May 19, 2022

 Hello Families, 

 

Wow!! I am shocked and amazed at the quality and professionalism of the National Geographic Kids books the grade 2's and 3's have been working hard on creating! The students have been so engaged and motivated throughout this work and it is evidenced by the beautiful non-fiction texts they are authoring. I can't wait for you to see all of the hard work, research, planning, and organization that has gone into the good copies of these books. 

 

We are also working on assessing our math learning from earlier in the year by completing 'mini must do' math jobs daily. We have been reviewing adding and subtracting (with and without regrouping), and multiplication. We learned from our mini assessments that many of us still need some practice with regrouping so we have added that work into our daily math routines. We are also continuing to learn about shape and space by completing "WANTED" posters (at students request) and learning about perimeter. Next week, we will start the construction of our geometry prairies.

   

We continue to work with the Nature Kits borrowed from Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. The previous two weeks kits were based on plants and animals found in Riley Park and Nose Hill Park. This weeks kit and next weeks kit provide an opportunity to explore plants and animals from natural parks outside of the city: Assiniboine Riparian Forest (this week) and Grasslands National Park (next week). This week, we had an opportunity to explore a moose antler and fur and a beaver skull, tracks, and droppings. 

 

I have such a strong sense of pride over the work that has been happening over the past few weeks in our classroom! I shared this admiration with the students today and I wanted all of the families to know how incredible everyone's effort, engagement, and motivation has been on a consistent basis! I feel like I say this all the time, however, I am truly so lucky to have such a creative and energetic bunch. If you can find a special way to celebrate your child's accomplishments over the long weekend that would be wonderful! :)

Take care, 

Ms. Brown

May 5, 2022

 Hello Families, 

I hope everyone is doing well. Happy (almost) Mother's Day to all the Room 2 moms! Today (or tomorrow) students will be bringing home a special gift. 

 

This week, we started looking at and completing "Which One Doesn't Belong" tasks about 2D shapes. We have been building our vocabulary and reasoning for 2D shapes, and next week we will do the same with 3D objects. Students in room 2 saw the class next door (Ms. Kassam's) completing shape/object "WANTED" posters and asked if we could join them on this work so that will be our assessment task later next week as we wrap up geometry. 

 

Here are some of the vocabulary words we have learned so far, feel free to quiz your kids on these at home: 

- vertices (or vertex)

- side

- minuend

- subtrahend

- addend

- sum

- difference

- rhombus

We have also been working really hard on our National Geographic Kids books. Last week, we spent a lot of time in the learning commons accessing the iPads and Google Classroom to complete research on our chosen animals. This week, we are starting to create our own professional, non-fiction texts using what we have learned about text features such as table of contents, glossary, labelled diagrams, and different ways to represent information to make it engaging for the reader. The students are really excited for this work!

We have also been working with some Nature Kits from Riley Park and Nose Hill Park that we rented from the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. We are completing thinking routines about the artifacts, and learning more about the native plant and animal species in Alberta. Today, we had the opportunity to look at real crow and skunk skulls and participate in "perspective sketching", meaning we sketched from our view as we could see it, with each student having a unique perspective of the artifacts. 

Have a wonderful weekend, take care!

Ms. Brown