Nov. 7

Good afternoon!  I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Today we had our first practice for our Remembrance Day Ceremony.  We did so well practicing with all the other grade 2 classes.  We will continue to practice this through the week.

We also had the chance to finish our poppies and reflect about why we wear a poppy.  Look at how different and beautiful each of our painted poppies are.  These will be used in both our slideshow and on our wreath that we will present.   On Thursday we will get to wear our own poppy.  If your family would like to send a small cash donation for that poppy, you are welcome to do so and donations would be accepted.

Coming up:

• Veterans' Food Drive this week. Send in non-perishable food donations if you can. 
• Tomorrow is book exchange
• Remembrance Day Ceremony Thursday at 9:30am
• No School Friday
• Photo Orders due Nov. 15
• Poinsettia orders due  Nov. 21. Here is a sneak peak of how they look: 

Nov. 4

What fun we had today looking at the different aspects of a playground! This morning, we worked on the next stage of our playground project: the ideate stage.  We talked about the main motions that we experience while using a playground: spinning,  climbing, sliding, swinging, and movement (how we can move from one piece of equipment to the other).  We picked an area that we were most interested in and then using catalogues given to us by one of our experts, we cut out pieces that fit into this category.  Next, we will pick one or two of these pieces that we would want on our playground and we will start to design it. We not only had to use skills of categorizing, analyzing, and choosing, we had to practice cooperation, problem solving, and compromising.  

Today we talked a little more about Remembrance Day, the symbol of the poppy and our ceremony next week.  We started to paint our poppies that will go on our class wreath for the ceremony and we finished our writing that we will present.  We discussed the seriousness of the ceremony and also how we could dress for the ceremony. Although not mandatory, we are inviting students to wear their formal outfits as a sign of respect and honour for the ceremony and holiday of Remembrance Day (dresses, ties, button up shirts, golf shirts, skirts etc). We talked about why this kind of dress would appropriate for this ceremony. If your child is in Brownies or Scouts, they are welcome to wear their uniforms this day.

Lastly, we are collecting donations for the Veterans Food Drive.  You can send any non-perishable food items to the school and all donations will go to Canadian Veterans.  Below is a list of some ideas that they may receive less often and really appreciate or need:
- canned foods (soup, vegetables, beans, fruits, fish, meats)
- condiments
- jam, peanut butter, honey
- baking items: flours, sugars
- pasta
- rice
- quick meals: Kraft Dinner, Noodles
- Breakfast foods: oats, cereals
- drinks: coffee, whitener, tea, hot chocolate, juice

Thanks in advance for your donations to this great cause.

You may have noticed that your child came home with picture proofs today too. Please note that these are due back Nov. 15.

Coming up:

• Scholastic due Monday
• Photos due Nov. 15
• Remembrance Day Ceremony 9:30 - Nov. 10

Nov. 3

Today we had our second buddy time with the CSSI students. We stayed with our same buddies today and we talked about why having the same buddy was really important for our CSSI buddies.  Instead of reading again today, we went to their classes and they had many different kinds of puzzles set up for us to do with them. Some were traditional jigsaw puzzles, some were matching letter puzzles, and some were wooden puzzles with different textures to engage the senses of the students.

After we left, many students expressed that they had a lot of fun and learned a lot about their buddies. Today many of us were a lot more confident and comfortable to ask a few more questions about why they do certain things such as make loud noises or rock their bodies. We were quite excited to hear that the students were really happy to see us and were looking forward to it all day.  As we left, I overheard some of the students say, "I felt good today" and "I hope we can go back soon".  This is exactly the hope for buddies: that we can build a stronger sense of community and experience different kinds of learning in our school.

Some questions to start some conversation might be:

• What did you see/feel in buddies today?
• How did buddies today feel different than last time? Why do you think that is?
• How does your buddy show excitement/happiness etc?
• What activities do you hope to do with your buddy in the future?

We hope to meet back again in a few weeks with our buddies. 

Coming up:

• Scholastic Book Orders Due Monday
• Veteran's Food Drive Nov. 7 - 10
• Remembrance Day Ceremony Nov. 10 @9:30am

Nov. 2

In math, we are learning more about place value and  number concepts such as recognizing numbers to 100, representing numbers, and skip counting.

We have been practicing skip counting by 10 both forward and backwards at a variety of starting points.  We have used 100 charts to help us recognize the patterns we see when we count and we realized that when we count by 10, our digit in the ones place remains the same, but our tens place digit grows/decreases by 10.

We also completed some open ended problem solving to show our knowledge of skip counting. Look at some of our responses.

Today we began skip counting by 5 both forward and backward starting at 5.  We started to notice the pattern when we count by 5s.  Ask your child, what pattern do you see when you count by 5 starting at 5?  Tomorrow we will use this knowledge to play a math game and complete some fill in the blank skip counting activities.

We are also growing out mental math strategies through our daily number talks. It is just incredible to see the growth in our math strategies in just a couple weeks.  Ask your child to talk to you about some of these mental math strategies: counting all, counting up, doubles, and doubles +1/-1. Here is a photo of today's number talk. Our original question was 7+8 = ?
Although it looks crazy, all of the ideas, answers, and strategies came from your children. Your child may not be able to speak to ALL the strategies yet, but they should be able to use at least a couple of these strategies and explain why some are more "efficient" than others.

Coming up:
Scholastic Book orders due Monday, Nov. 7
Veteran's Food Drive - Nov. 7 - 10 (more info to come)
Remembrance Day Ceremony Oct. 10 @9:30am.

Nov. 1

I hope everyone had a great night of Trick or Treating! There sure were a lot of tired kids today, but we did the best we could. I hope everyone gets a chance to catch up on their sleep tonight :)

Today we started to talk about Remembrance Day and what it is. We talked a lot about Peace, what it is, how it feels, and what it means to each of us. We used our senses to help us really feel peace both at home and at school.  We will eventually be talking ab

out how we can help make our school a more peaceful place.  We also shared ways that we already help it be a peaceful, safe place to learn. We will be using these ideas and presenting them in front of the school at our Remembrance Day ceremony on Nov. 10. We will be sharing our ideas, some art to go with them, and some photos.  Some questions to help a discussion about Peace at home could be:

• When do you feel peaceful?
• What smells are peaceful to you? Sights? sounds?
• How does your body feel when you are peaceful?
• What does peace look like at home? In your classroom?

We will share our writing on the blog as we finalize some of our thoughts and ideas.

Today your child will come home with our first Scholastic book order.  Please do not feel any pressure to order but I do like to participate in the program as it does provide good books at affordable prices.  If you do want to order, you can send back just the order form with your child's name and selections on it.  You can either pay with cash, cheque, or online through Scholastic. The website is here: parentpay.scholastic.ca
If you pay online, be sure to include the reference number on the order form for me. Each order that we receive helps us buy books for our class. I always allow the students to pick the books that they would like for our classroom library.

If you would like to order gifts for your child for birthdays or Christmas, please send me an email or a note in a sealed envelope and we can arrange a pick up time that will be our secret ;)

Coming up:
Mrs. Jordan away tomorrow at Design Thinking Workshop.
Remembrance Day ceremony- Nov. 10

Oct. 31

Happy Halloween!!

We had a really great day in our class today full of learning and fun!

This afternoon we had a fun time putting on our costumes and sharing them with each other. It was lovely to see the students helping each other tie up costumes, putting on masks for each other and helping find missing pieces (We are pretty sure we didn't lose anything today!)

We then walked the school to show off to the rest of the students and to see the creative costumes of the rest of the school. I think most of us would agree that the kindergarten students stole the show...

After our parade we listened to a fun Halloween story on Tumblebooks and enjoyed our special snack. For the end of the day, we had a chance to pick one of three activities, including a game called "Boo Bump", a math number recognition colouring page, and lastly a Halloween word game.  Unfortunately my SD card wasn't in my camera so I cannot post any pictures of the fun but I am sure if you ask your child, they can tell what a great day it was!

I hope everyone is as safe as they can be tonight and has as much fun as they can have. Looking forward to what November will bring :)

Oct. 28

Happy Friday to everyone!  We had such an amazing week of learning this week. I can feel the students are really settled into our class and have an urge to learn more each day.  It's so exciting to feel this energy in the class!

Today we continued working on our Design Thinking Project for Magnets. Today we met in our teams to think about exactly how we would build our device and make a plan for it. In order to do this, we needed to practice good communication, compromise, and active listening.  Some of us took some risks in sharing our ideas and we all worked on "plussing" the ideas of others.

We practiced using the language: First, then, next, and finally to make our plan so we knew exactly how to build it. We also came up with a list of materials. This was very specific and even needed to include if we needed glue!

Next week we will be prototyping our ideas and testing them out.  I can't wait to see these devices come to life!

Coming up:

• Halloween Monday - Bring costumes to change into at lunch. Bring a special snack for the afternoon activities :)
• Mrs. Jordan away Wednesday morning at a Design Thinking Professional Development opportunity with several other teachers from Ken Taylor. 
• Oral sharing will start in two weeks. Watch for a schedule on the blog next week!