Thursday September 28

Home Reading came home today!! I included a parent letter of introduction as well as an info sheet to help you when reading with your child. If you notice a trend of errors when your child is reading out loud to you it may give you some ideas of how you can help redirect them. Students can change their books when they feel they need a new one keeping in mind that reading the same book for a few nights is a great fluency builder.  I will also be adding word rings soon for some students to practice at home to improve sight word knowledge. Please keep these word rings in the folder after going through them at home so that I can work on them at school as well and change them out as they master the words.

Tomorrow is our Terry Fox Run! Please dress for the weather, wear comfortable clothing and students can bring a water bottle as well. Students can bring money for "Toonies for Terry". We watched a video today that showed footage from Terry's Marathon of Hope and we looked at a map to see how far he ran before he had to stop due to cancer over-taking his body. We discussed how Scientists are always researching and working to find new cures and remedies to alleviate the effects of cancer and hopefully find cures; however much of this research is dependent on donations.

 It is also "Orange Shirt Day"- students can wear orange clothing if they have anything to help honour that every child is important. Ask your child about the class discussion and video we watched today about Phyllis and how Orange shirt day started.

Students have been working on the comprehension strategy of Retelling. After hearing the story Thelma the Unicorn (which is a beautiful book donated by Sydney and her family) about a horse who wishes she could be a unicorn, students have been focusing on what the most important details from the story are. Using graphic organizers students drew pictures and wrote a sentence for First, Next, Then, Last to describe the main events. When students are retelling stories, they often want to include every detail from the book so it will take a lot of practice to focus on the main events. Discussing books that students have read in their home reading using these prompts will help develop their comprehension. Here are a few examples of the pictures and sentences from today.

Tuesday September 26

Thank you to everyone who came to meet with me on Thursday and Friday last week. It's always so nice to meet the hard workers behind the scense who are busy raising the awesome students in my class. As mentioned at the meetings we are hoping everyone is getting the emails from the office so if you didn't receive an Email on Friday afternoon (Sept. 22) from the office then that means you haven't subscribed. Please follow the link below to get that set up.

http://calgary.schoolmessenger.com/cbe_subscribe

Scholastic book orders came home today. I apologize for 2 different dates on them. I meant to send them home on Thursday but I was missing a flyer. If you are interested in ordering anything from these please return the flyer and payment by next Friday October 6th. There is an option to pay online that you will see on the flyer or you can send cash or cheque to the school with the order. 

This Friday, September 29th is our annual Terry Fox run. Students will be doing the run outside around 11:15. The run will go until about 11:45 so this will not leave much time for lunch in the classroom before they are dismissed for the day. It might be a good idea to send what I'll call a "Super Snack" for Friday and they'll have a chance to eat it before we go to our assembly. We will also be collecting 'Twoonies for Terry' that will be donated to Cancer Research so students can bring them in all week. 

Also on Friday it is Orange Shirt day. We are honouring that "Every Child Matters".  Students will be learning about this concept all week and how Orange shirt day came to be. If people don't have orange shirts that is ok, anything orange will work. I'm not sure I have much orange myself! 

In Social Studies, students have started to learn a bit about Canada. We started today by looking at maps of Canada and heard from a few students who have moved to Alberta from other provinces. Please have a discussion at home with your child about any trips you have taken or experiences from other areas of Canada that they may be able to share with us at school. It is really difficult for students at this age to grasp the differences between cities, provinces, and countries so we will be working hard to help them explore these concepts. I'm excited already about how many of us have family in other regions of Canada or have adventured to other parts of this beautiful country. No worries if you haven't left Alberta because there are also so many unique communities that we can talk about in this province as well. 

Back to School!

Wow! What a great first 2 weeks of grade 2! We have been very busy setting classroom routines and expectations and our class has done such an awesome job of settling into school.

In Math we have started exploring 2D shapes in our geometry unit. Students started by exploring how 2D shapes can be connected and joined to create larger, different shapes or even pictures. Studies have shown that understanding how pattern blocks work together and the process of manipulating shapes supports spatial awareness and improves both memory and number sense in later units. 

We will be continuing to build our vocabulary this week around 2D shapes as we compare and contrast different shapes using words like straight, curved, sides, and  corners.  It would be really helpful for you to have conversations with your child to identify and discuss shapes that they find in their everyday lives, ex. Triangles on a house, rectangles on windows, etc. and discuss how they know it’s that shape. You could say “How do you know that is a square?” which will push them to explain that the shape has 4 sides that are the same length and 4 corners etc.

In Language Arts students are building their stamina to do Read to Self in the classroom. We are practicing to stay in one spot the whole reading time, to focus on reading the words or pictures for 5-8 minutes, and to have noises off so that everyone can focus. As we are getting to know the students and where their strengths are in reading, we are trying to match learners with “Just Right/Good Fit” books. Ask your child about the 5 finger rule and how reading good fit books is like riding your bike!

Students were able to visit the Learning Commons this week for an orientation and  brought home a library book this week. We ask that the books be returned with their plastic bag and kept in the bag when not being read to help protect the books from damage. Our library exchange day will be on Wednesdays so students can return their books anytime before that day so that they can sign out new books. We are starting with just one for the first bit and students will work up to signing out 2 books each week. Home Reading will start in the next little bit so stay tuned for more info on that!

Upcoming Info:

• ·      Return your ADmazing coupon book orders when you can- Due date is Sept. 28 I believe
• ·      Parent Teacher Conferences Thursday Sept. 21  3:30-7:30 pm and Friday Sept. 22 from 8:00am -1:00 pm –you can book now on Conference Manager
• ·      No school on Friday Sept. 22 due to Parent Teacher Meetings and on Monday Sept. 25 for a Teacher Professional Learning Day.

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