertices or faces.
Recognize and draw shapes having specified attribute such as given number of sides,
angles, faces.
Identify triangles, pentagons, hexagons, cubes
Partition circles and rectangles in to two, three, four equal shares and describe shares as
half, third, quarter, and compose the whole unit from parts (beginning fractions)

Social Studies Outcomes

Relate stories about past events, people, places or situations to help our understanding
of the past and present
Explain the concept of location
Use maps, graphs, tables and diagrams to read and display geographic information
Locate and distinguish between landforms
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Grade Two Unit Letter

Describe the influence of landforms and geographic features on human population and
cultures
Differentiate between ways in which people from different cultures think about and
adapt to the physical environment
Compare and contrast social environments in different cultures.
Science Outcomes

Identify or generate a question or problem to be explored

Observe carefully in order to gather data
Art

Learning Objectives: In Unit 3-The students will be able to:

Examine animal sculptures and various artist who construct them

Observe and manipulate textures on a 3-dimentional surface
Use the elements and principles of art, including form and texture
Improve individual brainstorming skills

Activities/Projects/Connections:
Where We Are in Place and Time Unit of inquiry: Form Students will form a three
dimensional animal and create its natural environment.
Music
Learning Objectives: In Unit 3- The students will be able to:

Play simple xylophone melodies with correct technique

Apply knowledge of musical symbols
Read rhythms with quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter rests at different tempos
Cooperate with classmates in musical games and activities

Engagements/Projects/Connections:

Play various pieces to develop xylophone skills

Create compositions with the xylophone
Connection to Where We Are in Place and Time UOI- Form: creating listening maps of
pieces of music to indicate elemental events
Responding and reflecting on famous pieces of music, rhythm, mood, instrumentation and
pitch

Grade Two Unit Letter

P.E.
Learning Objectives: In Unit 3 The students will be able to:

Understand the concept of adventure challenge and the attitudes and profiles we need
to display to overcome these.
Work cooperatively and use communication and thinking skills to tackle problem solving
activities.
Begin to use technology in PE to further develop research skills.
Combine a variety of locomotor and manipulative skills as they complete the different
challenges such as obstacle courses.

Activities/Projects/Connections:

Team building activities such as cross the river, water challenge and obstacle courses
Self and peer assessment to evaluate performance and effort in Adventure Challenges.
Through the concept of adventure challenges the students will connect to their Central
Idea which is The earth is made of landforms that change over time.

Engagements, Projects and Connections:

Sing and choreograph Lifes What You Make It

Play games like Peter Pumpkin to perform rhythms in multiple tempos
Connection to Sharing the Planet UOI: Causation- looking at multiple ways to play
instruments
Creating movements and visual art to represent tempi in pieces of music like In the Hall
of the Mountain King
Supporting Your Childs Learning

To help your child with the new topic in school here are some suggestions. This list is
not inclusive of all the things you can do and nothing is mandatory- but definitely
recommended. For language and math activities please continue to read the weekly
updates posted on Weebly. We try and keep posting fun websites and activities to help at
home!
Good ways to encourage your children at home would be reading/watching anything to do with
human settlement and geography. Check out some suggestions below

Read fiction stories and discuss the geography found within the stories
Explore a child-friendly Atlas!
Discuss the differences between the different countries your family has lived in.
Check out Google Earth and explore the different places your family has lived in or
travelled to.
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Grade Two Unit Letter

Explore and discuss different landforms found around the world! Use the websites below
as a starting point for your discussions
http://www.kidsgeo.com/geology-for-kids/0032-understanding-landforms.php
http://mocomi.com/landforms/
http://www.teachertube.com/video/types-of-landforms-94543
Use the following websites to explore civilizations and discuss how they lived off the
land:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/
http://www.rome.mrdonn.org/
http://www.ngkids.co.uk/did-you-know/Ten-Facts-about-Ancient-Egypt
http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/homework/egypt/nile.htm
http://www.mayankids.com/
http://mayas.mrdonn.org/
http://aztecs.mrdonn.org/
http://www.ducksters.com/history/aztec_maya_inca.php
http://www.ducksters.com/history/native_americans.php
Discuss the concept of settlement. Focusing on the Bedouin people of the U.A.E might be a good
place to start- here is a website to get you started talking about this topic:
http://www.3dgeography.co.uk/#!settlement-geography/c11jl

Thank you again for all your support,

The Grade Two Team