Merry Christmas!

Wow!  Only one week until Christmas break.  This week will sure be exciting!  We have a lot to do before the break.

Grade 2s have been working hard on their printing practice books.  The Grade 3s have learned to write the entire alphabet in cursive writing.  They are now slowly applying that skill to their everyday work.

This month we talked about the various purposes an author may have when writing.  We wrote a persuasive piece of writing ourselves.  Each student chose a favourite book of theirs and tried to persuade the reader to read their book of choice.  The students took pictures of their books for their finished product.  Check them out on our Books are Bright bulletin board.

We have had a lot of indoor recess lately.  To get the kids moving we have been doing Just Dance for Kids on the SMARTBoard.

 

The Grade 2 french class has learned a lot of Christmas vocabulary.  Here they are reading a book about Christmas:

Christmas Party: On Friday we will have a few special events to celebrate Christmas.  Students are encouraged to wear red and green or anything festive that they have. 

Reminders:
Tuesday: Christmas Concert - arrive by 6pm wearing Christmas clothes.  Don't forget to bring footwear and violins. Tickets available at the office.
Friday: Pizza Lunch

Late Blog Post

I apologize this post did not make it up on Monday.  The students have been working at taking the pictures for this post.  Over the next few weeks they will become more involved in posting these updates and telling you about what they have been learning about in our classroom.

Each student has a wooden stick with their name on it.  When they take a picture of something they've done they have the option to add in their stick so that I know who took the picture.  Not only does this allow you to see their work on the blog page, but it also allows me to see items that I may not have seen while working with other students in the classroom.

Take a look at a couple snapshots from a persuasive writing assignment:

Here are some pictures of spelling sorts that we took:

You may have heard about the RAK/RACK project also happening in our classroom.  Students are working at doing Random Acts of (Christmas) Kindness, and not expecting anything in return.  They are also working at showing gratitude and appreciate to the people who perform acts of kindness.

Grade 2s have been working at learning French Christmas vocabulary.  As we learn the words we are decorating the classroom.  We made Joyeux Noel cartes, and there are now bas de Noels hanging from the fireplace, a new favourite place to work and read.

Our Classroom Advent Calendar:

 The vocabulary we are learning in Social Studies:

 Grade 2 math chains - making 10:

Reminders:
Friday - No School

Stuck in a Snow Globe

 This past week we worked on an integrated project.  This project was a combination of Technology (pictures), ELA (paragraph writing), and Art.  Although we had loads of fun putting it together, we actually learned how to write a good paragraph. 

We used a collection of graphic organizers to plan out our ideas and write a rough copy.

 We used very special painting tools (Q-tips) to create the right look for the snow.

The result: our snowglobes, and a model for writing good paragraphs.  We applied this model to our journal writing this morning.

 Grade 2 French - we made presents with our favourite animal inside.  They are on the wall outside our classroom if you'd like to check them out.

 Math Games: Grade 2s are working on missing part equations (i.e. 12 - ? = 7)  Grade 3s are working on mental math strategies (i.e. using double, making ten).

Reminders:
Wednesday - pizza lunch
Friday - Grade 3 violin performance during the day

Conferences

We have been working hard to get our portfolios ready for you to see this week.  The students are very excited to show you their work, and their classroom. 

Today we enjoyed a beautiful snowy fall day.  Next week we will show you the writing project that we incorporated into the snowy day.

Just a few reminders this week:

Conferences: Tuesday/Wednesday
Friday: Book Orders and Pizza Orders are Due

Live Music Night Tickets for November 29 are available at the office

Four Day Week

Last week we held a Remembrance Day Service at school.  Here is a video of our class presentation:

We are nearing the end of our unit on Soils and Plants.  The students were asked to create a poster to promote looking after plants in our world.  The students informed me that they wanted to create posters to protect the grass on the school playgrounds because they have noticed a lot of litter outside.  This turned into a bit of a project including a school yard clean up.  Here we are with the garbage that we collected.

To conclude the soil portion of the unit we are starting a compost project in our classroom.  We have started a brand new bin with fresh worms.  They are just starting to digest the scraps and newspaper that we have given them.

 We took a close look at these critters so we knew exactly what we were dealing with.

Reminders:
Next week conferences are on Tuesday and Wednesday.  If you have not returned the sign up sheet to the office please do so. 

Remembrance Week

Last week we celebrated Pumpkin Day.  Our devotion on Thursday morning was the pumpkin prayer.

Grade 3s are just wrapping up a unit on numbers to 1000.  Here is how we counted out 1000 candy bones this week!  It didn't take nearly as long as we thought.  The pile of bones was also much smaller than we had anticipated.

Grade 2s are just finishing a unit on numbers to 100.  Here's what we worked on this week:

We have also been working hard on our Plants and Soil Science unit.  The students were asked to come up with a poster idea to promote the conservation of plants.  Together the class decided to initiate a project to reduce the amount of garbage on the BSLS playground.  Watch for posters going up real soon.

This week we will participate in numerous activities related to Remembrance Day.  On Thursday there will be a Remembrance Day service at 10:30.  Parents and guests and welcome to attend. 

Reminders:
Thursday - Due date for returning the Student Led Conference Appointment form
Friday - No School
Monday Nov. 11 - No School

Pumpkin Week

This sure is going to be an exciting week for us! Please read through all of the details carefully.

This week in math the Grade 3s are beginning to explore the number 100.  Here is a picture of us getting an idea of what 100 books look like.

The Grade 2s are working on equality.  Here's an example:

Nut Safe Policy - just a reminder that all foods/treats/snacks sent to school for snack and lunch should be completely free of nut warnings and, of course, nuts.

Today we starting learning the Scientific Method so that we can conduct a simple experiment to see what the needs of plants really are.  Here are the healthy plants before starting the experiments.

The grade 2s completed a parts of the face collage in French class.  Aren't they great?

Pumpkin Day (aka Halloween)
On Thursday students can bring a costume to school that they will put on after lunch.  The costume should be 'friendly', i.e. no weapons, blood/gore, evil/scary costumes.  They will have an opportunity to parade through the school to see all of the fabulous costumes.  We will be having a Surprise Pumpkin Day activity following the parade. 

I have added a tab to the top of our blog page that contains a link to other teacher pages.  You will find the new French tab there.  That's where the Grade 3 information can be found.

This week:
Wednesday: Winnipeg Police Presentation on Bullying
Thursday: Pumpkin Day
Friday: November
Saturday: Christmas Craft Sale and Coffee House

Another 4 day week

This past week was an exciting one.  Even with just four days we were able to accomplish a lot!  Below are pictures from out Science experiments.  We separated soil layers to see what soil is really made of.  We took a close look at root systems, and stems.  We were able to clearly see the tubes running through celery stems. 

The Grade 2s have been working on learning the names of fruits and vegetables during French class.  This week we added parts of the face to create our own citrouille.

This week I am beginning Word Work groups.  This year we will be using the Words Their Way program to study spelling.  This program works a little differently than the traditional spelling lists you have previously seen.  Each child will receive a baggie with a word sort in it.  The homework is to practice the sort each day.  The baggie needs to stay in the homework folder so that we can use it at school each day as well.

Last week we started using the Listen to Reading centre.  If your child does not yet have earphones you will want to get them a pair.

Our school is participating in a sweater drive that CLWR is working on for Syrian refuges.  They are asking for new or gently used men's, women's and children's sweaters.  The drop box is outside the Kindergarten classroom and the deadline to make donations is this week Thursday.

Reminders:
Wednesday - Hot Dog Day
Friday - no classes
Monday (28) - Scholastic Due