March 28, 2013

 Happy Holy Thursday!

For No Excuse Words today we did Spelling Staircases.

For Word Work we started to learn about blends.  These are when you join 2 consonants together to make a new sound.  Today we did the bl and the br blends:

In Religion today we talked about Good Friday and how Jesus died for our sins on the cross.  We also talked about how on Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead.  We then made a chick hatching out of an Easter egg as a symbol of Jesus coming out of the tomb.  If you would like to talk more about the Easter Story with your child at home here is a link to a great youtube site with lots of videos about the New Testament.

 In the afternoon, we had a liturgy about the Stations of the Cross done by the grade 3s.   Here is an example of a Stations of the Cross as a shadow play:

Have a great Easter break!!!

March 27, 2013

Are you running out of ways to practice spelling at home?  I found a couple of apps which are great.

First off try iAnagram.  You can create your own list of words to spell.

Secondly, try Glitter Draw, it's a fun way to practice writing the words.

Last, try out I Speak Word Wizard where you can create custom spelling tests.

In Language Arts today we read the story Mrs. Mooley by Jack Kent.  It is a great story about a cow who wanted to jump over the moon.  We then worked together to summarise the story into a beginning, middle and end.  This is a great way to check for comprehension when reading at home too.

In Math we continued to work with tangrams.  Today we used our tangram pieces to make different shapes.  Click here for a fun game to play where you can make tangram pictures online.

Have a great night!!!

March 26, 2013

For No Excuse Words today we did Cloze Sentences:

In Social Studies we learned about the history of maple syrup:

We then watched this youtube video about a family's maple syrup tradition:

For LA today we learned about contractions:

Click here for an online game you can play to review.

In Math today we learned all about tangrams.  I told the kids the following fairy tale:

Once upon a time, there was an Emperor celebrating his birthday.  All the people of the land made him beautiful gifts and lined up to present them to him.  One person, the tile maker, made the most beautiful square tile for the Emperor.  He measured the tile very carefully to measure that all of the sides were the same length, polished it’s flat surface until it shone, and then carried it to the Emperor.  As the tile maker approached the mighty ruler he became very nervous.  His hands shook and his knees knocked together in fear.  When the tile maker took a step forward, his knees gave out from underneath him.  He stumbled and fell, and the tile – the beautiful tile – fell to the ground, breaking into 7 pieces.  Since that day people have been trying to put the tile back together again into its original square.  It is such a tricky puzzle that they even came up with a name for it – A Tangram.

We then got our own tangram pieces and tried to put the tangram back together:

It was a lot harder then we thought!!!  Here is a video of Mrs.Easton putting it back together:

Have a great night!!!

March 25, 2013

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  I thought I would share this video done by Keyano College as one of our students has a part:

Great job Mason!!!

This week's No Excuse Words are:

1. had
2. not
3. said
4. pink
5. nine

In Religion today we continued to talk about Palm Sunday.

In math today we talked about how we can organise regular and irregular shapes into groups based on their characteristics.  Here is an example:

In Social today we talked about popcorn.  Yep, that's right popcorn.  We read the story "The Popcorn Book" by Tomie de Paola and learned that there is evidence of popcorn being eaten in North America for over 5600 years.  We learned that in the past people would cook popcorn in clay pots with hot sand and over the fire on a stick.  We also learned that they used to eat popcorn soup and popcorn with cream on it for breakfast.  Wow, how popcorn has changed :)

Have a great night!

March 21, 2013

Darn snow...I must say I'm getting sick of shoveling!!!

For Word Work today we came up with ine and ail words:

In Language Arts we finished up our descriptive writing about the Easter Bunny.  Here are a couple videos of the kids reading them:

In Religion and art today we talked about Palm Sunday.  Here is a fun video that tells the story:

In Social Studies we talked about holidays and traditions around the world.  Here are some of the holidays we learned about:

1. Canada and the United States - Christmas
2. England - Christmas
3. Mexico - Posadas
4. Sweden - Saint Lucia Day
5. Israel - Hanukkah 
6. Africa - Kwanza
7. Holland - Sinter Klass
8. Germany - Besherung

Have a great weekend!!!

March 20, 2013

Happy first day of Spring...boo on the snowfall warning though!!!

For No Excuse Words today we did code breaker:

For Language Arts we started a descriptive writing activity about the Easter Bunny.  The primary purpose of descriptive writing is to describe a person, place or thing in such a way that a person can imagine it in their mind. Good descriptive writing involves paying close attention to the details.  Descriptive writing helps develop student writing that is more interesting and full of details,  encourages students to use new vocabulary words and helps students clarify their understanding of new subject matter.

In Math today we learned more about Geometric Solids (3D Objects).  Here are the ones we reviewed:

We also learned that objects are made up of different parts; faces, vertices and edges:

Have a great night!

March 18, 2013

Thank you to everyone who made it to our Liturgy today.  The kids did awesome!!!

For No Excuse Words we put this week's words in alphabetical order:

For Word Work we did making words:

In Social Studies we talked about how many years families in our class have lived in our community of Fort McMurray.  Here are the results that we graphed:

Finally, don't forget to join us for Student-Led Conferences this week.  If you have not already signed up, you can do so by clicking on the schedule below:

Have a great night!!

March 14, 2013

Today we continued with our Little Red Riding Hood story rewriting.  To help get us in the mood we watched a little video of the story:

When we are writing we are making sure to look at the following checklist for reminders:

In art we talked about the season on Lent.  We learned that the cross is one of the many symbols of Lent.  The Lenten Cross reminds us of God's love, given to us though the birth of Christ.  Check out the Lenten Crosses we made:

In Social studies we talked about our countries of Origin.  We have kids in our class from 

India,

Peru,

Lebanon,

and of course, Canada.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday at our St. Patrick's Day Liturgy!!!

March 13, 2013

Today we did Making Words for Word Work:

For LA today we continued to work on story rewriting.  Today we began to rewrite the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  Here are the words we decided were really important to know how to spell:

In Math today we started the Geometry Unit.  In this unit, your child will be learning more about three-dimensional objects and two-dimensional shapes.

The learning goals for this unit are:

• Compare and sort objects or shapes according to one attribute, such as number of sides or whether they have curves.
• Describe objects and shapes.  For example, some objects can roll, some have points, some are curved and some can stack.
• Reproduce composite objects and shapes, such as towers.
• Identify shapes on objects, such as a circle on the bottom of a yogurt container.

In order to help your child reach these learning goals try some of the following learning activities at home:

• Go on a neighborhood walk.  Talk about objects you see in buildings and different settings.
• Gather a collection of different objects.  Ask your child to sort them into groups.  Have your child explain their sorting rule.
• Have your child experiment by building tall towers out of blocks, cans or other household objects.
• Choose a geometric attribute of a favourite toy – corners, straight sides, curves, dents – and ask your child to find other objects with the same attribute.
• Have your child look through old magazines, cut out pictures of shapes, and create composite shapes with the pieces.
• Pick an object from your home.  Have your child trace a shape on the object with his or her finger.  Ask: “Can you find a different object with a part similar to this shape?”
• Give your child a shape (e.g. a circle).  Have your child look for objects around the home that have parts similar to the given shape (e.g. the bottom of a mug).

Have a great night!!!

March 12, 2013

For No Excuse Words we did cloze sentences:

We then sorted ime and ind words during word work:

In Social Studies we read the book "The House on Maple Street" by Bonnie Pryor.  I found a reading of it on YouTube so you can watch it at home:

We talked about how a piece of land can change so much over time.  It's pretty interesting to think about where we live now and what it looked like 300 years ago.

In LA we began talking about compound words.  Compound words are when you take two words, squish them together and you get a new word.  Here is the list we made:

Have a great night!

March 11, 2013

We put this week's No Excuse Words in our dictionary:

1. this
2. from
3. I
4. seven
5. white

In Religion we talked about the story of St. Patrick.  We learned that we used the clover to teach about the Holy Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In Math we talked about traditional button blankets.  We watched the following clip:

We then made our own button blankets and used our grouping skills to count the number of buttons:

In Social Studies we talked about the way our community has changed.  The change that the students are most excited about is the MacDonald Island expansion.  Here is a video put out by MacIsland showing the expansion plans:

Have a great night!!!

March 8, 2013

Today we did the Nursery Rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle. You can watch it below:

We then had some fun with the rhyme and created some Mad Libs.. Why not try it them at home.

In Math today we talked about how you can represent numbers by drawing pictures.  We did the following word problem; A bike rack can hold 5 bikes.  The school has 4 bike racks.  How many bikes can park at the school?  After a lot of talking it through, we finally figured out that if we draw the 4 bike racks with 5 bikes parked in each one we can count 20 bikes parked at the school.

Have a great weekend!

March 7, 2013

First off, just a reminder that there is school tomorrow.  Also, tonight for homework we have a new writing book.  There is a letter in the front explaining what to do.

For Word Work today we created lists of ar and ade words:

In LA we worked with the Nursery Rhyme "Little Bo Peep".

We wrote about where we thought the sheep might have gone and what they were doing.  Here are some of the sentences the kids came up with (student written):

1. The sheep went to Edmintin.  They went shoping.
2. The sheps went to the medow.  When the sheps went to the medow they were eating grass.
3. The sheep went to Mecsaco.  They relast in the sun.  

As a little reward for working hard we watched this funny clip on YouTube.

In Art today we learned about the famous Artist Wassily Kandinsky:

Check out the Kandinsky circles we made:

In Social Studies we talked about how sometimes we loose people we love.  We read the story "A Place in my Heart" by Annette Aub.

In the story a little boy looses his grandfather and is sad.  We talked about what we could say to him to express our sympathy.  Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

Have a great night!

March 6, 2013

We started our morning with a Lenten Liturgy presented by 1K and 1C.  The focus was on the story of the Burning Bush, which you can watch below:

For No Excuse Words today we did the Code Breaker activity.  Why not try it together at home:

In Math we continued to work on ways to represent numbers.  Today we worked on using place value mats and counting on.  Here is video of us representing the number 64:

We also went on the following website as another way to practice:

http://www.ixl.com/math/grade-2/place-value-models-tens-and-ones

Have a great night!

March 5, 2013

So we started the day with a big bang, literally!  The Promethean Board fell off the wall.  Luckily, no one was hurt and the board doesn't seem to be damaged.  Check it out:

For word worked we created lists of ice and ide words:

In LA we read the story, "But, Granny Did!"  we talked about different text features, such as talking bubbles.  We even took turns acting out different parts of the story.

In Math, we worked on representing numbers between 40 and 60 on ten frames.  We also practiced the skill of counting on.

Have a great night!

March 4, 2013

Welcome back from the break.  I hope you had a nice week off.

For No Excuse Words we put this weeks words in alphabetical order.

For Word Work we made the following words:

In Religion we continued to talk about the season of Lent.  We watched this great music video:

We then created a Wordle of all the things we could give up for Lent:

In Math today we continued working with numbers to 100.  Here is a great game to play at home to review:

In Social Studies today we talked about how our lives would change if a new baby came to live with us.  We started out by reading "Berenstain Bears: The New Baby".  We then made a chart of things we would notice if there was a new baby in our house.

Have a great night!