week 4

It has been a crazy week!  We had our visit to the Chinook Honey Farm (which was amazing), we talked a lot about Orange Shirt Day, and today we did the Terry Fox run!

The field trip was a great success, and we couldn't have had better weather!  We were lucky enough to have an entomologist sharing her knowledge of bees for the main presentation, and then got to explore some of the grounds and learn a bit more about the bees habitat.  We played a racing game to collect "nectar" for our hive, and we got to see a real hive up close.  They had a hive in a glass case where the bees had access to outside through a tube in the wall!  Everyone was able to locate the queen, and then we got to do a honey tasting.  It was so good!

In writing this week we read 2 books that taught us a little about Orange Shirt day.  The first book, Shi-Shi Etko, was about a girl who was about to go off to school.  She was collecting memories of her family, and saving them in her memory pouch, as she wouldn't be able to come home again until the next summer.  In the next book, "When We Were Alone," a young girl and her grandmother are gardening, and the little girl asks her about different things in her life.  The grandmother explains the restrictions she had when she was little and in school, and is now happy that she can wear colorful clothes, grow her hair long, and speak her own language.  Orange Shirt day is to recognize the terrible things that First Nations children suffered in residential schools, and we used these books to just talk about how we feel belonging at home and at school, and what that would be like if we didn't have it.

In math we continued to work on patterns.  This week we reminded ourselves how we find the core, and then we created different patterns using a combination of 2 or 3 attributes (size, color, and shape).  The students practiced drawing multiple patterns.  Next week we will be looking at increasing patterns, how to extend them and how to make them.

We looked into vowel patterns this week, and how an e can be bossy and act like a king, making other vowels say their name.  Then we did a word hunt to try and find words that follow the pattern.  See if you can find any of these words at home.

Today we had an amazing conversation about Terry Fox, and all the good he was able to do for people, even though he lost his fight with cancer.  We totaled up our donations and talked a little bit about adding money, and then we read a book about Terry.  He was courageous and brave, and he raised a lot of money to go to cancer research.  After that we did an art project in our visual journals about Terry Fox, and then went on the Terry Fox run.  The students were so amazing, and did their best.  We were lucky to have a clear day and some sunshine today.

We also had a great lesson on how to make our good copy coloring look like our best work.  We decided that when we do a good copy, we are going to try and make it look like Mrs. Jackson's coloring when she is taking her time, not Ms. Secord's coloring when she is rushing.  The kids did such an amazing job, and are very proud of the work they have done.

Week 3

It was so wonderful seeing all of you last night!  Thank you so much for coming to visit our classrooms and introducing yourselves.  We are looking forward to such a great year!

We just want to remind parents that it is getting cold outside, and it is time to start pulling out warmer jackets, mitts, and hats!  As much as I don't want it to get colder, it has definitely been chilly outside.  We spend some of our time throughout the day outside and some children do not have warm enough layers for the weather.

Did you know that September 21st is International Peace Day?  We have been having some great conversations in class about the importance of Peace, and what peace looks like in our country and in our neighborhood.  We read a book about Malala Yousafzai and her challenges in fighting for education for all children around the world.  We found out that some children in the world are not allowed to go to school! We then took our ideas and wrote down the important things that we felt showed that we live in a peaceful place.

In math we looked at patterns this week, and took a look around the school at where we find patterns. We looked at simple repeating patterns using an ABAB or an ABCABC pattern.  We talked about adding different attributes to our patterns, so it wasn't just a color pattern, or just a shape pattern, but it combined different aspects to add to the pattern.  We used these ideas to create a patterned hand art to put up on our board to represent all of the different types of hands that come together to create Peace.  We will continue to work on patterns this week, and thinking about some of the math vocabulary that goes along with patterns, such as the core, attributes, repeating, and increasing patterns.

We continued our important conversations about honey bees and their impact on our world.  We also learned a few more facts about bees, and what our world might look like without them in our world.  We got to watch a classic Reading Rainbow episode about bees that had some very interesting information that we plan to keep our eyes open for when we go visit the Honey Farm.  We looked at comparison pictures from a grocery store that show all of the products we have available to us, and then a picture of how much would be missing if there were no more bees.

We are sad to say goodbye to Mr. Cooper in music.  He has been an amazing teacher, and we had a lot of fun with him!  But luckily, we get to welcome Mrs. McBride back to Cranston after her maternity leave!

In gym we continue to learn different ways of moving through the gym, such as galloping, skipping, and side shuffling.  We have also been practicing our running in preparation for the Terry Fox run on Friday morning.

Week 2

What a busy week we have had!  We have been reviewing some things that we learned last year, and are starting to learn new things already!

We had the opportunity to go to the Discovery Archeology program right here in our school, and we learned a bit about what an Archeologist does.  Then we got to do some archeology ourselves!  We handled some real bison bones, and tried to put his skeleton back together.  We learned about artifacts and ecofacts, and we compared the differences between bison bones and human (plastic) bones.  Thank you so much to our volunteers who were able to help out!  You made this learning activity so much fun!

In math we started to learn about how to do number talks.  This year we will be doing plenty of number talks, as it helps to strengthen the students mental math skills, and allows them to share their different strategies for solving problems.  We are also talking about skip counting and number patterns.

In writing we completed writing our good copy of our goals, and we also did some art to go along with it!  We can't wait to share what we have done at the open house next week.  We have been doing some learning about vowels, and will be practicing basement letters next.  Did you know that every word has a vowel in it?

Our inquiry on small crawling and flying animals has led us to a study of Honey Bees.  We have looked at the life cycle, and gathered some knowledge about what we already know.  We will be looking deeper into whether bees are helpful or harmful to humans.

We are practicing different ways of traveling in gym, while we continue to focus on safety and being aware of our surroundings and the people in it.

Important reminders:
1.***Please do not allow students to bring anything that is scented into the school (such as hand sanitizer and lotion), as we have many students and teachers with sensitivities or allergies to strong scents.***
2. We have plenty of school supplies in the classroom.  Please leave your special supplies at home where you can use them there to practice.
3. If you have not returned your consent forms for school and media release, please send them in right away.

Welcome Back

We hope that everyone had a relaxing and fun summer!  The students have jumped back into our school routine quite well.

This week we have been focusing on creating our classroom community.  We have been talking a lot about kindness and respect, and how we treat each other as well as the materials in our classroom.  We did different icebreakers to get to know our new class.

The students have had a chance to attend music and gym this week, and they are enjoying it so far!  In gym we are learning to recognize and be aware of the uses and limitations of our space, and to think about the other people that might be in our space as well.  We are experimenting with different movements and actions as we travel through the gym.  We also got a lesson on playground rules.  Ask your child if they remember the rules!  In music we have been reviewing some of our school songs, and getting to know our temporary music teacher, Mr. Cooper.  He will be with us for only a few weeks, as Mrs. McBride will be returning from maternity leave.

We have done a few writing tasks to warm up our brains and get us ready for some grade 2 learning.  We have written about our summer vacation, and the adventures we had, as well as a little bit of an introduction about ourselves.

We began learning about the calming art of Zen Tangle.  Although it is the first time that some students have tried this kind of art, they all did amazing!  It definitely takes patience to do Zen Tangling, and so we will be practicing throughout the year.

We began to build our stamina around reading to self this week.  It is important for the students to be able to read to self, and this year we will be moving to reading in our heads without having to say the words out loud.  Students will be practicing reading to self at school, and should also be practicing reading to self or to an adult for 10-20 minutes every day at home.

Today at the end of the day the whole grade 2 team (7 classes) got together out on the field to have some time for all the grade 2's to interact, and for the teachers to get to know some of the students from other classes!  It was so much fun!  There was freeze dance, soccer, and parachute games.  The grade 2 team is hoping to do this multiple times over the year.

In math we have begun to look at the calendar and start recognizing today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  We have been practicing our subatizing skills, and using mental math strategies to recognize how many in a group.  We learned a new math game called Addition Battle, where both players flip over a card at the same time and whoever adds them fastest (and correctly) gets to keep the cards.  This is a great game to play at home to practice addition skills to 10+10.

Next week we will be working on goal setting and getting the guided reading groups organized.  In math we will move into looking at patterning, and working on problem solving skills.  For inquiry, we will be starting our investigation of small crawling and flying animals.