October Review and November News

It's hard to believe another month has come to an end. The first two months of school have gone by very quickly. Thank you to all of the parents who have volunteered in a variety of ways during the month of October. The Halloween Craft Day and Halloween Party were all a great success. The students loved the crafts and I am quite sure they enjoyed bringing them home and sharing their accomplishments with you. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful and supportive group of parents this year. The students in our classroom are greatly benefiting from you sharing your time, resources and expertise.

Remembrance Day Assembly is on Friday Nov. 9, starting at 10:30 am.  All are welcome to join us in the gym.  Please remember that this is a solemn assembly and we would ask that there be no clapping at any point.  Students who are in cubs, scouts, brownies, guides, etc. are welcome to wear their uniforms.

Next week, on November 15th we will be going to the Young People's Theatre to see Mary Poppins. I am taking one volunteer on the trip and our volunteer has been confirmed. If you were not selected to volunteer this time, there will be many other volunteer opportunities throughout the year for which we will need your support.

A few reminders as we head into the colder weather, Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather, especially if they stay for lunch.When we get into winter boot weather it will be important that students have a pair of indoor shoes that they keep at school. Putting an extra pair of socks in your child's backpack is also recommended.

Curriculum Outline

Here are some of the highlights from October and some of what is coming up in November.

Language Arts:

Last week all of the students presented their Halloween Poems last week.  Wow, they did such a great job!  Thank you for your support with helping your child memorize and rehearse their poems.  Many students added props and actions which made their poems quite entertaining.  Last month the students were very busy working on procedural writing, writing a fictional narrative as well as recounts about various events such as Thanksgiving and Halloween. The students enjoyed following the procedure for making pumpkin bread. The best part was tasting the warm and delicious bread as soon as it came out of the oven.  As we continue through November, the students will continue with their weekly journal entries on various topics, spelling , printing and grammar. We are continuing to focus on Capitals, Organization, Punctuation and Spelling.

I am thrilled to see that most students have logged into RAZ and have begun reading and completing various activities. I realize that some children would prefer to read their own books in the evening and that is fine with me. The main thing is that your child is reading books at their instructional level everyday. It is also important for you to spend time reading with your child. Choosing a bedtime story or reading aloud a chapter in a book each night is such a valuable bedtime routine.

Math

We are nearing the end of our second unit on Data Management.  Your child will benefit greatly by reviewing the following units on IXL - Data Management - Q1 to Q8.  IXL is a wonderful tool to reinforce and practice what your child is learning a school.  During the month of November and into December we will be focusing on Addition and Subtraction of 2 digit numbers, with and without regrouping.  I am encouraging your child to work through the following IXL units over the next month -  G1-G11 and H1-H9.  Reviewing addition and subtraction facts to 20 would also be beneficial.  We will be starting Minute Math later this month in hopes to improve your child's speed and accuracy of basic facts to 20.

Science

We are almost done our unit on Simple Machines. The children are looking forward to a morning of hands on activities with the Scientist in the School who will be coming on November 23rd.  We will be needing 4 parent volunteers to help us on this day.  Watch for the parent volunteer sign up email.

Social Studies

Our social studies unit on Traditions and Celebrations continues throughout this month and next. Our focus for November will be Diwali and Remembrance Day. The students will be completing a variety of reading, writing and art activities related these special celebrations. We are also creating a class book about Peace.  Each child will have an opportunity to bring the book home and share it with their family.  This week many students presented their Me Project. We have been enjoying learning more about our classmates.

SCARE Hunger Food Drive

A huge thank you to everyone who donated non-perishable food items to our annual SCARE Hunger Food Drive. This was a very successful year for the food drive and your contributions were big part of the success with this initiative

Terry Fox Donations

Another big thank you for all of your contributions to the Terry Fox Walk. Our school contributions are now over $20,000!  WOW!  The final total will be revealed at our celebration assembly later this month.


Report cards and Interviews – Progress reports will be going home on November 12th.  Interviews will be held next week.  If you have missed the on-line system booking opportunity, please write a note in your child's planner and I would be happy to schedule and interview at a mutually agreed upon time.  Interviews are scheduled in 10 minute blocks, so I kindly ask that you are on time.

September Update!

     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.

     Last week we read The Kindness Quilt by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace and discussed ways that we can show kindness both at school and at home through words and actions. The students shared their ideas of how they could show kindness to friends, siblings, parents, classmates, etc. We then created our own Kindness Quilt with paper. The students are very proud of the quilt we made which is displayed on one of the bulletin boards in our classroom.

     By now you all should have 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. 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.

During the next two weeks your child should work on the follow units on IXL:
- Counting and Number Patterns - A1-A12
- Comparing and Ordering  - B1, B3, B5

     We are now well into our spelling program. Once the words have gone home, your child will be accountable for spelling these words correctly in their daily writing.  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.

     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 Guided Reading groups next month.
The students have 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.


     In Writing 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, among other short Halloween writing activities.

     In Math, we have been counting by 2's, 5', 10's and 25's starting from different numbers up to 200.
We have also been counting backwards beginning at 50 by these numbers as well.  In addition, we have been working on representing and ordering numbers to 100.  Next week we will be introducing place value (hundreds, tens and ones).

     In Social Studies we began discussing Traditions and Celebrations. This will be an on-going theme throughout the year.

     In Science, we will be starting our Simple Machines unit this week.  The students will assess the impact on society and the environment of simple machines and mechanisms.  They will investigate mechanisms that include simple machines and enable movement.  The students will also demonstrate an understanding of movement and ways in which simple machines help to move objects and to make life easier.

     Mystery Reader will begin next month. The children love discovering who our weekly Mystery Reader is. I strongly encourage everyone to sign up for this!  Watch for information regarding this from our grade parents.  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.

     We are looking forward to our Terry Fox Walk this Thursday afternoon. Just a reminder, everyone is welcome to join our walk.

Reminders:

- If your child is participating in the cross country practices on Tuesday and Thursday mornings,  please remember to send an extra pair of socks and running shoes as the field is often quite wet in the morning.

- Please remember to sign and return the trip form by October 3rd.  Please remember to write down the confirmation of payment number on the form as well.

- The students are being asked to wear orange on Friday. This day acknowledges the residential school system in Canada, honours those that survived, remembers those who did not, and recognizes the ongoing effects of intergenerational trauma. It is a day to demonstrate that all students matter!

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

agenda.

   

September - First Week

     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  Thursday September 20, 2018.

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

     Last week we read one our 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 understood 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!

     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.

     Thank you for filling out the package of forms that were sent home last week. There are still a few outstanding. If you have not done so already, please return the signed forms before Friday.  Please remember to register for Cashless Schools so payment can be made for the agendas $8.00 and a gym shirt $20.00 (if ordered).  You will need to have a Cashless account in order to pay for pizza lunches and field trips as well. https://schoolcashonline.com
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Agendas:  Students have started using their agendas on a daily basis. They will be recording important information throughout the week. It is their responsibility to show it to you every night, and ask that you sign it.  If you would like to write notes to me in the agenda, please do so on the right hand side of the page, keeping the left hand side for the students. Please remind your child to bring their planner to school everyday.

Reminders:

- Scholastic Book Orders are due September 18, 2018

- All About Me Bag - Due Wednesday September 12, 2018

- All students require that their lockers have either a lock, which they are able to open

independently, or a carabineer clip on them.  

- Students must have indoor running shoes for gym class and DPA

- All students should bring a water bottle to school, which they may fill up throughout the

week, and it will be brought home to be washed on the weekends

- Students should have healthy, peanut and tree nut-free snacks for both recess breaks.

- Please be sure to check all of your child’s snacks carefully, as well as anything

that you send into the school for class parties and/or birthdays.

Happy Spring! April News

February News

     The month of February has been very busy! We have learned about Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Olympics and Chinese New Year. We also celebrated the 100th day of School.

Language:

     The students were very excited to receive letters from their Pen Pals. They are grade two students from London, Ontario. The children were very eager to write back to their Pen Pals. They had a lot of fun finding comparisons and writing all about themselves.  Hopefully your child shared the letter they received with you.
     This month our language program has been integrated with our social studies program to include a variety of lessons, activities and read alouds related to Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year.
     We are also well into our second read aloud novel study: The Witches by Roald Dahl. The students are really enjoying this book and they are taking great care when working on the novel study.
       The students have been enjoying their second Readers Theatre Plays. They all worked very hard on reading with fluency and expression.  Each group had an opportunity to perform in front of their peers. All of the groups did a wonderful job!

Math:

We have completed our unit on 2D and 3D shapes. Later this week we will begin our unit on multiplication and division.  Towards the end of this week we will be discussing the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication. I encourage all students to learn their multiplication facts. This will give your child a head start to grade three. I would also like to stress the importance of your child memorizing the basic addition and subtraction facts to 20. Some children are very slow to arrive at the answers and are still relying on their fingers. Practice, practice, practice! Please continue to help your child keep up with the IXL units. 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

Science: In Science we have completed our unit on Liquids and Solids and we will soon be starting  a new unit on Air and Water.

Absences: Please let the office know if you will be taking your child out of school for any length of time before or after the break.  Your child can always keep a journal of their travels and read daily. IXL and RAZ are also great if you have access to the internet.

Mystery Reader:

The children love discovering who our weekly Mystery Reader is. Please sign up for this if you have not done so already. 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.

 

January News

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 2018!

This month in Language we are diving right back into our routine of weekly spelling, grammar, journal writing and reading activities. We will begin a whole class novel study based on a book written by Alexander McCall Smith called Akimbo and The Elephants.

During the next two weeks we will be continuing our Patterning Unit in Math. Please review Sections D1-D6 on IXL to help your child consolidate their learning in this area.

Later on in January we will begin our Measurement unit in Math. Throughout this unit, we will focus on measuring length,width and height using standard and non-standard units. Standard units include cm, m, while non-standard units include paper clips, cubes, fingers, feet, etc.

In Science were are continuing to work on our Liquids and Solids unit in January.

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.

Mystery Reader:

The children love discovering who our weekly Mystery Reader is. Please 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.