September 9, 2022

Hello Families, 

 

The first week and a half in room 2 have been wonderful. It seems like our new class is getting along very well and many students have made lots of new friends! We are working together to understand new routines and expectations to support learning. 

We begin each morning with a daily writing and math task before transitioning into our Montessori work period. This has been a very successful routine for students during our soft entry time. 

 

We will have a busy September as our class is leading the Terry Fox learning assembly on September 21st! We are so lucky to be back to "in person" assemblies this year. The new Alberta curriculum includes biographies, so we are working as a class to research and write a biography about Terry Fox that we can share with the school on assembly day. Additionally, we are running or walking 2km daily (broken up into 1km segments) to follow Terry Fox's journey across Canada during his marathon of Hope. We even brought our little buddies in grade 1 and 2 on one of our 1km's! 

We have been tracking our progress on a classroom map and Google Maps, we began our route in St John's, Newfoundland, and as of today we have almost made it to Gambo, NL. This has been a fun way to learn about measurement, and view the geography of various Canadian communities. 

Additionally, we drew a portrait of Terry Fox this week without any pre-teaching/learning. Throughout the week we are learning how to draw realistic parts of the face. We will apply these newly learned skills to draw a more accurate and realistic Terry Fox next week and be able to compare how our work has improved. 

    

Please note the Feastival information below:

Take care!

Ms. Brown

Meet the Teacher 2022-2023

 

SPORTS DAY!

 We are so excited to be able to host a Lake Bonavista School Sports Day in 2022! Sports Day will be taking place on Friday, June 24 from 8:30am-12:15pm. On this day, students will begin in the gymnasium for a pep rally and then travel with their class and their neighbouring class outside to participate in group activities and games. Parent Council has generously provided healthy snacks all students to enjoy for the end of the day!

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Wear athletic clothing and shoes

• Pack a water bottle and snack (we will have two snacks this day)

• Please wear sunscreen and bug spray

• Despite the forecasted rain, we will be moving forward with Sports Day unless there are thunderstorms, please dress accordingly

Thanks for your support!

Active Living

June 17, 2022

 Hello Families, 

Wow! It's hard to believe we are in the homestretch of the school year with only 7 days left for students! Everyone has been doing a great job staying focused on work despite growing excitement for the summer break. 

Over the past few weeks we have been looking at elements of story writing and character development. This week, we generated the plan to write our own stories, this work will continue on into next week. We have also been looking at division using materials to support the making of equal groups and continue to practice extending, creating, and representing increasing and complex repeating patterns. 

We had the wonderful opportunity to experience the full life cycle of a butterfly over the past month. 

  

We will be releasing the butterflies on our walking field trip on Monday. 

Stem Challenge 

Ms. Brown and I thought it would be a great way to end the year with weekly stem challenges. This weeks challenge was to sink a marshmallow in either oil or water. Day 1 of the challenge asked students to predict what would happen to the marshmallow in oil and in water, students then tested and planned their design for a sink jacket. Day 2 of the challenge asked students to build and test their design (the fun part!). Day 3 of the challenge asked students to reflect and improve their design. 

Each groups design was super unique! It was great to see the collaboration and team work throughout the process.

 

 Important Dates

• Walking Field Trip - Monday, June 20th (weather permitting) 
• Release of the butterflies! 

• Walking Field Trip - Wednesday, June 22nd (weather permitting) 

• Fun Lunch - Extreme Pita  - Thursday, June 23rd 
• order at: https://healthyhunger.ca/index.php?error=1002

• Report Cards Go Online - Thursday, June 23rd 

• Sport Day! - Friday, June 24th 

• Last Day of School - Tuesday, June 28th 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Brown

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