Late October Update!

     Thank you to everyone who has brought in a donation for the We Scare Hunger food drive. The children are learning about helping others less fortunate and they are so proud to put their donations into the box outside our classroom.  Just a reminder, please don't send in any products which contain nuts.  The Food Drive continues until November 1, 2017.

     Over the next several weeks we will be working on number sense and numeration.  It is recommended that your child work on the following units on IXL - E1 to E12,  F1 to F7, H1 to H6 and L1 to L6 . It is recommended that you supervise your child when using IXL so you can see where your child has made mistakes and explain and help them understand where they have gone wrong.

      Picture Retake Day is on Wednesday November 1, 2017.  Please let me know if you wish a retake, so I can add your name to my list.  

     The grade 8's will be creating a Haunted House for the students to visit. It is usually recommended the students bring a $2.00 donation when entering the Haunted House as the grade 8's are raising money for their grade trip. Our class is scheduled to visit the Haunted House on Friday, October 27th. Your child does not have to visit the Haunted House if they are not comfortable doing so. They will have the option to stay outside in the hallway with Mrs. Champagne.

     Halloween is quickly approaching. This week we will be having a Halloween craft morning. The children are looking forward to making some crafts that they can use to decorate their home. The children may wear their costumes to school on Tuesday, October 31.  There will be a school parade for the parents at 9:00 am.  The parade will be outside weather permitting.  Our classroom party will be in the afternoon.  Just a reminder that face paint is easier to manage than a mask and please no weapons.  

     Finally, a reminder that Pizza Lunch is on Friday, October 27th. Please remind your child how to behave for the parent supervisors in our classroom. The students need to use inside voices, remain seated, use their manners and to clean up after themselves. I will be speaking to the students about these expectations but an extra reminder from home will be helpful too.

What to Expect in October

It's hard to believe that we are already into the first week of October. I'm sure everyone is looking forward to having a nice Thanksgiving long weekend!

A reminder that photo day is on Tuesday this week!

Thank you to everyone who attended our Curriculum Night last Thursday evening. I hope you enjoyed looking around our classroom and seeing all of the wonderful work the children have been doing over the last couple of weeks. The students are very proud of their accomplishments so far in grade two. If you had another commitment and were not able to attend last Thursday, please feel free to drop by the classroom with your child and have a look around.

On Thursday afternoon we enjoyed participating in out whole school Terry Fox Walk. Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered to walk with our class. Wow! What an amazing turn out!

Last week each child chose a classmate to interview and they also had to draw a portrait of their friend . This week they will present what they learned about their friend to the class. So far the students have done a wonderful job on this three part assignment.

Language Arts:
We are now into the routine of weekly spelling lists. Each week, the students complete a variety of activities in class based on the spelling words of the week. These may include sorting words by spelling rule, crosswords, fill in the blank, proofreading and short creative writing assignments. I will send home the spelling test book every couple of weeks so you can keep track of the words your child needs to work on.

Reading:
In reading we are focusing on the reading strategies of making connections and predictions to assist with comprehension. Students are encouraged to make text to self, text to text and/or text to world connections as they are reading. The class will begin weekly Guided Reading groups later this month.
The students will begin working on reading short stories in class and answering a variety of comprehension and grammar questions in complete sentences, using words from the questions to begin the answer and including greater detail. We are working on remembering to begin sentences with a capital letter and to end sentences with appropriate punctuation.

Writing:
Over the next couple of weeks we will be working on a variety of short writing assignments based on Thanksgiving and Halloween. The students will learning to write recounts of various experiences, such as the Terry Fox walk and Thanksgiving. They will also be learning to write fictional narratives with a "Spooky" focus around Halloween, amongst other short Halloween writing activities.

Math:

This week we will be completing our Math Unit on Sorting and Data Management (graphing). Weekly IXL practice based on what we have learned to date would be beneficial for all students.

I will send home information about our next math unit later this week.

Science:

We will be starting our Simple Machines unit this week. We will be having the Scientist in the School come in November for a morning/afternoon of hands-on activities related to this unit in Movement. We will need 4-5 volunteers for this amazing morning of learning! Stay tuned for a confirmation of the date and a request for volunteers.

Social Studies:

We are well underway with our first unit looking at Traditions and Celebrations. This month

we are focusing on Thanksgiving and Halloween.

Mystery Reader:

Mystery Reader will begin this month. The children love discovering who our weekly Mystery Reader is. I strongly encourage everyone to sign up for this!  I am happy to accommodate your schedule to ensure each child is surprised by their parent, sibling or grandparent at least one time during the school year.

That's all for now! I will let you know when this blog has been updated again through your child's

agenda.

     I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weekend.

     Last week we continued to talk about Respect. I read one my favourite books, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. Each student was holding a paper heart. Each time Chrysanthemum was teased because of her name, we crumpled up the heart. Every time someone did something nice to her we tried to smooth it out. By the end of the story, the heart was very wrinkled and could not be smoothed. The students got the connection that our own heart feels wrinkled and crumpled sometimes when we don't like what someone says. Words do hurt. We should always stop and think before we speak. It's hard to fix a wrinkled heart!

                                                                        IXL Practice

     Everyone should have received their IXL login information. During the next few weeks we will be focusing on.  Please have your child practice the following on IXL:

Counting and Number Patterns

A1, A2, A3, A4, A4, A5, A13

Data and Graphs

Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9

    Please also practice counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 200. Many students know how to count to 100, however, they need practice counting and writing numbers beyond 100.

     Please make sure you are monitoring your child while they are working on IXL. I am noticing that some children have not been attempting the Grade Two Units rather they have been working on the Grade One or Kindergarten Units. If left alone many children will choose the easy route. Please make sure they are using this resource to review what we are working on in the classroom.

Grade 1-3 Cross-Country

Cross-Country begins on Tuesday September 19th. Running is a great way to start the day. I am encouraging all children to take part. I will be there too! The practices will be every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 8:15. Remember to sign the form and send it with your child at the first practice. There will be a bin to put the form in.

First Week Update

The first week of Grade Two was a great success! Hopefully all of you have taken some time to review the detailed letters that were sent home last week. I hope that I was able to address most of the questions you may have about how our classroom works. I have been encouraging the children to bring their parent/caregivers by our classroom to show them around. This can be done before or after school. You will also have an opportunity to visit our classroom at Curriculum Night which is this Thursday September 28, 2017.

This month the Character Trait is Respect! We have been reading several books with themes relating to respect and we also created a classroom chart with our ideas about what Respect looks/sounds like.

This week we also made a list of Classroom Agreements which will help to ensure our classroom is a safe, secure and happy place to learn. Each student signed the Chart of Agreements to show they have agreed to follow our Classroom Agreements.

If your chiId is interested in participating in Cross Country, the first practice will be on Tuesday, September 19th.  Cross Country will be every Tuesday, Thursday at 8:15. Exercise is a great way for your child to start their day!

Thank you for filling in all of those forms that were sent home last week. There are still a couple outstanding. If you have time this week, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a look at them if you have not done so already and sign and return them as soon as possible.

This week you all received your son/daughter's login information for IXL and RAZ. Hopefully everyone has had a chance to explore these wonderful learning tools. I recommend your child use the programs 2-3 times per week for 15 minutes each time.


We began our Spelling Program this week. The students have written these words in their planner and we will have a spelling test on Friday. Once the words have gone home, your child will be accountable for spelling these words correctly in their daily writing. In a couple of weeks I will also be adding 3-5 "NoExcuse" words to the list each week. These words are from a list of words of high frequency words that your child is expected to know by the end of grade two. Quite often children do very well on the weekly spelling test however the words may still be spelled incorrectly in their daily writing. Your child will be encouraged to use our Word Wall, Word Wiz Dictionaries and Word Cards to ensure these words are spelled correctly in their daily work.

Scholastic book orders are due on September, 18, 2017.

In Social Studies we began discussing Traditions and Celebrations. We have start with birthdays. It has been fun learning about how families celebrate birthdays in different ways. Traditions and Celebrations will be an on-going theme throughout the year.

In Math, we have been working on the hundreds chart and number lines. This month we will begin a unit on Data Management . The students will learn how to make a graphs. Your child will work with a partner and came up with a question with four possible answers. Then they will survey the class and create a graph using the information from their survey.

In Language we will working on answering comprehension questions using complete sentences both orally and in the written form.


We are looking forward to our Terry Fox Walk  at the end of the month. Just a reminder, everyone is welcome to join our walk.

Hello Everyone,

Hopefully Spring is here to stay! Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather. Hopefully the warm weather will settle in very soon.

It is hard to believe that another month has almost gone by. June is going to be another busy month.

I would like to welcome our new student, Charles to our class.  The students were so excited to meet Charles on Tuesday and they have all been very helpful with helping him learn our school and classroom rules and routines.

I hope all of you were surprised to receive your letters in the mail. The students were thrilled to write the letters and to put them in the mailbox.  They were also very excited about their Mother's Day Painting and special Mother's Day writing.  I hope you enjoyed that too.



Here is some of what we're doing this week and into June.

Language Arts

The students are beginning to study poetry. They will be learning about and writing different types of poetry over the next few weeks. This is always a very enjoyable and creative unit. 

Math

We have completed our units on time, temperature, calendar and fractions. We are working on a new on Measurement, Area, Perimeter. Please ensure that your child is completing the IXL activities on a weekly basis. It is a great way to reinforce what we have been learning in class. 

Science

We are continuing our unit about Growth and Change in Animals. The students have been learning about the six classifications of animals and over the next  few weeks the students we will be learning about the life cycles of a frog and the butterfly and a few other animals.

Social Studies

April News

February News

     The first week of February has been very busy! We have learned about Groundhog Day, Chinese New Year and today we had a fun skating trip to the MasterCard Centre. Thank you to the many parents who drove students and to other parents who joined in for the fun.

     Just a reminder that report cards will be coming home on Monday February 13^th. I have already requested interviews with some parents.  Notes were sent home last week suggesting whether or not i fest an interview was necessary.  Of course, I am more than happy to meet with any parent who wishes to discuss their child’s progress. Please book your interview on the School Bookings website by Wednesday February 8^th. If for some reason you miss the booking deadline, just write a note in your child’s planner and we can arrange a time that is convenient for both of us.

     The students have decorated their Valentine Bags and can start to bring in their Valentines anytime this week. A list of students names was sent home at the beginning of the week. If your child chooses to give out Valentines, please make sure they make one for everyone in the class as we would not want anyone to feel excluded. We will be having a small party to celebrate Valentine's Day on the 14th. We will have some special (peanut/nut free) snacks and have an opportunity to open up the cards from our friends.

Curriculum Outline for February:

Language:

     The students are excited about learning cursive writing. We will be learning two letters each week.
It is amazing to see how hard they concentrate and how quiet they are during cursive writing periods.

     This month our language program will be integrated with our social studies program to include a variety of lessons, activities and read alouds related to Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day and Black History month.

Math:

     In math we are just beginning our unit on multiplication and division.  This week we will be discussing the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication. I encourage all students to learn their multiplication facts. I would also like to stress the importance of your child memorizing the basic addition and subtraction facts to 20. Practice, practice, practice! Please continue to help your child keep up with the IXL assignments. For the most part, they are directly related to what we are doing in class, and help a lot! Congratulations to our class for receiving an IXL award for answering 20,000 questions on IXL! WOW! That's a lot of questions! Amazing!!!

Please work on the following units on IXL: Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6, Z1, Z2, E16, E17, E18, E19

Social Studies:

     Gung Hay Fat Choy! The students loved learning about Chinese New Year last month. We read many stories, made some beautiful crafts and watched a few interesting videos. They really enjoyed seeing the dragon dance and the lion dance. They also liked learning about the history of the zodiac. Each of the children also received a lucky red envelope 'Lai see'.

     This month, we will shift our focus to Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Family Day and Black History month.

     The grade two students will be beginning their own inquiry based projects later this month. The projects will be related to our Social Studies unit, People and Environments - Global Communities. Inquiry-based learning starts by posing questions and this is how we will be starting this unit. The questions will be posted on a "Wonder" chart in our classroom. From there, we will progress through Inquiry process. The students will be grouped together based on their questions and interests.


Science:

     In Science we will be starting our Growth and Change in Animals unit very soon.

     We had the opportunity to visit the intermediate science fair last week. All of the projects were inquiry based. Each student had a chance to look at several projects and listen to a few student presentations. After we returned to our classroom we discussed some of the questions that guided the investigations we had viewed. This was a good way to introduce the students to the inquiry process and get them thinking about how a simple question can guide an in-depth investigation.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! It's great to be back and it has been a pleasure hearing about the students' holiday adventures! Best Wishes to you all as we enter 2017!

Last week the students thoroughly enjoyed making their Time Capsules. Please put it away and have your child wait at least one year to open it up. I have told the children the longer they wait to open it the more fun it will be to look inside. The students also completed a New Year Flip Book and added some paper folding and cutting art for decorations. They are hanging outside the classroom so come by and have a look. The children were very creative with their designs.

This month in Language we are diving right back into our routine of weekly spelling, grammar, journal writing and reading activities. The students will begin cursive writing this month! They are very excited to start.



In Science were are continuing to work on our Air and Water unit in January.

This month in Art we will be focusing on colours. Specifically: the colour wheel - primary and secondary colours, complimentary colours, colour tone and warm and cool colours.