Ms. R has no electricity!

Sorry for not posting this week. My home has been without electricity for almost a week. I will post when I am back at home.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework writing journal. The story can be fiction or non-fiction. There is also a math worksheet that reviews the geometry concepts learned this week.

Note: The Toronto District School Board has named Friday, December 20 as a PA or "Professional Activity" day. Please know that, based on a directive provided by the Ministry of Education, permanent contract teachers will be taking December 20th as an unpaid day and therefore will not be at work on this day.

Important dates:

December 19 - Last day of school for 2013
December 20 - P. A. Day
December 23 to January 3 - Winter Holidays
January 6, 2014 - First day of school for 2014

News for December 13

News for December 13

This week we reached Day #71 of school! Only 116 days of school left. (We like to count things in Room 5!)

In math we continued the unit on geometry by learning more about two-dimensional or flat shapes (polygons). The students learned the three parts of each shape sides, vertices (corners) and angles. The students learned that the number of sides is the same as the number of vertices and angles for any shape. The class is required to name and understand the properties of all shapes from a circle (0 sides) to an octagon (8 sides). The students also reviewed the shape names and properties while learning how to fold a paper plane (as a connection to one of our read aloud books).

Our school has a tradition of having a Holiday Post Office in our school to have children practice their letter writing skills. The students reviewed how to write a letter and learned how to properly address an envelope.

The class learned how to play the word game "Mad Libs". Before starting the students learned what a noun and an adjective is. A noun is a word that is a person, place or thing (for example, Domo, school or pencil). An adjective is a word that describes a noun (for example, big, dry or blue).

There was a twist in our guided reading this week. The students learned about the history of various popular holiday songs and read aloud the lyrics. Then we sang the songs together.

The students finished their fiction animal stories featuring the same type of animals that they researched for their science posters. The children shared some information from their posters in a video. This video can be seen at the end of this posting.

The class finally finished the measurement of the distance from Room 5 to the gym using the non-standard unit of a paper chain. It took 750 paper chains to go all the way down the hall. What a great way to practice counting by 10's and 50's.

In science, the students began to learn about the properties of solids, liquids and gases by experimenting with water. The children looked at ice and watched it melt. They watched water boil. They learned how to use thermometers and how they are used to measure how much heat is in something. They learned the basic temperatures that are important to humans, measured in degrees Celsius:

0C - water freezes
20C - room temperature - water is a liquid
37C - human body temperature
100C - water boils - water becomes water vapour or steam

In computers, the students had a chance to create snowflakes on the computer! Here is the link:

snowflakes.barkleyus.com

Here is the class sharing some of their animal research information:


Books read aloud this week:

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns
The Christmas Alphabet Pop-Up Book by Robert Sabuda
The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers
Water - Up, Down and All Around by Natalie Rosinsky
A Porcupine in a Pine Tree (Canadian 12 Days of Christmas) by Helaine Becker

Update from Ms. R

This week the homework is to visit the class blog with an adult and teach him/her about the photos and words posted each week. Afterward, each student is to complete a teaching reflection worksheet on how the lesson went. There is also a geometry worksheet to be completed. This homework is due on Friday, December 13.

Important Dates:

December  9 - Classes walk to Hodgson for concert rehearsal
December 10 (eve) - Winter Concert @ Hodgson Senior Public School - (students to arrive at 6:30 PM)
December 19 - Last day of school for 2013
December 20 - P. A. Day
December 23 to January 3 - Winter Holidays
January 6, 2014 - First day of school for 2014

News for December 6

News for December 6

This week the students started some new projects! One of our big, looooong projects is creating a long paper chain to estimate the distance from our class to the gym. So far, the class has made over 280 chains.

In math, the students finished up the unit on graphs and data management by finishing their individual surveys and putting the information on posters. These posters are now on display in the hallway outside of our classroom.The students also wrote an end-of-unit final review worksheet. At the end of the week we started the geometry unit by reviewing the names and properties of two-dimensional shapes.

In writing, the students started a new writing challenge. The goal is to write a fiction story, using the animal from his/her science research as the main character in the story. This story will be the longest stories the students have written all year as each one must be at least two pages long.

The children are almost finished their science animal research posters. Each student wrote the animal fact sentences on the posters, drew and glued on a drawing of the animal and used stencils to create a title.

The class learned a lot about snow this week! As part of our new unit on the properties of liquids and solids, the children read the true story about "Snowflake Bentley" who was the first person to photograph snow over 100 years ago. Did you know that snowflakes are made in the shape of hexagons (six-sided shapes) because of the shape of a water molecule (H2O)? We also learned how snowflake crystals are formed from water drops in clouds, starting with a speck (of dirt for example). The different patterns are due to temperature, wind movement and the amount of water in the air. The children grew their own crystals on pipe cleaners using borax and hot water.

Another way to make snowflakes, of course is to make them out of paper. The children learned how to fold the paper, remember where the centre is and cut out chunks of paper to create lacey paper snowflakes.

The class had a chance to watch a classic holiday film, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.

In the computer lab, the students played some games on this animal site:

www.a-z-animals.com

Books read aloud this week:

Snowflake Bentley - The story of the first person to photograph snowflakes by Jacqueline Martin
The Story of Snow - The science of winter's wonder by Mark Cassino
The Snow Must Go On by Molly Wigand
Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin
365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the math worksheet on graphing and to write a fiction story in the homework writing journal. The challenge is to write a story about what happens in our classroom after Ms. R turns off all the lights, locks the door and leaves for the day. Will the chairs dance? Will the fish do origami? Will the stuffed animals sit at the desks like students and Domo be the teacher?

We said good bye to our student teacher, Ms. Katie on Friday. We wish her all the best in her future teaching adventures!

News for November 29

News for November 29

This week the students finished up their poems they wrote for the poetry unit. The poems were put into a large class book which is now available for the students to read during independent reading time. Each child also picked their favourite poem to read aloud and be videotaped. The video can be viewed at the end of this posting.

The class learned about advent calendars and how they are used in the Christian tradition to count the days to Christmas. We used the idea to create our own version of an advent calendar (adventus is Latin for arrival) to count the days to the winter holidays. The students created gift envelopes containing treats and surprises for each number. The star student picks a name of the child who gets the advent envelope for the day.

The class learned about the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and how a candle is lit on a menorah every day for eight days. They each helped to grate potatoes to make potato latkes. After they were fried they got to eat them with applesauce. The students learned how to play the dreidel game and how, the past they used "gelt" or money to play the game (we used little blocks but the children had a chance to try chocolate gelt coins).

After talking about the proper way to write a letter, each child wrote a letter to the Peace Crane Project in Hiroshima, Japan, to tell them about what our class and the Paper Engineering Club did to make 1,000 paper cranes for peace.

In guided reading, the groups read together the book, I'm Lying As Still As I Can. This book introduces the reasons why we aren't really completely still on earth. The earth rotates creating day and night. The earth travels around the sun on a 365 day trip creating a year. The solar system moves within the Milky Way Galaxy and galaxies are in the universe that is always expanding. Of course, gravity keeps us "stuck" on the earth so people don't realize all the different ways that the earth is moving.

In science, the children learned the names for their animal babies. Did you know that a baby rattlesnake is called a "snakelet"? Or a baby electric eel is called and "elver"?

In math, the students created their own survey questions to ask the children of the class. The students moved around the classroom to answer questions like "Do you have a pet?" and "Do you have a brother or a sister?" These results will be tallied and graphed next week.

Officer Jan from the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department visited our school this week to talk to all the grade two students about personal safety.

Our amaryllis plant is now almost 24 cm tall! It's become so big that we had to add more paper to our graph to show how big it is. We also have a "Christmas" cactus in the class that will soon bloom with bright pink flowers.

Here is our poetry video:

Books read aloud this week:

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (finished)
Yancy and Bear by Hazel Hutchins
I Have a Little Dreidel by Maxie Baum
Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese
Life-Size Farm Animals by Teruyuki Kamiya