Happy Holidays!

   
Today we had an awesome day - filled with gingerbread house making, outdoor play, and a movie afternoon. Students have worked so hard this term, they deserved an extra special day!
Thank you to all parents who donated graham crackers - we had so many! I am sending some kids home with them as there was an abundance and we didn't use them all. I so appreciate you for sending them in.

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, and Happy New Year!

Mrs. Halsall and Mrs. Wacker

PJ Day tomorrow

Thank you for all those parents/families that were able to come and see our class today at the assembly (again). They all did a fabulous job!

Tomorrow is our last day of school before winter break. Students are invited to wear their PJs and bring a stuffy. We will be building gingerbread houses in the morning and watching a movie in the afternoon!

Assembly tomorrow

Tomorrow at 10:30 we are putting on an assembly for the school. If you'd like to watch, you're welcome to come and see your child.
Students are encouraged to wear festive clothing (shirts, santa hats, and/or headbands).

Bridge building

Students have been working hard on building bridges. We finished today and they took pictures and posted them on IRIS. Have a look on there if you'd like to see your child's bridge (and more work that we post).

Their IRIS username is their student number and their password is something they can remember - ask them.

Here are all the bridges from our class.

       

Music sharing class

Students in Room 2 will have a Music Sharing Class on Wednesday, December 18^th during their music time. Students are welcome to share something music-related like a piano piece, a song or a dance. If your child has something to share, please help them prepare and remember to bring what they need on their performance day. If you have any questions, please e-mail Ms. Nair at canair@cbe.ab.ca.

School Library Closure

This year we are asking that all student library books be returned to the library by Monday, December 16^th. We are hoping that having all the books come back before the break will help to assure there are less books that get lost. The library will still be open Monday - Wednesday, next week, for students to come and enjoy some reading time, but there will not be any book exchange.

Writing work coming home

Today we're sending home 3 samples of writing (September, October, and December). We've marked the December writing sample so you can see a glimpse into their writing abilities. (Please sign and return these papers - take pictures if you want).
Take the time tonight to look at the growth we've made. Each student in our class is making huge gains. They're working hard and it's showing. We're so proud of everyone!

Upcoming assembly

  

Today we continued our conversation about celebrations and family traditions. We've been surveying our friends, asking questions, recording data and making inferences. Next week, on Tuesday, December 17th (at 10:30am) we'll be sharing our learning through an in-school assembly. Students will also be performing a song they learned in music and leading the school in some caroling. If you can make it, you're more than welcome to come!

Upcoming Field Trips

Our upcoming field trip fees have been added to Power School.  We will be visiting Fort Calgary (January) and the Zoo (May)

Please sign into your Power School account and pay your fees as soon as possible.

More information on these activities will be sent home in the new year.

2D shapes and 3D objects

   

We're working on identifying and constructing 2D shapes and 3D objects. We started with a review of sorting (by one attribute and two attributes; i.e. colour and size OR shape and colour, etc.) We then moved into naming 2D shapes and 3D objects and identifying them in our environment. We've also been working on using plastecine to construct 3D objects, this should help with our building project next week!

Doubles Strategy

We have been working on several different strategies to solve addition problems.  Children are discovering we don't solve all questions with the same strategy.  We are learning to look at the addends (the parts we are adding) to see which strategy would be the most efficient and effective. 

Ex. 8+2= ._____ is a make ten fact

6+1= we would use the counting on strategy

3+3= . when both addends are the same we can think of our doubles 

We need to memorize our doubles.....however, we use referents (references from real life to help us remember.)

This is the chart we made.  It is posted in our class.  Children are encouraged to look at it when solving doubles problems and when playing doubles games.  The more they use it, the faster they will remember these facts.

Sweet 16:  When we are 8 years old like our grade twos, we are half way until we are 16 when we can drive a car!! 

Practicing counting at home

The students work through a variety of activities to understand the patterns in numbers.
-Counting as a class during our daily "day count"
-Using Montessori bead chains
-Exploring number lines
-Building hundred charts and puzzles

AT HOME, practicing counting and skip counting is a great way to deepen your child's number sense.

Practice while waiting for the bath to run, in the car, or before an activity starts.

-Count forwards and backwards beginning at different starting points.  ie.  7, 8, 9....  54, 53, 52....
-Count by 2s, 5s, 10s (or by other multiples for a challenge like 3, 6, 9, 12...) forwards and backwards
-Count by 10s starting at different starting points (3, 13, 23, 33, 43.....     67,57,47,37....)
-Print off a hundreds chart and colour patterns you see with crayons.


Talk about the columns and rows. 
Along the rows, numbers increase and decrease by 1s.
Up and down the columns, the the number increase and decrease by 10s.

Building Bridges

This week, as part of our STEM activity, students are exploring a variety of materials to build a bridge. Next week, we'll use the knowledge we've gained from this exploration and our recycled materials to create bridge. Talk with your child about the different components of a bridge and how to make it stable. If you have specific materials at home that you and your child think would be great for building a bridge, please send them in (i.e. paper towel rolls, popsicle sticks, etc.; please note, we have lots of cardboard, so that will not need to be sent in). We could use some more duct tape - some students thought it was a great adhesive!