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.

Great Books Inspire Great Writing!

A great book can inspire some truly amazing writing. 

*Sometimes, the book provides us with an opportunity to make a connection to our own life and helps us remember a similar story that we can write about.  This is called a 'text to self connection'.

We read some great books about sick kids. The books reminded us about times we have been sick...how we felt, what we couldn't do and what made us feel better. We wrote about these connections. While reading, we noticed several similarities between these books. When one book reminds you of something that happened in another book, that is called a 'text to text connection'. We had fun making connections between the 3 books we read about sick kids! 

*Sometimes, a book provides us with an opportunity to look closely at a character. After reading 'Willow's Whispers', we practiced finding evidence (proof) from the story that showed the character was shy, smart, creative, easy-going etc. . Students got a star sticker for writing a sentence to explain something about the character and a star sticker for giving the proof. 

While writing, we practice spelling high frequency words correctly, appropriate use of punctuation and capital letters and experiment with new, interesting adjectives to make our work more descriptive.  

We have been inspired in our class by some great books this week!  Great writing everyone!  

 

Measuring Maniacs!

We have been having fun in our class using our measurement skills.  By the end of Grade 2, students should be able to estimate and measure length, height, and distance, using standard units (i.e., centimetres, metres) and non-standard units (ie. link its, blocks, buttons).  Students also should be able to record and represent measurements of length, height and distance in a variety of ways.

First, we reviewed the important steps to measuring:
1.  Place the first unit of measurement at the edge of the object.
2.  Place the next unit of measurement beside the first unit without any space between and without overlapping.
3.  Continue laying units of measurement until you reach the end of the object being measured.
4.  Count how many units long the object being measured is.

Next, we used a variety of materials to measure.
Students soon discovered that standard tools (rulers with centimeters/numbers already marked) were faster and easier to use and that that everyone got the same measurement.

We learned "small objects can be measured with small tools, but you should choose bigger tools if you are measuring something big or it just ends up taking too long to measure it and it is too many to count."

Our next step will be to compare and order objects based on their measurment and think about how to compare the size of objects when they have been measured with different tools.
We will come back to this in a few weeks! 
Marvellous measuring Grade 2!