Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Today was a busy day, and in the midst of things we had a new student join our class! We always enjoy seeing new faces and making new friends.

To start off the morning we had morning meeting and then jumped right back into Daily 5. We will be getting new and more challenging Daily 5 activities in the next couple weeks as we progress in our literacy skills.

Soon it will be Friday, so that means word wall quiz! For practice today we completed worksheets that included fill in the blank, word scramble, building family word lists, and counting the syllables in the words.

After recess we did math centers again, which we will be doing for the remainder of the week. There were 5 different centers, tomorrow there will be six. The centers focused on different math strategies; numeracy (place value, addition/subtraction/number recognition), measurement (using standard and non-standard units of measurement), and shape and space (sorting 2D shapes, and sorting objects by weight, size, and shape).
Next week we will be completing our novel study on The One and Only Ivan by finishing reading the novel and working through math and literacy centers with the other grade 2 classes.
Dioramas will be coming home tomorrow.

Follow lunch, and reading to ourselves for 15 minutes we had health. At this time we reviewed everything we could remember and learned before the break. Ask me the following questions regarding what we learned and reviewed:
-What are the four food groups?
-What is the definition of a healthy snack?
-Give examples of a healthy snack (try to base them around the definition)
-When should we eat a healthy snack?
-Ask me my thoughts on treats..
-Why is it important to build and eat healthy meals and healthy snacks?
Our next health unit will be on Mental Health with a focus on the Zones of Regulation. The Zones of Regulation will help us to recognize our feelings and emotions, develop strategies regulating these feelings and emotions, and build positive relationship skills with peers and adults.

After a quick body break, to finish off the with the novel study writing activity we mentioned yesterday.
We know there are four main animal characters in the novel; Ivan the silverback gorilla, Bob the dog, Stella the elephant, and Ruby the baby elephant. We discussed their living situation in the story and what we believed their living situations should actually be. Our job was to choose one of the animals and write 5 detailed sentences on where we think the animal should actually live (be it the jungle, someones home, the zoo, or to stay in the mall) and why they should live there.
Ask me which animal character I chose and what I wrote down.

Reminders:
-Home reading came home today. Please read it tonight, sign the log, and return to school tomorrow.
-Practice those word wall words as the quiz is on Friday.
-Adventures Childcare: Before and After School Care form came home today. If you are interested in having your child join/participate in this program please sign the form and return it to school by Friday at the latest. They are looking to get the program up and running by February.
-Book Orders. They are going to be late in case you are worried that you have not got your books yet. A few other teachers had this problem as well. I apologize for any inconvenience but I will send them home as soon as they get here. Hopefully not too much longer.
January flyers will be coming home next week.