Monday, January 11, 2016

Happy Monday! Today was a good, hard working day in our class.

We started off our morning with our usual morning meeting, which will be changing a little bit tomorrow, for remainder of the year. We will be joining forces with Mrs. Nelson's grade 1 class for morning meeting, as well as for some literacy time before lunch. Mrs. G and Mrs. Nelson thought this would be good for us to work with another class to help and learn from each other. We are looking forward to this time together.

Our new words for this week are coming home on a yellow sticky note paper. Please help me practice each night so I can, not only ace the quiz on Friday, but also learn and really memorize the rules when spelling red words.
This week our focus is letter blends - sh, oa, aw
Our words for this week are as follows:

Group A: she, ship, shell, dish, wish, fish, shin, shall, wash, mash
Group B: boat, coat, float, long, along, belong, paw, fawn, tall, wall

After recess we continued to work on our math review booklet that we started last week. We will finish these up this week and start a new math unit next week.

For the last half hour before lunch we got together with Mrs. Nelson's class to discuss ideas of things we would like to do together. A few ideas we brainstormed were:
- phonics                   - read together                - maybe do some math, art, or science projects together
-spelling                    - practice printing
To end our time together, Mrs. Nelson read a story called There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed some Snow.  Tomorrow, when we get together, we will be doing a little activity around the story.

After lunch we had music.

The remainder of the afternoon was dedicated to our One and Only Ivan centers. Today, we went with Mr. Fisher and Mr. Fisher's came to Mrs. G. Ask me what we did with Mr. Fisher today!

Take a look at the pictures below to see what kinds of things we are doing in all three classes!
- Ms. Zimmerman's class was doing gorilla research
- Mr. Fisher's class started planning their dioramas
- Mrs. G's class started creating wanted posters

Reminders:
-Please complete the Home Reading and return to school tomorrow
-January book orders coming home today, if you wish to purchase some please return forms by Thursday. Expecting December orders any day now.
-Fun Lunch form coming home today


-

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Today was an okay day. We are still working on remembering the rules of the classroom and school and trying our best to follow them. The four pillars of care are a great reminder; Care for Self, Care for Others, Care for Learning, and Care for Place.

Tomorrow is our word wall quiz. Be sure to practice those words tonight. They are listed below for our convenience.
Group A: hill, bell, fell, ball, fall, mall, tell, will, still, doll
Group B: less, tell, well, will, still, off, letter, little, silly, happy

After recess we did math centers again. They were the same ones we did yesterday but today we got a chance to work through ones we haven't done yet. Being that we have done some hands on work, in math, for a few days now, tomorrow we will be working through the same math strands, but showing what we know through a worksheet.

Following lunch we has social studies. We veered from our plan a little bit today, as we were supposed to start talking about jobs in Alberta/Calgary, but fixated on wild and domestic animals instead. So, tomorrow we will begin our discussion on jobs and the project that will come from that. Today, we discovered what wild animals meant and domestic animals. Then we listed as many animals as we could under each category. Finally, to end the day, we picked 3-4 wild animals and 3-4 domestic animals. In our sketchbooks we drew a picture of the animals we chose, labeled them, and wrote up to five descriptors about them.

Reminders:
-Home Reading: please read and return to school tomorrow! This also applies to those who have sight words in their folders.
-Recorder form and money are due Monday at the latest.

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.

Tuesday, January 5, 2015

Happy New Year and welcome back! 

It was a pretty good start to a new year and almost second half in Grade 2. It sure was nice to see everyone again and I hope you all enjoyed every bit of your holiday! 

We got right down to work today by kicking off the day with a morning meeting. We went through our calendar and made all the appropriate changes and discovered today was the 72nd day of school! Where has the time gone. Ask me how many days until it is the 100th day of school.. 

Before Phys. Ed. we had a talking circle about our holiday. Mrs. G has a white, glass owl that we passed around from person to person, in a circle. When one person was holding the owl it was their turn to talk and everyone else was respectfully listening. We each had about 2 minutes to talk about their holiday. Ask me what I told everyone! 

Following Phys. Ed. we went right into spelling. After reviewing the words with Ms. Cokar, we then wrote out the words and used them in sentences in our Language Arts books. Tomorrow we will have time to complete them and get it corrected by Mrs. G. For practice tonight, lets work together to find the similarities and differences between the words. We could even make lists of the family words.. We forgot to write down our words to bring home, so they are listed below!

Group A: hill, bell, fell, ball, fall, mall, tell, will, still, doll

Group B: less, tell, well, will, still, off, letter, little, silly, happy

After recess we had library. It has been a while since we actually had library time, so it was nice to look around again. Mr. G really likes how some of us are asking for certain books to read and seeing that we are making appropriate choices when choosing books (choosing books that are a little bit challenging but we are still able to read). To end our time there, Mrs. G even picked out a book and read it to us. It was called Jungle Bullies. The book had a good message that helped remind us how we can care for others and care for self. 

Before lunch we had some time to do journal writing about our holiday. However we did not get much time so we were given more time after lunch to complete it. Some of us did not complete the work in the time allocated so it has come home for homework tonight. Make sure you check with me to see if I have it because it needs to come back to school tomorrow. 

To end the day we continued with our novel study, The One and Only Ivan. We had a short discussion on everything we could remember about the book so far. Then we read a few more chapters. Ivan is really getting deep into his project to protect and save Ruby. Tomorrow we will be completing an activity around what Ivan is doing for Ruby. 

Reminders:

-Home reading will start going home tomorrow again. Reminder that it is to be completed every night, log filled out, and sent back to school every day to receive a new book. You may see some books repeat this week and next week as we warm back up to the work. 

-Music recorder form coming home today. If you wish your child to participate and receive one, please return the form by Monday, January 11th, at the latest.

-Parents, if you wish to volunteer in the classroom please send me an email at algrunert@cbe.ab.ca and we can work out a schedule or other times for you to come. I would love to have you in! 

Thursday, December 17, 2015

One more half day until the break!

Today we had our regular morning meeting, with a twist. Once we figured out how many days we were in school, we practiced skip counting a bunch of different ways from 70-100. Why from 70? Because today was the 70th day of school and we used skip counting to figure out how many days until the 100th day of school.

After Daily 5 we did our word wall quiz. It will be nice to have a break from those for a little while.

Following recess we did math centers again!

Right after lunch we joined Mr. Fisher and Ms. Zimmerman's classes and did some buddy read before caroling in the gym again.

Ater caroling we all got together again and used our measuring knowledge to mix together some ingredients for salt dough. Ask me what we did with the salt dough...

To end the day, we practiced the 4 winter/Christmas songs we will be singing tomorrow before the movie.

Reminders:
-Tomorrow is early dismissal at 11:00

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Today was a fun day. To start the day we did our regular morning meeting, then the whole school met in the gymnasium do sing some christmas songs. Some of us even got chosen to play the bells in front of the school to one of the songs.

Following the caroling assembly we had Phys. Ed. For the remainder of the time before recess we practiced our word wall words for tomorrows quiz. We got to choose an activity and we could work independently or with a partner. Our words are listed below to practice tonight at home.

Group A: cats, pigs, beds, bugs, tops, mops, digs, hugs, pats, his
Group B: candy, went, sent, take, like, puppy, time, didn't, by, my

After recess we did an art activity. Have you ever seen the northern lights? Some of us have. We also know that there are northern lights right here is Alberta! They only come out at night and they are easily seen when it is very dark out at night. Another name for them is Auroras. Did you know that sometimes you can hear them? If you listen carefully they almost make a singing or whistling sound as they move and change shapes and colors.
Then, we created our own northern lights using paint and pastels. If you look below you will see pictures of the process to completing the art pieces and what some of the finished products look like.
Step one was to paint hills, mountains, and trees with white paint along the bottom half of our page.
Step two was to create shapes and colors of the northern lights using oil pastels.
-as we were working with the pastels some of us drew with the tips to make fine lines, some used the side of pastels to make a thick line with texture, some blended colors together using their fingers or a kleenex.
All of the final pieces look amazing. Again, take a look below!






This afternoon we had music. Our last music class of 2015.

For the rest of the afternoon we had "ketchups". This is a time for us to complete any work that we have not finished over the past couple weeks. A few items we worked on during this time were:
-dioramas
-letter to Santa
-northern lights art
-building a healthy plate
-healthy snack placemats
-word wall words practice

To end the day, we got together with the other grade 2 classes and practice singing the Christmas songs we will be singing with the rest of the school tomorrow afternoon.

Reminders:
-Tomorrow is the last day to buy popcorn at lunch for the school wide movie on Friday.
-Early Dismissal on Friday at 11:00.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Today was a really good start to the week. We worked hard all day and this helped us to get a lot accomplished.

We are doing word wall words this week. The qui will be on Thursday as Friday is movie and popcorn day as well as early dismissal. Our words for this week are below.

Group A: cats, pigs, beds, bugs, tops, mops, digs, hugs, pats, his
Group B: candy, went, sent, take, like, puppy, time, didn't, by, my

After recess we added a few points to the L sections of our social studies KWL chart for the prairies unit we are currently doing. A few points we added were:
-Ablerta has six regions: grasslands, parklands, canadian shield, boreal forest, foothills, and rocky mountains
-the 3 prairie provinces have similar animals
-there are badlands in the prairies - hoodoos
Following Christmas break we will be continuing our prairies unit only our focus is going to change a bit. We will be learning about people from the past and present and the different types of jobs people have done and do today. These findings will lead us into a job fair, as a way of representing our learnings, mid January.

We also added to a chart we have about Ivan's Homes from the novel we are reading. Last week, we learned about the time that Ivan lived with Mack, his owner. So as a review of what we read, we added some points of what Ivan' life was like growing up and living with humans. We ended the morning by reading more of the story.

After lunch we continued and completed work on our dioramas of Ivan's domain in the mall. Most of us have finished this work, the rest will have some time tomorrow or later this week to finish their dioramas as well. Once they are all completed a picture will be posted. They all look fantastic and really represent what Ivan's home is like in the mall.

Reminders:
-Popcorn for $2 for Friday's movie. Mavricks will be starting to sell popcorn tomorrow at recess. It is pre-purchase only, all popcorn will be handed out Friday before the movie begins.