Decorating our Gingerbread Houses!

We have really enjoyed talking about our Holiday Traditions.  Christmas is such a magical time of year!  Its always fun to hear the students compare "naughty Elf on a shelf" stories and talk about the fun things they do with their families over the holidays.  A few years ago, I decided to start a 'holiday tradition' in my classroom.  I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to decorate a gingerbread house which is something that my own daughters have done (and continue to do) every Christmas.  I pre-assembled the houses so they would be sturdy enough to hold lots of goodies and then just enjoyed watching the students transform their houses. We were so proud of our creations! Thanks Grade 2 for helping me keep this tradition alive!  I hope those houses made it home in one piece!  LOL!  Merry Christmas to all!

Sights and Sounds of the Season!

Our classroom has been a very busy place.  We got our letters to Santa done and our Christmas countdown has been on since the first of December!  LOL!  We have been thinking about past Christmass' and various holiday symbols and traditions and practiced our oral communication skills as we each took turns presenting these to the class.   We have also learned about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa which are celebrated at this time of year!  Ask your child to tell you about these celebrations! We made 'Holiday' Cards and even some ornaments to give as gifts (these are coming home tomorrow....so no pictures of the finished products as I don't want to spoil the surprise).  We talked about how these ornaments are more precious than anything you can buy in a store because they are made with love. We have also enjoyed carol singing in the gym with the whole school!   Only two more crazy, fun-filled days remain before the break!  Fasten your seat-belt...it's going to be fun!  

Our Trip to the Library, Downtown and the Museum!

We had a great time yesterday!  First we walked to the Library and Karen read us some wonderful Christmas stories. After the stories we made a reindeer ornament and we enjoyed our pizza lunch.
Amy from the Museum met us at the Library and we started our walk downtown.  She showed us pictures of the old stores that used to be downtown and we tried to recognize some of those buildings today.  While we were downtown we even saw Santa!  At the Museum we saw old toys that boys and girls got as gifts in the olden days.  We even got to play with a couple of old toys (there was an old, tin cat that you wound up with a key...it was cool). We made a Christmas Card from old magazine pictures.
Special thanks to Mrs. Zulu, Mrs. Chateauvert and Mrs. De Vries.
Here are some of the things that the children had to say about our day:

I liked when we saw Santa. -Spencer, Owen
I liked the craft at the Library. - Maeve, Mark
I liked the tin cat! - Aiden, Ryan, Hayley, Dylan
I liked seeing all the old toys. -Dominic
I liked seeing the wooden, Jacob's ladder. - Lu, Andrea, Hayley
I liked trying to get the ball in the wooden cup. - Madison, Emma
I liked seeing the old snowmobile. - Landon, Graham
I liked seeing the two toy dolls. One was made of string and one was made of corn husks. - Whitney
I liked the toys that were on display at the Museum.  - Charlotte, Dylan

I liked seeing the smiling faces of these WONDERFUL students as they learned a little bit about our town and Christmas long ago.

Holiday Performance!

We hope you enjoyed our performance of Toys yesterday!  The dress rehearsal and the evening performance were both very well done!  Congratulations to all students who worked so hard to remember speaking parts and words to all songs.  Seeing their proud smiles and hearing their sweet singing voices was the perfect way to get everyone in the holiday spirit!

Polygon Power!

We have been exploring 2D shapes/polygons in our classroom using a variety of math materials.
Students have been especially focused on the geometric attributes of each shapes - the number of sides and the number of vertices that each shape has.

We know that all polygons have straight sides and are 'closed in'.
We know that polygons can be regular...with equal sides and anglesOR they can be irregular...with different length sides and angles.

We have noticed different kinds of triangles, but they ALL have 3 sides and 3 corners.
We were surprised by how many different shapes have 4 sides and 4 corners.  We learned that these shapes have specific names (square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, parallelogram) but that they are ALL called 'quadrilaterals' because they have 4 sides/corners.
We also learned the properties of pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, octagons, nonagons and decagons.

As always, we are playing a lot of games and solving some fun polygon problems to reinforce new vocabulary and to provide practice identifying, creating, comparing and thinking about the 2D shapes.

Geometry is Great!

Super Skaters!

Our first trip to the Pyramid Center was successful.  Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to skate!  It was amazing exercise and a great chance to connect with friends from the other grade 2 classes!

Thank you so much to the parents who came to assist with tying/untying skates, snapping/unsnapping  helmets and helping both on and off the ice.  I certainly couldn't do it without you.

Our next skating date is Friday, December 15th  If you are able to help us either on or off the ice, please let me know! I would really appreciate the extra hands and eyes.  Many hands to tie skates enables us to get on the ice faster!  Thanks again!

Healthy Bodies and Minds!

As part of our 'Mentally Healthy Schools' initiative, we have been trying to teach students different strategies for helping them when they are feeling stress, anxiety or just the need to 'calm down'.  In our class we practice these different techniques after recess in order to help us calm our bodies and minds and prepare for the next part of our day.

We started our 'Mindfulness Training' by practicing our ability to breathe deeply.  We call this our 'Five Finger Breath' because after we inhale and exhale, we turn a finger on each of our hands  under.  If we get to five and we still don't feel 'settled'...we can always take a few more deep breaths.

We  sometimes listen to slow, instrumental music to help us slow our breathing and our body movements.
We sometimes project an image on the smartboard of a calming place to help us visualize something peaceful.
If we don't have music or a picture to look at, students are encouraged to find their own 'quiet place' where they can leave their troubles behind and clear their minds.

We still have a lot to learn about being mindful.  Building resilience to stress and developing a positive mind set in school and life are important life skills.

We have already found that taking a few minutes to calm our bodies and minds makes us better prepared to attend and focus on the next part of our day.  Ask your child to show you the Five Finger Breath! 

In our class, we have also talked about the 'Golden Rule' and how we can demonstrate this every day.  We have talked about what 'bullying' looks like and we have discussed ways to stop bullying from happening.  We even talked about reasons why some kids bully others and ways to help a bully learn how to treat others more appropriately.  We had some fantastic conversations on this topic and students shared their ideas on papers which we posted on our door.

Settling our our brains and bodies so we can prepare for learning, staying positive, cooperating with others, putting and end to bullying and treating everyone the way we would like to be treated are all important factors in our mental health.  Something to think about! 

Looking at Loads of Learning!

The students in this class will tell you that I'm always 'spying' with my iPad and it's absolutely the truth.  I have so many pictures of them at work in our classroom that sometimes I cannot decide which ones to post.  I especially like to take pictures of the students when they are involved in Math activities because it helps provide evidence of their understanding of various concepts (without the paper/pencil component).  Please enjoy some pictures of our class involved in the following Math activities:
*Friday Trivia
*Comparing numbers (greater than or less than)
*Even or Odd Numbers
*Addition and Subtraction using efficient strategies
*Representing numbers using Base Ten Blocks
*Ordinal Numbers
*Building Number lines and using them to round to the nearest ten

Lots and lots of great learning going on and lots more to come!

Our Favourite Season!

As the first snowflakes fell this week,  we began to think about the amazing seasonal changes that have occured right before our eyes. We  have started to look ahead to all the fun that Winter brings with it, but were also a bit nostalgic about the other seasons (especially summer) and had quite a discussion about which season was actually the best.  First, we worked in pairs to brainstorm everything we knew about each season.  After activating our schemas, we each shared information about a season and students chose a season that they thought was best.  Then, everyone described their favourite season in writing and explained why it was their favourite.  We also created beautiful "Four Season Trees" which required the use of several different art materials.  It has made for a stunning display outside our classroom.  

We Remember!

On Friday, November 10th, our school held a beautiful Remembrance Day ceremony in the gym. Leading up to this, our class did some research about the traditions around Remembrance Day and the reasons why it is celebrated. We made a beautiful class wreath to present to the veterans and wrote a 'thank you note' to attach to our wreath. We Did some 'poppy math' and also talked about courage and bravery. We discussed things in our own lives that are scary for us but that we have conquered and we drew and wrote about these things.
We will always remember the men and women who have fought for our freedom. Their courage is an inspiration to us all.