June 14

Thank you to everyone for sending swim bags and all that the students need for the past 3 days! The students are loving their lessons and I am hearing about all the neat things they get to learn.  It was especially fun to watch some of the students jump off the diving board for the first time.In class, we have had some pretty quiet afternoons.  The students are definitely tired and have expressed that they need some quiet time.  I am so impressed with their ability to express what they need.

 Most of us have finished painting our "giants" and we stuck them on the walls today.  Those who are not done, will get theirs up tomorrow.  We have been using Google Docs to write our description to match our giant.  Tomorrow, we will peer edit our work using the share option on Google Docs.  When we are done, we will print these out to go beside our giant.  I love the creativity and uniqueness of each giant.  It is amazing to me that we all started at the same time, with the same conversations, yet all of our giants are different.  Here is a peek of some of them:

In math, we have been reviewing some of our addition and subtraction strategies. Yesterday we played a game called "Double Down".  Students take turns rolling two dice. If they get a double, they yell "Double Down" and write down the double questions.  After the timer goes off (usually 5  minutes is enough) they add up all their addition facts.  As an extra challenge, students can add up their sums of all the doubles facts.  This is a fun, quick and easy way to practice their basic facts.  Next, we will be using non standard measurement tools to measure our giants: their feet, fingers, arms etc!

As I wrote about earlier in the week, we will have school yearbooks. As they prepare to finalize the books, they are looking for student submissions for the front cover of the book.  If your child would like to enter a submission for this, please see the information below!

OUR FIRST YEAR AND SO MANY MEMORIES!!

Our first year is coming to an end, and we would love to see your drawing of your favorite school memory from the year!

Submissions will appear on the cover and throughout our first Yearbook at Ken Taylor

Please return your drawing by Monday, June 19, 2017

Coming up:

• Swimming Thursday, Monday and Tuesday
• Beach Wear Day Friday
• Early Dismissal Friday

Jan. 19

Just a reminder that tomorrow is an early dismissal!

Over the next few weeks in writing, we will be starting some Pourquoi stories.  Why do beavers have flat tails? Why does it storm? Children are naturally curious about the wonders of nature. To feed this interest  — as well as inspire great imaginative writing — we will use pourquoi tales! Pourquoi [por-kwa] means "why" in French. Pourquoi tales are old legends told to explain why certain events happened. These tales often start in the past, e.g. A long, long time ago . . . and end when the explanation is complete. 

We will be using the communities we are studying in Social Studies as inspiration for these tales.  We will pick an animal from either the East Coast, the Arctic or the Prairies.  We will use Aboriginal tales from each community to help give us a guide and inspire us. 

We will also tie in science - as part of our learning in grade 2 is about how different animals adapt to difference environments.  These adaptations will be our starting point for the Pourquoi stories. 

Here is a simple version of a Pourquoi story (not Canadian) that we  may read and dissect to learn more about how to read our own. Stay tuned for updates on this neat project!

A long, long time ago, Leopard was the plain, solid brown-yellow color of the desert. He was so plain he was almost invisible against the brown-yellow desert. When he headed out to hunt, Giraffe and Zebra and the other animals didn't know which way to jump. To escape Leopard's appetite, Giraffe and Zebra headed into the great shadowy forest. When Leopard tried to follow them, he stood out like a bright-yellow sunflower against a dark fence. He could not hunt at all. Giraffe and Zebra saw yellow Leopard right away, and ran off deeper into the forest. Leopard had to do something. He asked his human friend to help him. So the Man carefully dipped his five fingertips in black ink and painted spots all over Leopard's fur. Now Leopard could blend into the shadows, and once again he became a great and powerful hunter!

Coming up:

• Early dismissal tomorrow

Oct. 19

In our writing, we have been learning about all the parts of a letter and reasons why we write letters. Through the year we will be writing letters for various reasons including persuading others, finding more information about a topic and even making new friends!  This week, we finalized our first letter that we will be sending to our new penpals at Buffalo Rubbing Stone.  We have connected to another grade 2 class that we will write letters to and in these letters we will learn more about their school, their learning, and compare their learning to ours.  In our first letter, we introduced ourselves, talked about our school and classroom and asked questions about their school.  We can’t wait to get their letters back in the mail! Here are a few excerpt from our letters:

We also finished our beautiful leaves today. We will be sending one of these to our penpals as an offering of friendship. We will be keeping the other to decorate our classroom. We are so proud of our final project. We learned many skills such as following directions, blending colours, using familiar shapes, and using real life objects as our inspiration. Can you see all the colours? Isn’t it interesting how we all created uniquely shaped and coloured leaves?

Coming up:

Popcorn day tomorrow and Friday - $2 a bag

Early Dismissal Day Friday

Photo Day Tuesday

Mrs. Jordan away Tuesday morning at Learning Leader meeting.