Winter Painting

Today, students worked on a beautiful painting project. They used the paint colours white, black, red and blue to mix different shades of blues and purples to create a winter night sky. Tomorrow, we will add a silhoutted Christmas tree - you can see the artwork at the Christmas concert on Wednesday!

We also enjoyed our pita lunch, practiced subitizing and solving word problems and fixed up some mixed up sentences. 

For the Christmas concert, I am asking that students wear a white shirt and dark pants. The rest of the costume has been made in class.

Writing Letters to Santa

Today, we mailed our letters to Santa. The grade 2's had worked on thinking about questions to ask Santa, sharing some personal information about themselves and making sure to politely ask him for a present. We also practiced a step-by-step drawing of him as well!

Thank you to all the parents who have come to Parent-Teacher conferences so far. It is very much appreciated! Parents are the first and best teacher for our students.

What's new in Grade 2!

We made these cool hats. The field trip was really good. Kaleb

We went on a field trip on Monday. Mackenzie

We made Frosty the Snowman hats and we're going to play an act. Arthur

At the Lougheed House, we saw animal heads that were real! And we also made hats for the play. Hope

We went to the Louheed house and we saw eleven Christmas trees! Daryan

We saw 11 Christmas trees at the Lougheed House. Adrianna

We made Frosty the Snowman hats and we got to put sparkles and flowers on them! Josh

Today we made Frosty hats and mine was all blue. Skie

The gingerbread Lougheed House was really cool! Christopher

We made Frosty the Snowman hats and we cut them out and we put some sparkles. Sofia

Field Trip to Lougheed House: A Victorian Christmas

The grade 2's had a busy day visiting Lougheed House. It was a perfect winter day, and the students were excited to go on the trip!

When we arrived at Lougheed House, we were able to enjoy the traditional Christmas decorations and were able to tour the house while learning about the Lougheed family. After a snack break, the groups split up. Ms. Ketcheson's class learned about the types of toys children would have received in the Victorian era while Mrs. Gullett's class made holiday cards with Victorian pictures and decorations. After lunch, the groups switched. We ended the day by having the opportunity to play with a variety of traditional toys and games, along with writing a letter to Santa Claus.

A huge thank you to the parent volunteers who came with us. The trip would not have been possible without their participation!

Winter place value trees

This morning students worked on creating winter trees. Each tree represents a different place value: ones, tens or hundreds. The students looked at pictures of winter trees and then used wax, crayons, chalk and white trees to bring them to life:

Brainstorming about what winter trees look like

Art done with wax, crayons, chalk and white paint

We contiued with our math rotations and spent the afternoon talking about how to make our story beginnings really exciting. Students were given the writing prompt:

You are walking to school and you see a snowman waving at you.

How would you start this story?

Building increasing patterns

Using Read and Write Gold

Students had the opportunity to use the computer program Read and Write Gold today. It is a fantastic program that allows students to select unknown words which are read to them by the computer. This is just one of the many features. In January, students will start using it consistently to research arctic animals (which we started on today!

We also spent time today talking about how to make our story beginnings more exciting for our readers. We talked about three ways to start a story: using a sound effect, describing an action or using dialogue.

Daily 5 and Math rotations

Today, students had thier first opportunity to jump into our daily 5 literacy activities. They have a choice of choosing one of 5 options:

1. Listening
2. Word Work
3. Reading to Self
4. Reading to Someone
5. Work on Writing

Each rotation is approximetley 15-17 minutes. Students have been practicing each skill individually, so it was a treat to see them all in action! As students complete their work, I am able to work with individual students or small groups.

We continued  the rotation theme into math. This week, students are working in groups of 3 to work on patterning skills, number practice, subitizing (recognizing number groupings), working with Ms. Ketcheson and practicing skills on the computer.

Finally, we ended our reading a terrific story: Edmin Speaks Up. Edwin is just a baby who has a lot to say! Students really had to use context to predict what Edwin was trying to tell his mom.