December Update

Can you believe we are heading into December this week!?!? This month many classes in the school, including us, are putting together hampers for less fortunate families in Winnipeg. The link to view the school letter regarding this initiative is Hamper Letter. Please follow this link to sign up to provide a hamper item/s. We also ask for a $5 donation in order to provide perishable items such as milk, margarine, fruit, vegetables, a ham/turkey, etc.

We are also excited about the school Winter Concert occurring December 18th from 6:30 to 8:00 (you are welcome to pick up your little one after our part of the show, so they may watch the remainder with you).

Scholastic book order forms will be coming home tomorrow, Monday, November 27th and are due back Wed, November 29th. If you are ordering books for Christmas gifts - just email me the books (the title and order number) you would like and send a cheque or money with the agenda. You are also able to order direct from Scholastic using your credit card, if you choose.

Below is 'the plan' for December.

MATH

The children continue to work daily on building their counting, addition, subtraction, and problem solving skills. Our study of patterns has come to a close and we will begin exploring two dimensional shapes this week. We will begin with a focus and practice on proper drawing of circles, squares, triangles, hexagons, octagons, and trapezoids. From there, we look into attributes like corners and sides, and different ways of sorting/grouping shapes. All of the children showed progress in their addition and subtraction facts to 20 since the beginning of the year.

LA

Thank you for all of your support in the Home Reading program, the children are doing very well because of it. We continue to run small group reading sessions in the class and provide independent reading time daily. 

The sharing of their weekly journal writing with home is going very well also. To date the children have been focused on including the same detail in their writing that they naturally would if they were verbally telling you. By now I am looking to see if they are beginning to vary the start of sentences with transition words like: then, after that, later, in the afternoon, etc. Also that sentences consistently begin with capital and end with a period, ?, or ! and that capitals are not in the middle of words (because they are not confident in printing the lowercase form). Their ideas and organization in writing are also beginning to develop.

Science

In November we completed several experiments relating to solids and liquids, and considered how the attributes of matter relate to their best functional uses. We will continue to explore matter for the next several weeks and then will move into considering Growth and Changes in Animals (most likely in January).

Social Studies

As part of continuing exploration of Community, we are starting to look at "the olden days" - in Winnipeg, as pioneers, and relating to aboriginal culture.

October 2, 2017

Well, September has certainly flown by! Thankfully we had great weather for most of it. Thank you for bringing the children to their Strong Beginnings appointments, and for your support of our Terry Fox Run. This month we are finishing up our Walkathon fundraiser, which provides all of our students with greater resources along with learning and social opportunities that make our school so amazing! Throughout this month,  learning activities will include Thanksgiving and Halloween themes and concepts, including our pumpkin carving mentioned at Meet the Teacher, whose date is TBD at the moment.

MATH

October's focus will be around building understanding and confidence with number concepts such as:

• skip counting forwards and backwards, how skip counting is also a strategy for addition and subtraction, 
• how numbers can be broken into their place value units and use this as a strategy for addition and subtraction. 

They are currently working with concrete materials to scaffold  their learning. We are also in the middle of exploring patterns, including repeating, growing, and shrinking patterns which will wrap up sometime this month.

Language Arts

September and October writing is a time of observing their strengths and struggles, and building their stamina and confidence to write their thoughts, perspectives, opinions, and questions as a means of building and consolidating their learning as well as communicate that understanding. Through the weekly This week at school writing you will have the chance to see what they are understanding in their learning, observe their printing and writing skills, and encourage and guide them to achieve academic goals we will be setting together at Conferences in two weeks.

This Monday, the Home Reading program will begin. These very first books are a gentle introduction to daily reading at home and as the children become more confident in their skills and selective in their reading material, I urge you to simply listen to/help them read the book and complete the reflection page, thus providing positive reading experiences which is a key factor in reading success.

Social Studies

In September we have focused on our families, which are really our first community. Thank you for the photos of their houses, you will see how we used them as an art project within the Community theme. This month we will be expanding our sense of community to the city of  Winnipeg, considering factors such as services, goods, transportation, culture, resources, and comparing/contrasting these factors to rural communities.

Science

We will begin exploring matter and materials in Science this month. This encompasses the concepts of solids, liquids, and gases, and how these relate to the materials we use in our everyday lives.

Technology

We had our first class on the computers last Thursday and the children did very well. They were able to sign into the divisional computers, and then use Microsoft Edge to get to Xtramath.org and begin developing their understanding and automatic recall of simple math facts. Information went home in their agenda this week on how you can get them logged in at home if you like.

This week I will be trying to get more of their initial work into their SeeSaw portfolio, so we have it to use in setting learning goals during conferences.

September 8, 2017

Happy New School Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful summer, and I know the children are excited to back in class with their friends. We are welcoming six new families into our class community and our head-count sits at 26 students right now. I look forward to a year filled with success, growth, and happiness :)

Two important notices this week are:
1)Meet the Teacher happens Tuesday, September 12th, with a presentation at 4:30 and a repeat presentation at 5:00 in room 3. Please come and find out more about this year in Grade 2.

2)The online sign-up for Strong Beginnings appointments in now open. Please take a moment to sign you child into a time slot. This will be one of the topics covered on Tuesday.