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.