Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the reading and writing activity and the math worksheet on on probability. This homework is due on Friday, May 2nd.

We received a letter from the Hiroshima International School in Hiroshima, Japan this week. They thanked us for sending 1,000 origami paper cranes to them to be sent to the Sadako Peace Monument. This project took three years to complete. Students from both my classes from the last three years and the Paper Engineering Club folded paper cranes for this project. The children this year also wrote letters to the school explaining our project and expressing their feelings about peace in the world. One thousand cranes is A LOT of cranes.

Important Dates:

April 29 - Book Fair - browsing and completing wish lists
April 30 - Book Fair - purchasing books
May 6 - Primary Track and Field Day - AM only - bring water bottles and dress appropriately
May 11 - Mother's Day
May 15 - Spring Concert (evening - grades 4, 5 and 6)
May 19 - Victoria Day
June 6 - P. A. Day
June 14 - Fun Fair (Saturday)
June 17 - Primary concert (evening - grades 1,2 and 3)
June 26 - Final report cards go home
June 27 - Last day of school

News for April 25

News for April 25

The big news for this four day week was that our "recycled egg", made out of cut up egg cartons, won the prize for the best recycled project for the primary division! The students each got a sucker from the Eco Club, as a thank you for their work.

The students have now finished learning all 26 letters of the lowercase cursive alphabet! They practiced the "tricky" cursive letters b, o, w and v because they have bridge or smile connectors as they join to following letters. The children practiced writing their signatures and used the signatures to create a new piece of art by drawing the reflection of the name and colouring in the spaces.

The children finished their letters to Pet Valu and as a group, we wrote a cover letter to explain the activity to the company. Finally, the letters were mailed to Pet Valu and hopefully they will write us back!

In guided reading, the students had a chance to learn about how 3D glasses and pictures work. Then they read 3D books and looked at what the photos look like without glasses and when the glasses are worn upside down!

In math, the class finished the unit on multiplication and division. Division was shown as creating equal groups (the same idea from when we talked about fractions) and how it is related to multiplication. The new unit is on Probability and the students were introduced to the words used to describe the probability of something happening. These words are: certain, likely, equally likely, unlikely, impossible. The class also looked at spinners and decided if they were "fair" spinners or not.

The students listened to a song by Johnny Cash called, "Everywhere Man" where he sings about all the places that he has traveled to as a musician. We changed part of the song to include the names of the countries that the students are researching, and practiced singing that version of the song.

The children finished the good copies of their stories and based on the discarded book jackets from the school library. These stories and the collage artwork is now on display inside our classroom.

The class talked about the different ways to tell a story and the students had a chance to see the DVD A Grand Day Out. This is a funny, animated clay movie. The students wrote down the parts of the story, characters, settings, problems and solutions.

As a creativity development activity, the students came up with different uses for a rolling pin. It could be a wheel, a baseball bat or more.

Books read aloud this week:

The Amazing Dreams of Amanda Bean by Liza Woodruff (finished)
What's For Lunch? What schoolchildren eat around the world by Andrea Curtis
That's a Probability! A book about what might happen by Bruce Goldstone
A Grand Day Out  (DVD) by Nick Park

Update from Ms. R

This week the homework is to write a story of your choice (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal. There is also a worksheet with a review of cursive writing and using multiplication to solve word problems.

Book Fair News!

Our class will be going to the school Book Fair in our school library on the following days:

Tuesday, April 29 - AM - Browsing only...students will write up their wish lists.
Wednesday, April 30 - AM - Students will be able to purchase books on this day.

Finally, I would like to wish all the families of Room 5 a safe and happy holiday weekend!

News for April 17

News for April 17

This four day week, the children were very busy!

The class has almost finished learning all the lowercase cursive letters. This week the students learned e, l, m and n.

In Social Studies, the children learned the names and locations of the seven continents on the earth. They are: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Antarctica.

As a reward for working so hard on the sock creature movies, the students got to see five short movies of Lego animation.

In math, the students continue to work on multiplication. At this age, the students are not required to learn the "times tables". However, they need to understand that multiplication makes the addition of equal amounts faster and the children must be able to figure out these kind of problems using strategies such as skip counting. The students figured out how many wheels we would have if each student had a bicycle. (That's 20 groups of 2...)

Each student read and did the activities in a little booklet from the pet store, Pet Valu. Then each child wrote a letter to Pet Valu letting them know what she/he thought about the book. They wrote about what they liked and why, what they didn't like and why and what they could do to improve the activity book. These letters will be mailed to Pet Valu and hopefully they will write us back!

The school was given a challenge by the Eco Club to create an egg out of recycled materials for Earth Week next week. Our class made an huge egg out of cut up plastic egg cartons. Each child cut up 6 egg cups. The students used what they knew about multiplication to help figure out how many egg cups we used. We figured out that 20 groups of 6 egg cups means we used 120 egg cups to create our big egg (20 x 6 = 120).

The students are now working on the good copies of the stories based on book jackets of old library books, that they started last week. The emphasis for these stories was to include lots of adjectives to make their writing not only more interesting to read but also to help the reader with the comprehension strategy of "making a picture in your mind".

The children learned about the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter. The class had a chance to try matzah, the unleavened bread eaten by people celebrating Passover this time of year. The students also created decorated Easter eggs.

Books read aloud this week:

Pippi Longstocking (finished - chapter book) by Astrid Lundgren
The Matzah Man (A Passover Story) by Naomi Howland
The Easter Egg by Jan Brett
Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream (A Mathematical Story) by Lisa Woodruff

The Room 5 Interview Show!

This week, our guest was Connie. She is the office administrator at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the review work for cursive writing, beginning multiplication and reading comprehension. This work is due on THURSDAY, April 17 (since Friday is a holiday).

News for April 11

News for April 11

This week our class welcomed Hudson, a new student to our class! Thank you to all the students for making him feel a part of our class.

In math, the children folded and cut paper circles to understand the different fractions of a circle. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom along with the fraction books that they made.
The class started the unit on understanding multiplication. In grade two, multiplication is introduced by starting with the concept of repeated addition of equal groups. So, the children worked on listing things that come in groups of 2, 3, 4... and so on. There were lots of creative answers! The class was asked to figure out how many chopsticks our class would have if everyone had a pair of (2) chopsticks. Since there are 21 people in the classroom, there would be 21 groups of 2 or 21X2. The children then worked to find out the different ways to figure out that questions (skip count by 2 for example). At this age, students are asked to say 3X2 as "3 groups of 2" in order for them to fully understand the concept of multiplication.

In writing, each student worked on a story based on a collage he/she made using the pictures and words from discarded book covers. The goal for this story challenge isn't to write a long story, but to put lots of words, especially adjectives, in each sentence because the job of a writer is to put enough information in each sentence for the reader to understand the story better. For example, the sentence "The cat sat on on the rug" can become "The black and white cat sat on the soft purple rug".

In cursive writing, the students learned the letters s, o, h, k and b.

The sock creature movies were filmed this week. The groups were responsible for making the beginning and ending credits, acting out the story and making all the props. These movies will be available soon in a separate posting.

Now that the warm weather is here, the students are now allowed to play on the playscape at recess. The children and I noticed that not everyone is following the rules on the playscape and that some children are making unsafe choices. We decided to write a letter to our school's principal, Mrs. Farrelly, to suggest how to help the students follow the rules. The ideas are to make a sign, to go to classes and remind students of the rules or to make a video. We hope she writes us back soon!

In social studies, the class began to create their research posters on different countries. They made flags and designed the titles on the large poster paper. They also started to write down facts about their research countries. For example, the class learned that the word "population" means how many people live in the country and the word "currency" means the type of money that is used in the country.

Books read aloud this week:

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lundgren (chapter book)

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal about the ticket that is stapled to the next blank page in the journal. Some ideas from the class were...it could be a ticket to visit the Lego Factory or it could be a magic ticket with special powers. There is also a worksheet reviewing the cursive letters we've learned so far and a math worksheet to practise fraction concepts. This homework is due on Friday, April 11.

Important Dates:

April 18 - Good Friday - no classes
April 21 - Easter Monday - no classes
May 19 - Victoria Day - no classes
June 6 - P.A. Day - no classes
June 17 - Primary Concert (at Hodgson Senior School) - Grades 1-3 - evening
June 26 - Term 2 report cards go home
June 27- Last day of classes for the school year

News for April 4

News for April 4

The class started the week with a big success! Our class presentation of the play, "Honesty is the Best Policy" in the gym at the morning assembly on Monday went very well. The audience laughed and participated and each student did her/his job perfectly. A video of this play can be found in a previous posting dated Monday, March 31.

The students began their Social Studies research projects on communities around the world by choosing a country to research and making a flag of the country to put on the posters. In our guided reading time, the students read about different homes around the world, different ways to move around (transportation), different types of clothes and different jobs that people do.

This week, the class learned the cursive letters j, p, r and t. The class also had a chance to review and practise the letters done so far (12 letters in all with 14 to go).

In math, the students continued to work on the fractions unit. They each folded a large piece of paper into eighths, and created a little book. Then each student used little squares of paper to experiment with folding and cutting halves, thirds and quarters. These little books are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom. At the end of the week, the children began to look at fractions of a set of objects by dividing the number of objects into equal groups. For example, 12 cubes divided into 4 groups of three cubes means that the set is divided into fourths with 3 cubes in each group.

The students brainstormed all the different parts of a movie (for example, title credits at the beginning). The children are working in small groups to create movies starring the sock creatures that they made last week. They worked very hard to create a story, credits and props. We will start to film the movies next week.

During our library time, the students had a chance to watch the movie version of a book we read last Friday called, The Fabulous Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. It won an academy award for best animated short film! Here is the link:



During our computer time, the students explored the Treehouse TV website at:

www.treehousetv.com


Books read aloud this week:

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lundgren (chapter book)