The Room 204 Interview Show!

This week our guest was Ms. Francesca. She is a gym teacher at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the survey about our class blog with an adult. Please remember to write the answers in sentences. There is also a math worksheet reviewing data management (graphing) concepts at the end of the unit. This homework is due on Friday, April 1st.

Note to parents:

1. Just a reminder that all students require TWO pairs of footwear at school. One pair (boots or shoes, as the weather permits) for outside and one pair of inside shoes (suitable for gym). By having both inside and outside footwear, we can minimize the amount of dirt tracked around the school and our classroom (especially our carpet).

2. YOU ARE INVITED to our 100 Books Party! It's on Thursday, April 14 from 9:00 to 11:30 am in Room 204. The students will showcase their reading and writing projects. Come and join us for food, music and fun! Mark your calendars! We hope to see you there!

These are the bar graphs that the children created based on the results of their surveys.

Our pussywillow branches started to make roots and new leaves, so we planted half of the branches in soil and left the others in water to see which way is better for the plant over time.

This displays shows the sock monkeys made by our class and the junior grade students in the Sock Monkey Club.

News for March 24

News for March 24

The four-day week didn't stop the students from doing a wide range of activities from finishing our math unit to decorating eggs to reading aloud books by Oliver Jeffers for our author study.

In writing, the students reviewed their typed sock monkey stories, wrote their author biographies and created front and back covers for their final books.

The class started to plan our celebration of reading and writing, the 11th annual 100 Books Party! This is the day we celebrate reading and discussing 100 read aloud books. The students began by choosing his/her favourite read aloud book and writing the rough copy of a book report based on the chosen book.

The students finished learning the 26 American Sign Language (ASL) signs for the letters of the English alphabet. We are now practising signing/spelling words and will now incorporate this skill when we practise spelling our word wall word each week.

In math, the students wrote about the graphs of their surveys from last week. As a group, we talked about what we now know about the students in Room 204. For example, most children like cake and icing. The students learned about circle or pie graphs and reviewed how to create and interpret pictographs and bar graphs. 

Our class has begun to partipate in a research project to improve the speed and accuracy of answering two- and three-digit addition and subtraction questions. This week, the students did timed activites solving addition and subtraction questions as a pre-test. Next week they will learn new strategies to help them increase their speed and accuracy.

In science, the class talked more about air in our environment. Did you know that the three main gases in air are oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide? In groups, the class did a simple experiment to prove that air is around us. (It's important to prove this because even though air is all around us, we can't "see" it.)

The class talked about the Christian holiday of Easter. Did you know that the word holiday comes from the words "holy" and "day"? We talked about the religious story of Easter and the non-religious celebrations associated with this time of year. For example, serving chocolate eggs and decorating eggs are part of many family traditions. The children learned how to hard-boil eggs, dye them and use boiling water to "shrink" decorated plastic around the outside of the eggs. They also learned how to pack the delicate eggs in bubble wrap to protect the fragile eggs when they took them home.

This week, on the Room 204 Interview Show, our guest was Ms. Francesca. She is a gym teacher at our school. This video can be seen in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

The Easter Egg by Jan Brett

Stuck By Oliver Jeffers

This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers

The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers

The Power of Doubling

The class heard two read aloud books this week, retelling two different versions of an old folktale from India. In this story, the power of doubling numbers is demonstrated. This pattern rule is our calendar pattern for the month of March.

Here is a video of the third version of this story that we discussed this week:

The Room 204 Interview Show!

This week our guest was Ms. Robson. She is a teacher from Australia, who is teaching at our school this year.

Sock Monkey Theatre Presents...

The Room 204 sock monkey movies!

Update from Ms. R

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the families of Room 204, a safe and happy March Break holiday!

The homework for the next TWO weeks (because of the March Break Holiday) is to write a story, fiction or non-fiction, in the homework writing journal. The story has to connect in some way to the St. Patrick's Day themed pencil that was given to each child. Is it a magic pencil? Did George the sock monkey use the pencil to write a book and become a famous author? How is a pencil made? These are just some planning ideas. I love reading the children's stories! I always look forward to reading their work. There is also a math worksheet reviewing how to read and interpret bar graphs. This homework is due on Thursday, March 24th (because of the Good Friday holiday).

Important Dates:

March 14 to 18 - March Break

March 25 - Good Friday 

March 27 - Easter Sunday

March 28 - Easter Monday 

April 15 - P.A. Day 

May 23 - Victoria Day

(Please click on the image to see the full photo.)

News for March 11

News for March 11

This week the students did a range of activities from filming their sock monkey movies, to reviewing parts of speech, to learning how to play Chinese Checkers (in the dark...), plus much more!

The children reviewed the parts of speech required to be understood for grades 2 and 3. They practised finding these kinds of words in sentences. Then they used what they know to create a word flip puzzle. This puzzle puts nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs in the same places on a piece of paper and the words can be exchanged to create correct but crazy sentences (for example, "The blue donut ran quietly.").

In science, the class began to discuss the air and water in our environment. They looked at the places water is found on earth (e.g., rivers, clouds). We also started to talk about how to keep our air and water clean, because humans can't make more air or water so we need to take care of the air and water that we have.

In math, the students learned more about surveys and graphing. Each day the students answer a survey question and we discuss the results. This week we focused on pictographs and bar graphs. A the end of the week the students wrote their own survey questions to ask the class and everyone answered each other's survey questions, tallied and graphed the results.

After hearing and discussing the read aloud books, The King's Chessboard and A Grain of RIce, the class figured out our calendar pattern for this month. Starting with one, each day the number is doubled. At first, this does not seems so interesting, 1, 2, 4, 8....but then the numbers start to get very big, 256, 512, 1024...This pattern was featured in the ancient Indian folktale read aloud books we talked about and they illustrate the power of doubling! 

On Friday, our school observed Earth Hour by turning off all electric lights and devices from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. Our classroom is quite dark when the lights are off. However, the students learned about the board game, "Chinese Checkers". Did you know that it's not Chinese at all? It was invented in 1892, 124 years ago in Germany. After learning how to set up the board and the simple rules of the game, the children played their first game of Chinese Checkers in their table groups.

The students learned the history and traditions of Saint Patrick's Day. It is observed on March 17th each year and it is a national holiday in Ireland. This day is celebrated with parades and wearing the colour green and shamrocks (young clover with three leaves).

The students are learning the American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet. ASL is an active language with no written component. ASL is not simply signed English. There are separate signs for words and a unique word order. However, it is useful to know the ASL alphabet to be able to fingerspell English words. This week, the children learned the signs for the letters A to N.

The Room 204 Interview Show had Ms. Robson as our guest this week. She is a teacher from Australia who is visiting and teaching in the classroom across the hall from our class this year. This video can be seen in a separate posting.

The Room 204 Sock Monkey Theatre presents...The 2016 Sock Monkey movies! Six different film crews of students created and filmed six movies this week. These movies can be seen in separate postings.

On Thursday, at 2:30 our class participated in "The Big Crunch" when students in our school and across Canada all bit into apples at the same time. This event reminds us to make healthy food choices.

Books read aloud this week:

Saint Patrick's Day by Molly Aloian

The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers

American Sign Language by Remy Charlip

The King's Chessboard retold by David Birch

A Grain of Rice by Demi

The Room 5 Interview Show!

This week our guest was Mr. Pearce. He is a supply teacher at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a movie review, using the worksheet provided. The movie could be one of the movies we have seen in class OR a movie watched at home or in a theatre. There is also a math sheet reviewing how to use tally marks and how to interpret survey data. This homework is due on Friday, March 11th.

News for March 4

News for March 4

Well, it was a difficult week for the students of Room 204. There was a lot of sickness with almost half the class away each day, as well as changes to our schedule and special events.

Because so many students were away, we did not have a word wall words spelling test this week. Instead we will review the words for everyone's benefit, next week.

On Monday, February 29th, the children learned that February 29th is called "leap day", and this happens every four years. The reason is that it takes a year for the earth to go around the sun once, or 365 and 1/4 days. This "1/4 day" adds up to a full day every four years and they put this extra day at the end of the shortest month of the year (February).

On Wednesday morning the class was invited to the gym to listen to the grade 4, 5 and 6 students give their award-winning speeches as part of the school's annual Speech Arts contest.

The winter snowstorm did not stop our grade two choir this week. The buses were cancelled but the judges came to our school! The choir achieved platinum status with a mark of 92%. Well done!

In math, we finished off the unit on money by practicing how to make change by using the "counting on" strategy. The key to this method is lots of practice! At the end of the week, the class began to review how to use tally marks to track answers to a survey question and how to interpret survey results.

The children made hot chocolate and then, while they were enjoying their warm drinks, they did a procedural writing activity by writing down the steps to make hot chocolate.

The class continued to discuss movies as stories, by watching different films and identifying the parts of a story (characters, setting, problem, solution). We finished watching Because of Winn-Dixie and then we watched two films starring the claymation animated characters, Wallace and Gromit.

On Thursday, all day, it was our school's annual Carnaval day. Our class made masks, necklaces, buttons, sculptures, did face painting, ate pancakes, played outdoor hockey, went snowshoeing and played winter-themed computer games. What a fun day!

The students worked on their sock monkey movies by creating the credits, costumes and props. They also sewed pillows and small quilts for their sock monkeys. 

Our guest this week on "The Room 5 Interview Show" was Mr. Pearce. He is a supply teacher at our school. This video can be seen in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

Because of Winn-Dixie (DVD based on the chapter book) by Kate DiCamillo

A Grand Day Out (Wallace and Gromit) (DVD) by Nick Park

The Wrong Trousers (Wallace and Gromit) (DVD) by Nick Park