In Math this week, we learned about measuring time. We started off by making lists of things we can do in a second, minute and an hour. Then, we made clocks and practised making different times (to the quarter). Then we learned about the difference between analogue and digital times. We will continue to do 'time checks' until the end of the year, so students get used to telling lots of different times.

In Language, students finished up their fables. We had some presentations during Author's Chair that led to conversations about how to show the moral or the lesson through character dialogue (e.g., the frog said to the turtle "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have judged you based on your appearances). The lesson of the story would be not to judge a book by its cover.

Art was integrated into Math this week, making the clocks. For Dance, we played some 'Freeze Dance' games and continued to practise moving to different beats of music.

Next week, I am hoping to have the students design and build a roller coaster with recyclable materials (e.g., toilet paper rolls, cardboard boxes, paper plates, etc). This will be an integrated Math / Art activity that will focus on creating 3 dimensional works of art, using a variety of materials. They will practise measuring their objects before putting them together and practise pricing out the roller coaster (to review coin names and amounts). If you have any materials that you'd like to send our way, that would be very much appreciated! They may even time a marble going down the roller coaster, to cover some time expectations as well!

June 4th - 8th

This week we started our inquiry on Money! We talked about what we already know about money, with a “Where’s the Math” picture talk. Students already know some of the names of coins, how to skip count up to $1.00 and they understand the concept of getting change when too much money is given at the store.

Students made lists of fun ideas/ways that we can practise using money in the classroom. Some fun ideas included hockey store, lemonade stand, bakery, pizza shop, ice cream store, etc. When we get back from the break, students will put together a lemonade stand! During this inquiry, students will learn about the different names of the coins, their value and how to make different amounts. By the end of Grade 2, students only have to know how to make up to $1.00 in a variety of ways. During our inquiry, students will have lots of practice with this as well as stretching their thinking to be able to make higher amounts while practicing their addition and subtraction facts, and estimation and representing numbers in a variety of ways. We will also learn about capacity while students compare which glasses hold the most lemonade. They will also create their own non-standard units to measure capacity. After practise with measuring in non-standard units, students will practise with standard units.

In Language, students also started showing lots of interest in slideshows in English. Some students made slideshows on money, while others demonstrated their hockey knowledge by presenting on The History of Hockey. When we get back from the break, students will be able to first fill out a plan and then continue practicing creating more slideshows! While creating the slideshows, we are still focusing on C.O.P.S - Capitals (at the start of sentences, for titles and proper nouns); Organization (is it better to use a list or paragraph form in a slide); punctuation; and spelling.

I hope everyone has a long and relaxing March Break! Looking forward to starting this inquiry when we get back to school!

February 25th - March 2nd

This week, we finished off our Fractions unit. Students learned how to read, write and draw fractions. They also learned how to represent fractions with objects in the classroom (e.g., linking cubes, ten frames, counters, etc). They learned how to show fractions on a number line and how to compare fractions too! They have shown so much growth in this unit and pushed their thinking in so many different ways!

In Language, we read a story called "Emmanuelle's Dream." This story is about a little boy who was born with one leg. Despite the difficulties he faces with tasks that may come easy to the rest of us (e.g., riding a bike), he demonstrates perseverance and doesn't give up! Students made Text to World Connections by talking about Terry Fox and Text-to-Media connections by remembering the Olympic commercials we watched together. We discussed how the story changed students thinking in relation to growth mindset and making a difference. We talked about the main idea and then students practised using "first, then, next, finally" when writing the events in the story.

February 19th - 23rd

In Math this week, we continued to learn about fractions. Students extended their knowledge on reading, writing and representing fractions in a variety of ways. They played lots of games in their centres and coloured some fraction pictures. Next week, we will learn about equivalent fractions.

In Language, we continued learning about editing and revising their writing with C.O.P.S - Capitals, Organization, Punctuation and Spelling. Students got to edit and revise my writing and learned that good writers check over their work many times before handing in their work or before publishing a final draft. They also learned that sometimes we need others to look over our work, as our own mistakes might be easily missed. We also practised answering questions with full sentences (by including some of the question in the answer).

What is your favourite subject?

My favourite subject is math because...

Next week, we will continue to learn about C.O.P.S and focus on reading over answers to questions.

Students also had a great time exchanging their Valentine's Day cards. They decorated their own bags and talked about why it's important to celebrate each other by telling our friends and family how much we care about them. We also discussed how different people appreciate different acts of kindness (e.g., some people might enjoy a letter, some others might enjoy kind words and some might enjoy spending time together). One of the students also brought in a very large Chinese New Year dog and some Chinese New Year bells, which we decorated the class with. We talked about why it's called "The Year of the Dog" and the significance of using animals.

Have a very nice, long Family Day Weekend and a Happy Chinese New Year!

February 5th - 9th

In Math, we started a unit on Fractions. I decided that before learning about telling time (to the quarter), we should first learn about fractions, so they have some context! The have already impressed me with how far they've already come in their knowledge on fractions. We began learning that a fraction is a part of a whole. They took turns putting pizza toppings onto a pizza and asking "What fraction of my pizza has mushrooms, peppers or pepperoni on it? Then, they were sent off to work on their own pizzas. I saw that lots of them were answering "There is one piece with pepperoni on it," so we talked about how to read fractions (e.g., one third, one fourth). They practised writing fractions for shaded pictures (to say how much of the picture is shaded) as well as colouring pictures to match the fraction. Next week, we will continue practising reading and representing fractions in a variety of ways (e.g., making fraction flowers, fraction pictures and rotating through some fun fraction centres).

In Language, students worked through their Daily 5 centres on stories, comics and recount writing (e.g., what they did on the weekend). We talked more about adding proper punctuation and capitals and making sure our sentences are one full thought. We will continue with this next week as well.

We finally finished up our drama plays, as everyone was here this week! What a great end to a unit it was. The students loved presenting their plays for their classmates! We talked about how to be a good audience and a good actor. Some next steps for the students are to always make sure to stay in character, only to use the stage where the audience can see them and to use a loud, expressive voice.

Have a wonderful, snowy weekend!

January 29th - February 2nd

We continued letter writing this week, as we wrote letters to Santa, or any other special person of their choice. We also continued to practise writing a letter to other authors, telling them what they liked about their stories. We talked about how to be specific in backing up ideas by giving examples or evidence. Students described specific part in a story that they liked and explained why they liked it so much. We focused on adding capitals to people's names, the names of books and underlining tiles of books. We also discussed the importance of spelling the person's name correctly who will be receiving the letter.

This week, we linked Art and Math by making 3D cubes as Holiday ornaments to hang in the gym during the concert. We talked about 3D shape nets and some strategies for identifying which shapes the nets create. Students worked in centres to practise matching net pictures to 3D shapes. They also made their own 3D structures with popsicle sticks, straws, tooth picks and other loose parts. We discovered that sometimes making structures with a square base aren't as easily supported as those with a triangular base. We investigated the reasons why a triangular based shape might be easier to build than a shape with another base. Students also used their knowledge of faces, edges and vertices in Math conferences, centres and while they built their shapes.

This week the students learned about expanding their sentences in Language. We started off with a simple sentence (e.g., I went for a walk). We then discussed how to expand the sentence and add more details. We talked about the 5 W's (e.g., who, what, where, when, why and how) to make a sentence more interesting:

• Who and What: I went for a walk
• Where: I went for a walk in the park
• When: I went for a walk in the park this evening at 6:00 p.m.
• Why: I went for a walk in the park this evening at 6:00 p.m to get some fresh air.

In addition to expanding sentences, we have been working on going back and looking at our writing (e.g., to edit and revise). We have focused on using spider legs to insert details and ensure we are using capitals and periods. Students also practised their student-led conferences so they felt confident sharing their amazing work for you! The students were so proud of their work and Ms. Haney and I were so proud of them and thankful to see such a strong support system at home!

In Math, we worked more on 2D shapes. Students finished their shape robots (which was also an Art activity) and learned the difference between quadrilaterals and pentagons. Students also created a "Shapes are Everywhere" poster! Next week, we will take a short break from shapes and do some number talks (e.g., adding two digit numbers) to enhance those mental math skills!

We had a few community circles in English class about how everyone can be nice to one another. Students listened to a story and brainstormed how we can be nice at school and show how nice we have been. Next week, we will co-create a Kindness Bulletin Board. There will be cut-out hearts for students to write a quick "Thank-you" to someone who has done something kind for them. We also discussed how we can be successful at showing full-body listening during carpet time. Students came up with the idea to create a poster that is visible from the carpet, so they can constantly refer to it. They also had the idea of creating regulation posters to share with the Kindergarteners, so they can learn the strategies that we have been using! This activity will integrate Media, Art, Oral Language (presenting the strategy) and Writing.

Thank-you so much to parents who were able to make it to the student-led conferences! We really enjoyed watching the students be so excited to share their personal best work!

This week we talked a lot about self regulation in both French and English. We revisited the purpose self regulation charts, where they show how they’re feeling in the morning and at transition time. These charts are for students to first identify how they are feeling and then to figure out how to get back to the green zone (e.g., 5-Finger Breathing, energy boost, taking a break, sitting in the safe spot, etc). Next week, we will continue to practice different strategies such as some variations of breathing techniques and taking a break so students can effectively get back to the green zone.

In Math, we worked more on representing two digit numbers and three digit numbers in different ways (e.g., base ten blocks, word form and expanded form). Students made base 10 objects (e.g., people, animals, robots, etc) and then represented their objects in three different ways. Next week, we will start practicing Dreambox in class as well as showing our Math thinking by looking at pictures and verbally answering the question “Where is the Math?”

We continued working on developing seed stories from watermelon ideas. Students filled out an idea web where they thought of watermelon topics (big ideas) and from there thought of some more specific seed ideas. This chart will be kept in their writing folder to spark writing topics. Today the students made a detailed plan for a seed story about a certain feeling (e.g., someone feeling sad because they spilled on their Halloween costume etc). They drew a picture of a person, wrote the feeling that they chose and labelled the picture with details showing how the person might be feeling (e.g., sad could be teary eyes, frowning mouth and hunched body). Once they finished their plan, they wrote a story about the person. They did such an amazing job with this task - I was so impressed! Next week, we will be starting our Home Reading Program and continuing on with Raz Kids during Daily 5.

Art was also a continuation from last week, as students continued to work on their Dot Art. In the Blue class, we started drama! The students worked in groups to act out a few Kelso’s Choices to revisit how they can problem solve in many different ways. The Red Class will work on Kelso’s Choices during Drama next week! Stay tuned for pictures next week - my phone took a trip to the staff fridge (was hiding in my lunch bag) so I didn't have it to take pictures....oops!