Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

I want to thank you all for coming out for sharing night, the students were very excited to show off all their work from the last few months so it was wonderful to see such a great turnout!

It was a busy week as we prepared for the big night, the students worked very hard to pull the room together.

Just over a week until our winter break!  Though it's hard at times for the students to stay on task with all the excitement in the air, we have a lot of work to do until the break!   Next week the students will be putting the finishing touches on their arctic fairy tale, finally publishing into their own book!

We're wrapping up our inquiry work on arctic communities, the past few days we've had some discussions as to what we've learned since we started all the way back in September. In reality we could study the arctic all year because there is so much more we can dig into but we will be moving on to study prairie communities in the new year.

In math we have continued to work with base blocks to help develop our number sense.  Recently we are working on ways to count to 100 using skip counting techniques, grouping and mental math.  The students have been learning about odd and even numbers and using ten frames to show our learning.  By using ten frames, the students have discovered how even numbers always have a 'partner' while odd numbers always have one left over.  Here are some odd and even games your children can play at home if they are interested in practicing:

odd or even sorting
Jelly Diving

I look forward to seeing everyone at interviews this week!

Ms. Q

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!   

How the weather has changed... just weeks ago we were wearing t-shirts outside.  We used the new weather to inspire us to brainstorm descriptive ways we could describe winter.  We read an arctic tale about a blizzard and then the students started working in small groups, together creating a poem about winter/blizzards.  Their poems are very creave and are coming along nicely! I've seen a lot of growth in the students writing since we did the fall group poems. I look forward to seeing the final product!

The students worked on their 'Promise is a Promise' watercolour painting with Mrs. Hittel the art teacher last week. The students picked a quote from a story and used the text to adapt their version of a picture from the story.  The paintings turned out very well!  Look out for a display on sharing night.

The students are continuing their arctic fairytale writing.  We are getting closer to the publishing process.  We have a new editing process we have implemented in class, it always gives the students something to work on because they are aware of what step they should be on before they can more on. Most of the students are onto their typing, being fairly new to typing it's understandable that some get frustrated but we have talked about how practice will help them get even quicker as time goes on.  I found these websites online that are fun to practice typing skills if your child is interested in checking out:

Typing games
Powertyping
Dance mat typing

We have been continuing to use the base ten blocks and indentifying multiple ways to represent numbers.  We are learning how to do multi-step problems with the base blocks and though it is challanging, it is important for the students to be able to solve problems using multiple steps, it is a skill that will help them in the future!

As we have been doing our inquiry work the students are creating a large mural of 'showing what we know'.  They has learned quite a bit during doing their research and by create the mural the student can reflect on what they know and what do they still hope to learn about more.

I recently read the students a story called 'Winston of Churchill: One Bear's Battle Against Global Warming'  It touched on the problem in Churchill, Manitoba with the polar bears unable to make it to Churchill to hunt for food due to the melting ice floats and the inablility for the bears to swim such long distances.  It was a great little story indicating the small things the average person can do to help.  I'll be showing them a video this week taken at Churchill where scientists explain what they know about polar bears and the kind of work they do with them.
 

Robert Munsch reads

In class we read the book 'A Promise is a Promise' by Robert Munsch.  I'm trying to get the students really familiar with the story so we can do a project in conjuntion with our arctic inquiry work.  I read them the story and today they listened to Robert Munsch read the story from his website!  If your child would like to hear the story again, or share with someone else here is the link to listen to it:

A Promise is a Promise

Enjoy!

Ms. Q

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

It was a busy week full of a lot of activities! The students have continued their arctic fairytale writing and it's coming along really well.  The students are realizing the expectations now when they write, we are learning how to rewrite, revise and edit our work so it can be even better.  This week as a class we had a discussion of what it would be like to live in Iqaluit compared to Calgary, the pros and cons.  I think the consensus was that it would be a pretty neat place to live, but the cold would scare off many!  We then discussed what we would need to life there sucessfully.  We will continue this idea and think of needs vs. wants.  I will eventually show the students the price differences between groceries there compared to here!  They could not believe when I told them that a lire of orange juice that cost just over $2.00 here cost $23.00 up there!  So that makes us think..... If you lived there, would you really NEED orange juice to live?  It's an interesting discussion that began to take place...

We did our soap carvings on Friday!  They turned out really well and the students were excited to see their work transform when we painted the soap with the ink paint so the etched part would stand out.  We  are not finished with the carvings though, the students will eventually write a story inspired by their art. 

On Friday we were also very lucky because Quest theatre came to our school and performed Big Sister, Little Brother.  It's aplay inspired by "The Emporer's New Clothes".  It was wonderful and I think the students really enjoyed it.  It was good timing because the students are writing their own story based on another one, so we talked about the idea of  'adapting' stories when we create our own sometimes.

In math we have been working with base ten blocks, the idea of representing and trading.  It's something that can be very difficult and a struggle to understand at first, so if your child wishes to practice more at home here are some great websites:

Blocks representing numbers
Blocks representing numbers #2
Identify the number

101 Dalmations choir practice starts on Tuesday during lunch, even though the deadline to sign up was Friday if your child is still interested in being in the musical, you can find the form off the Chaparral school website and bring it in on Monday or ASAP! 

Ms. Q

Free theatre at the Calgary Public library!

Calgary Young People's theatre is presenting a 45 minute show at various Calgary Public library  locations based on the works of Shel Silverstein. The works of the well known and loved writer who brought us The Giving Tree and Lafcadio, the lion who shot back.


  I thinks this would be a wonderful opportunity for the students to check out the show!  If you're interested in attending you need to do a few things.


1.  Your child needs to have their own public library card.  If they do not have one yet just head over to your nearest public library. (The Shawnessy one is closest to Chaparral)  It's free and quick to sign up.  (Who can argue with free?)
2.  You need to register in person, on the phone or online.  Head to this website if you want to register online:

Shel Silverstein 

Just search 'Shel Silverstein' in the search box and you can register.


Unfortunately the show at the Shawnessy location is full but there are still plenty of room at other libraries around the city!

Hope some of you check it out, should be a good time!

Ms.Q

Math problem

Hello parents and students!

Feel free to check out this months family math problem from the Chaparral school website:

November math problem

If any students want to share how they came up with the solution I encourage them to bring it to school and share with the class!

Ms. Q

Inuit Art

This week the students have been studying different forms of Inuit art. Inspired by the stone sculptures, I will give the students a bar of soap this week to etch a design, arctic landscape, animal, inuksuk, pretty much anything they would like inspired by the arctic. They will pre-plan their design, sketch some ideas out and when they are done etching the soap we will paint it so the design stands out. I'm excited about this project and the students seem to be too!

Here is a website we looked at and some videos we watched in class:

Inuit Art link

Inuit sculpture video

Sculpting a polar bear by Inuit artist Alec Lawson Tuckatuck

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

The students have been working very hard on their Arctic inquiry work. We read the story 'Three Snow Bears' in class which is based on 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' except the story takes place in the arctic and the characters/setting/situations were changed to fit the arctic theme. The students chose a fairytale they are familiar with and will rewrite the tale so it takes place in the arctic.

The students have been discussing what life is like up North. We have watch a variety of videos and looked at many websites and the students have been discovering the differences between the life of a child who lives up North compared to themselves. They also have been realizing that their way of life is not that different from ours, they just have some cultural differences.

Ah culture, what a tricky word that can be! I posed to the students to tell me what culture is, as there is no 'exact' definition. To make it easier, I had them think about Calgary, and living here and how we would share our culture with others who were unfamiliar with it. Here are some quotes from the students:

"I would show people visiting the best places to eat, food is a part of our culture and they may eat different food than us"

"I would bring someone to a Calgary Flames game, hockey is a big deal to a lot of people here!"

"I would explain to people which holidays most people celebrate here"

"School is important to many people here, I would explain why we go to school and what we do"

"I would show someone what games I play and what else I do for fun!"

Those were just a few examples of many the students gave. They are on the right track but I believe we will keep discussing what culture is all year, as it is an important word in our grade two vocabulary.

This week we have been learning about the inukshuk (or inuksuit when talking about more than one) and the importance they have in Inuit culture. The students learned the value the Inuit placed in the inukshuk and how different ones meant different things. Here is a great website with more information:

Inukshuk site

In Math we have been continuing to work on our data collecting unit. The students are learning how you can show information in multiple ways. Not only are they learning the importance of showing information clearly, but also explaining what they see and discover is very important to. The students have been working on their problem solving skills, everyday I have posed to them a problem to solve and it have been very interesting some of the strategies the students come up with to solve some of the problems. We usually do the problem first thing in the morning to warm those sleepy brains up and get ready for the day.

Ms. Q

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

The students have been hard at work with their Arctic inquiry work. We have been watching videos, reading books, doing research on the computers and studying maps. This week we met with our kindergarten buddies and together the grade 2 class and the kindergarten class made models of the animals we have been studying. The students work will be displayed in the kindergarten ABC museum with write ups about the animals they studied. I'll be sure to post pictures once that is completed!

In our Arctic inquiry work are focus is now on the communities, way of life, the people and experiences of living there. This week the students discussed the similarities and differences of Calgary vs. Iqaluit and I encouraged them to keep thinking over the weekend and we will continue our discussion on Monday. This week we will be taking a look at Inuit art and the meaning behind the pieces and what they do. The students will soon get a chance to create their own art inspired by Inuit creations. (more to come on that soon!)

Ms. Theobald our music teacher at Chaparral mentioned that some of the students would love their own copy of the song they have been working on, unfortunately she does not have enough paper for the 500+ students at the school to have their own copy. So here is a document with the music and words to the song Land of the Silver Birch if your child is interested in their own copy.

Ms. Q

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello parents and students!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. Just a quick update on what we're working on this week. The students will continue with their graphing unit in math and showing the various way they can explain their findings. I'm going to encourage them to start thinking of questions they can ask for a final project. We will be starting a mathematics dictionary in our class that all students can access when needed, I'm going to try and find a way to link it online so students (and of course parents) can access it from home. What I mean by a mathematics dictionary is that I want all students to start using the proper mathematics language in class and their work. For example, instead of saying 'plus' and 'take away' we will say 'addition' and 'subtraction'. The more we use the language the more it will stick!

Also our buddy class this year is Mrs. Smith's kindergarten class. The students are so excited to be mentors to them and we just had our first meeting last week where our class explained and showed them to how log on and navigate the web using our computers. The students showed the kindergarten class some of the Arctic research they have been working on the past few weeks. For our next meeting our class is going to choose an Arctic animal from this website:

Arctic Animals site 1

Arctic Animals site 2

They will spend the week asking questions about the animal and searching for the information to answer their questions. By our next meeting the students in our class will have enough information to share with our buddies in Mrs. Smith's class and will work on an art project together. If students are interested in doing some work on their chosen animal at home I encourage them to do so! They are more then welcome to share their findings with the class.

For the last few weeks students have had 5 new words of the week. We have been working on understanding the words and how they can be used in different sentences. At the beginning of every week the students write down the 5 new words in their agendas. Some students have even been writing sentences and paragraphs at home, then sharing with the class the next day.

It will be a short week but a busy one! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in class tomorrow.

Ms. Q

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

The week has gone off to a busy start, since last week we have taken a short break from the Arctic and now focused on what is going on in our own backyard. We discussed the idea of the season 'Fall' in relation to our senses. The students came up with great ideas and descriptions about fall so our free writing time has been focused on that the last few days. The work the students are producing is great! Lots of stories, poetry, even some song lyrics! With the writing the students have been so hard at work producing we have also focused on movement. In one activity in small groups the students created a poem together and while reciting it to the class, they created movements to go with their main idea. We have been working on the concept of 'fluid motion' ask them what it is ;)

In math we have been working continuously on different ways we can collect, sort and explain data. The last two days the students have been hard at work creating their pictographs. They each thought about a question they wanted to learn about the class, than after collecting the information they needed, each one of them had to created pictures to create a graph. On a side note, those of you who have read the October newsletter (posted on the school website) may have seen an explanation of the new school wide math problems. From the newsletter:

Teachers are engaged in professional development around the topic of problem based
math where students work to solve rich math tasks that can be sustained over a long period
of time. Parents ask often what they can do to support students at home. In addition to working on basic math facts at home with your child on a regular basis, we have included a series of family challenges for the month of October. Each challenge is designed to be worked on for a week. Your child is encouraged to bring their thinking/work around the challenge to school.

Family Math Challenge link

I encourage you all to explore the problems posted on the above link with your children, and encourage them to bring their solutions to class to share.

A special thank you to all who donated to 'Toonies for Terry'. The school raised quite a bit of money and the Terry Fox run was a great success!

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

Last week was very busy and full of quite a few activities. Both last week and this week we have continued our research on the Arctic. Last week we discussed as a group what we know (or think we know!) about the Arctic. The students then wrote down as many questions as they could think of that they wanted to learn about the Arctic. We have a wide range of questions, some examples of questions they came up with are:

What kind of animals live there?

How do people survive in the cold climate?

How are houses built?

What are schools like?

How do people travel?

Do plants grow there?

What kind of food do the people eat?

Do they have igloos still?

There are much more and the students have been developing their research skills to find answers to their questions. Using both books and the internet, we are finding different ways to seek their answers. Quite often many of the students would develop even more question while trying to seek answers!

In math we have continued with our sorting and collecting data unit, they are discovering the different ways to collect, display and interpret information. I encourage students who want to do work at home to think of questions they can ask their family members and friends, and discover different ways to record the information to find. Several students have been doing extra work at home and have shared their findings with the class.

On Friday is our Terry Fox run, the students have been learning about the story of Terry Fox and have been practicing their running during gym. The school is collection ‘Toonies for Terry’ and all proceeds go towards cancer research.

That’s all for now!

Ms. Q

Arctic Links

Hello grade 2s!

Here are some great links to check out about the Arctic

Links:

Inuit life up North

Dedicated to the history,science, and adventure of the Arctic. Includes images, maps, and wildlife, environmental, and glacier information

Information about environments, geography, organisms, and research, along with photographs

Learn about the geography of the Canadian Arctic from the Government of Canada website

Series of great websites and games about the Arctic region

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

Last week was such a busy week for us, this week even more so! We just finished out pattern unit in math, we might revisit it later on but now we have moved on to our data collection and sorting unit. The students created their own graph last week, learning how to label, collect information but also explain what they discovered. We have been working hard on our writing, the students have been learning the importance of editing our work and also providing details in our writing. Who? What? Where? Why? How? When? Those are the questions I ask the students to ask when they are reviewing their work, if they are not answered we've discussed how would the reader know what's happening?

In science we're started out 'Exploring Liquids" unit. On Friday we did a series of experiments with water, though it was a bit messy and wet the students are learning how to record their observations. Throughout this unit we will be doing even more experiments and hopefully the students will enjoy being scientists!

This week we have started our study of the Arctic. The students will come up with their own personal question about the Arctic and through our inquiries I hope we will learn a lot about the region and be able to compare it to where we live now. I asked the students to write in their agendas to bring 'crafty' materials. As a class we are going to build a model of the region we are studying and anything that could contribute to this from home would be appreciated! Things like wool, paper towel rolls, leftover paint, construction paper, buttons, pebbles, styrofoam, anything!

Ms. Q

It was so nice to meet all the parents last week, I look forward to posting the work we do in class on the blog soon enough!

Weekly update

Hello Parents and students!

We have had a very busy week; the students have been doing a lot of story construction. We have been using our imaginations and putting our heads together to come up with story ideas. We have been reading many stories throughout the week and identifying the beginning, middle and end. The students have been learning about the elements that make a beginning, middle and end to a story. This week we will be focusing on the beginning of a story to start the planning process. We discussed the importance of planning a story, how organizing our ideas will help us write in a more successful manner.

Some of the students have expressed interest in writing more at home and I think it’s a great idea! So if your child is interested in perhaps keeping their own journal at home here are some helpful websites that have some great ideas:

A story starter generator

Ideas on how to get your child started with a home journal


In science we are starting a unit where we are exploring liquids. If anyone can spare empty plastic containers, bottles, etc , that would a great help to me and the students! We will be doing a lot of demonstrations and experiments with different liquids so through our inquiries students will become scientists and will be reporting their findings.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, a new week is upon us!

Ms.Q

Welcome!

Hello grade 2's! (And parents!)

Welcome to our class blog. This is the place I will send weekly update to parents so they get a sense of what we're working on in class. I'll also be posting interesting and informative links for students very soon related to what we are doing in class. The year has started off with a bang, we're already working very hard in the classroom. In math we're doing a pattern unit, using materials, art and even ourselves to create and recognize patterns! We have even been dissecting the patterns we find in stories.

We have been doing a lot of writing in just a few days. The students have been creating beginning, middle and end stories using pictures and words. We also have free writing almost every day, this is a quiet time where students can feel free to write bout whatever they would like. Some examples are poems, diary entries, stories, news articles, etc. Perhaps talk to your children about some more ideas you can brainstorm together that they can write about during this time!

In Social Studies we just began talking about the differences between rural and urban communities, we will be trying to make those words stick (rural and urban) because it’s easy to confuse the two!

Very soon in Science we will start exploring liquids. We will discover the different kinds and be doing a lot of experiments in our class. Get ready to become scientists grade 2s!

That’s all for now, I will most links and more updates soon!

Ms. Q