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 13th. 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 8th. 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.
