October 27

Another great week complete! Just a heads up note that I will be away from school next week (Oct. 30-Nov. 3). The same substitute teacher Ms. Patkau will be here for the entire week and students have some familiarity with her from Grade 1 as well as when she has supported us in the classroom a few times this year. I will be back at school on November 6. If you need anything before then please speak with my partner teacher- Stacey Schrattner or see her blog for details about what is happening in our room. 

Today we had the privilege of watching a presentation by the Earth Rangers. They discussed animals from the Boreal Forests and Prairies/Grasslands and some challenges they are currently faces. We are so lucky that they shared some real live animals with us! We saw a skunk (not able to spray- phewf!) an amazing owl, a Peregrine Falcon and many more! Please look below for some pictures of what we saw! Students were excited to become Earth Rangers themselves! If you visit:

https://www.earthrangers.com/  you can see some of the amazing work this organization has done and become an Earth Ranger yourself! 

Ask your child to share about their learning with you from this presentation. 

Our Fieldtrip / Activity Fees have been uploaded, please access your MY CBE Account to pay these https://webapps.cbe.ab.ca/MyAccount/Account/LogOn?ReturnUrl=%2fMyAccount%2f

                                                                

Annual Pumpkin Give Away, BBQ & Mini Pumpkin Decorating Event See attached flyer for details Annual Pumpkin Give Away 

Here is your weekly Dispatch for October 30^th – Nov 3^rd   

Tuesday Oct 31^st  

·         We will be having a Halloween parade of costumes through the classrooms in the afternoon.  If your child chooses to bring their Halloween costume to school – please make it one that they can change into for the afternoon without a lot of adult support (exception – AM Kindergarten are welcome to wear their costumes to school in the morning)- i.e. teachers will not have time to apply makeup; save masks for the evening as they can be a tripping hazard; please no weapons/violence/inappropriate costumes.  If you would like to send an extra treat along with your child for the afternoon – please make it a healthy one.

·         Pumpkinella; your child can bring in a small carved or decorated pumpkin to share with their class.

Friday Nov 3^rd  

·         PM Kindergarten

·         Movie Night  Doors open at 6:30 Movie Starts at 7:00 pm Despicable Me 3

October 25

My apologies for not sending out a reminder about the Popcorn day today! Good news is that there is another one tomorrow! If your child brings in $2, they can get a bag of flavoured popcorn! It is a fundraiser for the school so the money earned goes to a great cause and students get to eat yummy popcorn- double win!!

This week we have begun learning about First Nations culture and early life in Canada. Students have been doing what we call "Thinking Routines" after looking at pictures of how people traditionally lived and utilized the land. In a thinking routine, students document what they "see, think, and wonder" and then we discuss these ideas as a whole class. It helps children to go deeper with their thoughts and make connections with background knowledge. As a teacher, it also helps me to understand how and what students are curious about or thinking.

We have also been lucky enough to be the first grade 2's to experience our kit from Fort Calgary that is full of indigenous artifacts. Students were so excited to explore and make predictions about how the artifacts were used in the past and what they were made out of. Today we started to learn and find out if our predictions were correct and what all these items are called and their purpose in First Nations early life. I was so impressed with how responsible students were at handling the materials and their thoughtful discussions. It would be great if they shared some of their learning with you. We are in the early stages of this unit but students should be able to share a few ideas with you. Here are some pictures that may remind them.

October 18

FRIDAY SHARING DAY!!!

We have been reading through the Incredible You book and #2 is Find What You Love

We've asked the students to think of something that they love and to bring in an object/artifact that represents that love. 
Example: Loves hockey-bring in a jersey or puck or a picture. 
                   Loves their dog- bring in a photo or a dog collar
The item should be able to fit in their backpacks. We should be able to send them all back home with students on Friday or worst case scenario if we don't get through everyone on Friday, we will send them home on Monday. 

October 16th

What a windy day! Glad the wind didn't pick up too bad until after our lunch recess so the kids could enjoy their time outside. Just a reminder that tomorrow is picture day! I believe students will get individual pictures done as well as a class photo. Tomorrow is also Library book exchange day!

Raz-Kids is ready to go! Your child will bring home a sheet with the login information tomorrow. This online tool can be used in addition to the home reading books and just allows for more selection of stories and reading tools.

As students are starting to bring warmer and extra clothing items, I have noticed that our Lost and Found collection has grown substantially these past few weeks. As the mother of a boy who seems to lose everything he takes to school, I know it can be frustrating. I feel like every morning I remind him to check the Lost and Found and when I check in the evening he tells me he forgot- argh haha! Please let me know if I can help support your son or daughter in finding missing items at school that you have noticed are missing. I sent a few today who found items they had left outside at lunchtime.

Here are some pictures of our Math 3D shapes work from last week. I am super impressed with how well students work together in different situations. They regularly show kindness and cooperation to complete tasks!

October 10

I hope you all had a wonderful long Thanksgiving weekend!

Math
This week in Math we are continuing to work on 3D shapes. Students have been using hands on maniputatives and rotating through stations to explore the differences between Cones, Cylinders, Cubes, Pyramids, and Spheres. Last week we were constructing cubes and pyramids with toothpicks and marshmellows to compare and contrast edges, faces and vertices. I will try to take more pictures this week of their learning but today I ended up so absorbed in what they were doing, I completely forgot the photos!

 We will be finishing up with our shapes unit this week or early next week and then we will be moving onto our Numbers. We are noticing that many students are flipping their numbers and writing them backwards so extra practice at home to form these numbers would be awesome! There are some pictures below that show what we use in the classroom for printing. I will attach a link to the blog (as soon as I figure out how) for printing practice of letters and numbers to help prompt  child to form them correctly.

In Social Studies we have been exploring different geographic regions in Alberta. Even though there are technically 6 different regions of Alberta, we are focusing on just 3- the Boreal Forest, the Rocky Mountains, and the Grasslands. This way students get a general understanding of the main landscapes in Alberta. Ask you son or daughter what animals and landforms they would find in these regions. Students created maps that represented where these regions are located in Alberta and added a legend with symbols to help remember what is found there.

Dates coming up:
 Friday October 13- Fun Lunch (if you ordered by last Saturday)
                              -Wear your favourite Jersey (or any team t-shirt/logos)

No School- October 16

Happy October!!

Well we have completed our first month of Grade 2 and students have adapted well to our weekly schedule and classroom routines. October has come in with a vengeance but I'm pleased to that our cold front has not stayed too long. Thank you so much for having your children dress appropriately for the changing conditions as we will usually only stay inside if it is -20 or colder. As we live in Calgary, the weather can change without much notice and I like to use the phrase "it's better to have a jacket and not need it then need a jacket and not have it!" with the students so that they are prepared in case of cooler temperature changes. On that note here is a message from the school leadership group:

Dear Parents,

 

Jacket Racket is a volunteer organization with the goal of ensuring that every child from Kindergarten to Grade 12 has a warm winter coat to wear to school. 90% of donations come from schools. The jackets are then distributed to children in schools where there is a need. This year we are inviting our students and parents to participate in a coat drive for Jacket Racket.  They accept gently used warm winter coats, snow pants, hats and mittens for all ages. Often whole families are outfitted, so any size is welcome.

A box will be set up in the Embassy for collection from October 10, 2017 to October 24, 2017

We encourage you to generously support this worthy project.

It is a great opportunity to help students who may be less fortunate.

          www.jacketracketcalgary.com

 

Thank you for your support.

 

Student Leadership Group and Mrs. Fraser

We have been hard at work retelling familiar stories using the our First, Next, Then, and Finally framework. Students worked in partners to cut out pictures of some events from Little Red Riding Hood and discussed the sequence of these events and wrote sentences that corresponded. The next day, they worked individually to sequence and retell Goldilocks and The T

 Today they drew their own pictures to represent the story The Tortoise and the Hare and tomorrow they will write a sentence to retell the main events.



In Math and Art we have been exploring 2D and 3D shapes. Students are almost completed an Optical Illusion Art project. This art work required some very focused work. It required students to practice using a ruler to draw long lines, create shapes, and trace objects. Once they had that done in pencil, the students then had to choose 2 contrasting colours (most kids remembered one warm and one cool colour from Grade 1) and they had to follow a pattern to colour with a fat marker. It was easy to get confused but I'm so amazed with how they are coming along. Here are a few examples that are almost finished.

Important Dates:
Oct. 5- Last day for Admazing coupon orders.
Oct. 6- Book orders from Scholastic are due
Oct. 9- Thanksgiving Day- no school
Oct. 16- Professional Learning Day (Municipal Voting)


Thanks to everyone who donated a toonie for our Terry Fox fundraising campaign. Our class raised $38 to contribute to cancer research!