This week, our guest was Ms.Sullada. She is a teacher at our school.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Update from Ms. R
*Please click on the image to see the full photo.
***PARENTS - THE PINK BUS TRANSPORTATION FORM SENT HOME ON FRIDAY MUST BE COMPLETED AND RETURNED TO SCHOOL BY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27.***
The homework for this week is to complete a story reflection worksheet, based on the chapter book, Stone Fox that was read aloud to the class. There is also a math worksheet reviewing probability concepts covered this week. This homework is due on Friday, March 2nd.
- PLEASE NOTE: Our LIBRARY DAY (Day 1) now falls on THURSDAYS . Please help your child to remember to return his/her library book each week.
Note to parents - Ideas for encouraging non-digital activities at home
*paper and pencil games
Paper and pencil games are wonderful for for children! This week, students had a chance to solve a dot-to-dot puzzle with over 150 dots! Dot-to-dot puzzles are great for sequential number recall, eye-hand coordination and perseverance. Children also likes to solve word search puzzles. (I give a book of word search puzzles to each student on his/her birthday.) Word search puzzles are great for pattern recognition, vocabulary, organization and perseverance. Dollar stores are a great source for these types of puzzle books. I encourage you to have a few puzzle books on hand for the times when you hear, “Mom/Dad, I’m bored!”
Important Dates:
March 1 - French Carnival - school-wide event
March 12 to 16 - March Break holiday
March 30 - Good Friday holiday
April 2 - Easter Monday
(*For all holiday and P. A. Day dates, please go to the "calendar" section of the Toronto District School Board website at tdsb.on.ca.
News for February 23
News for February 23, 2018
This four-day week had the class sewing “glovetopus” stuffed animals, writing chapter books, eating lunch in the classroom and earning first place at the Kiwanis Festival!
Writing
The students began a big writing project this week. Each child is writing a chapter book using the “glovetopus” he/she sewed as the main character. (A glovetopus is an octopus made out of gloves.) We reviewed the stages of the writing process and how to divide the story into chapters. All the children have finished planning their stories and are now writing the rough copy sentences.
The children learned how to write the cursive letters h, o, p and s.
Reading
In guided reading, the children worked in partners to read a “probability” book and track the number of probability words in the text, in addition to reading and understanding the story. The groups will revisit the story next week and discuss the story and their findings.
During our daily read aloud time, I finished reading the exciting chapter book, Stone Fox. The book does not end the way the children predicted and they really had to use the comprehension strategy of “making a picture in your mind” to help understand what happened, because there were no pictures in the book to help them. The ending is so dramatic and moving, that I always have difficulty reading the words out loud, as I am crying from the emotional impact of the story. It was a great lesson for the students to see how an author, with only words, can make the reader feel such deep emotions.
Math
In math, the class began the unit on probability by learning the basic probability vocabulary words: certain, likely, equally likely, unlikely and impossible. The children created their own sentences to illustrate the meaning of the words and practiced judging the probability of various statements, for example, Ms. Rawlinson will sing on the morning announcements. This statement is unlikely to be true, but there is a small chance it could be true. The class also began to look at probability experiments, which will be covered in more depth next week.
We practiced using these probability words orally and we now have a chart on our door to track how often the children use these words correctly.
Science
As part of the octopus/glovetopus chapter book project, the class learned some facts about the octopus. Authors, even fiction authors, will often do research before writing their books to have more information about the subject or characters in the book to make the story more believable.
Did you know that the plural of octopus is octopuses? Did you know that the blood of an octopus is blue and each octopus has 3 hearts?
The children also worked on their individual animal research projects and started designing and creating their research posters.
Oral Communication and Media Literacy
Our guest on the Room 204 Interview Shows this week was Ms. Sullada. She is a grade 3 teacher at our school.
General Remarks
On Friday, all the English grade 2 and 3 students travelled to North Toronto Collegiate to sing in the Kiwanis Festival choir competition. Our school achieved the gold standard and came first place. Well done everyone!
The children also used their “genius hour” time to create houses/rocket ships/cars for their glovetopuses. Using empty Kleenex boxes and scrap paper, the students each used his/her imagination and shared ideas to each create a “personal space” for the glovetopus he/she made.
Books read aloud this week:
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (chapter book - finished)
My Favourite Animal the Octopus by Victoria Marcos
Sunday, February 18, 2018
The Room 204 Interview Show!
This week, our guests were Ms. Endert, who is a drama/dance teacher at our school and Ms. Judy, who is a mindfulness teacher.
Update from Ms. R
Homework
The homework for this week is to write, in the homework writing journal, about creating a new holiday or tradition. The children were asked to write about why the new holiday is celebrated, how it is celebrated, who celebrates it etc. There is also a cursive writing review sheet. This homework is due on Friday, February 23rd.
THANK YOU to all the parents that dropped by Room 204 for a chat last week! I would like to share with everyone some of the resources I mentioned to families.
De Serres Art Supplies
124 Eglinton Avenue West (2 blocks west of Yonge, on the north side)
This is a great resource for all kinds of arts and crafts materials and it’s a ten minute walk away from our school!
The Paper Place
887 Queen Street West
Near Trinity-Bellwoods Park in the heart of trendy Queen Street West, with lots of cool stores and coffee shops, this store has a great selection of origami papers and origami books.
Mastermind Toys
3350 Yonge Street (north of Lawrence Avenue) PLUS many other locations
https://www.mastermindtoys.com
This store has lots of cool educational toys and grade level workbooks and….I used to work there before I became a teacher!
Ontario Curriculum Exemplars
http://govdocs.ourontario.ca/node/15027
This document shows writing examples, with teacher annotations, for levels 1-4, for grades 1-6.
Typing/Keyboarding Skills
At school, we don't have the resources for students to learn keyboarding/typing skills. I recommend exposing grade 2 children to the QWERTY keyboard and how to type. There are many websites and apps that have games and activities to help children learn this skill. One site that I like is:
https://www.dancemattypingguide.com
- PLEASE NOTE: Our LIBRARY DAY (Day 1) now falls on THURSDAYS . Please help your child to remember to return his/her library book each week.
Important Dates:
February 23 - Kiwanis Festival choir performance at North Toronto Collegiate
March 2 - French Carnival - school-wide event
March 12 to 16 - March Break holiday
March 30 - Good Friday holiday
April 2 - Easter Monday
News for February 15
News for February 15, 2018
This four-day week had the children participating in lots of traditions and celebrations, from celebrating the birthday of three students in our class to cooking (and eating) pancakes!
Writing
On Monday afternoon, the students wrote reflections in their journals about the 100 Days of School celebration activities in the morning. Later in the week, each child wrote in his/her journal about a specific February holiday or about all the holidays in February.
The children learned the cursive letters t, j and r.
Math
In math, the children did a sweet Valentine’s Day math activity by creating pictographs using Smarties candies. They each set up a chart and used the coloured candies to make pictographs of the number of candies of each colour in his/her box of Smarties. Then they counted the number of Smarties in the box. Afterwards we put together all the information and made a bar graph to show the number of smarties of each colour for our whole class. Did you know that a box of Smarties usually contains 10 candies, but some boxes have 9, 11 or 12? Did you know that red was the most popular colour of Smarties (43 out of 237 candies) and blue was the least popular (10 out of 237 candies). The students then talked about why every box doesn't have 10 candies (perhaps the machines at the factory make a mistake) and why there are so few blue smarties (perhaps they ran out of that colour and had to add more of other colours).
The students also estimated the number of candy hearts in the package before we counted the candy hearts to figure out how many each student should have in order to get a fair share. There were 261 candies so every child received 11 candies with 19 left over.
The children created bar graphs of their personal surveys from last week. They also wrote about the information in the graphs and how we can use this information. For example, if most children like the colour green, then if we had to buy something for the class, let’s say folders, green folders would be a good choice because most students like green. Each child created a poster with this information and these posters are now on display in our hallway.
Social Studies
100 Days of School
The children celebrated 100 days of learning in Room 204 by doing some math activities. They were counting out ten groups of ten Froot Loops cereal pieces to string 100 loops to make a necklace. They stamped stamps on the 100 blank rectangles on a blank 100 chart. They played with 100 different kinds of objects, like 100 straws, 100 marbles and even 100 old football trading cards. They used the timer set to 100 seconds (or 1 minute and 40 seconds) and counted, and recorded in a chart, how many exercises (e.g., jumping jacks) they could do in 100 seconds.
Pancake Tuesday
Did you know that Pancake Tuesday is also known as Shrove Tuesday and Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)? This celebration comes from the Christian tradition of using up rich food like butter and sugar before the observation of Lent, 40 days before Easter. So the class mixed up some pancake batter and fried pancakes and ate them with pancake syrup! Yum!
Valentine’s Day
The children chorally read a story about the history and symbols of Valentine’s Day. Did you know that St. Valentine was a real person who helped soldiers send messages to their sweethearts because the emperor did not allow soldiers to be married?
Each child made a valentine card for his/her family and decorated a paper bag to collect the valentines from their friends. On Wednesday afternoon, the students had a chance to read and enjoy the treats.
Flag Day
The children reviewed the reason for Flag Day (Feb. 15) in Canada and watched two short videos, one about flag facts and one on how flags are made.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I-V0ok_v9F8
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wtL_Dhufrmw
Chinese New Year
The children reviewed the reasons for this holiday (lasting for 15 days and beginning on Feb.16), enjoyed some holiday treats of fortune cookies and “lucky” candies and watched a short video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_u-R-aIq3_E
Oral Communication and Media Literacy
The class recorded two Room 204 Interview Shows this week. Our first guest this week was Ms. Endert (a drama and dance teacher). Our second guest was Ms. Judy (a mindfulness teacher). These videos can be seen in a separate posting.
Books read aloud this week:
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (chapter book - continued)
The 100 Shirts of Mr. Lee by Nancy Rawlinson
Sunday, February 11, 2018
The Room 204 Interview Show!
This week, our guest was Ms. Konjhodzic. She is a music teacher at our school.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Update from Ms. R
Homework
The homework for this week is a reading comprehension activity about tooth traditions around the world and a math activity reviewing graphing concepts and understanding. This homework is due on THURSDAY, February 15th (since Friday is a P.A.Day).
Note to parents - Ideas for encouraging non-digital activities at home - jigsaw puzzles
This week, our class began to work together to solve a jigsaw puzzle showing all the flags of the countries around the world, as a connection to our discussion of the 2018 Winter Olympics. The children learned some strategies to help them put together the puzzle, like sorting the border pieces and putting together the border of the puzzle first and referencing the puzzle picture to help find the correct pieces.
Solving jigsaw puzzles helps to develop many skills in children, like: shape and pattern recognition, eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills, patience and perseverance!
Grade two children (ages 7-8) do well with jigsaw puzzles with 100-300 pieces. (Puzzles with more pieces can prove to be overwhelming.)
Important Dates:
February 13 - Term 1 report cards go home
February 15 (evening) and February 16 (morning) - optional parent/teacher interviews
February 16 - P.A. Day (no classes)
February 19 - Family Day holiday
February 23 - Kiwanis Festival choir performance at North Toronto Collegiate
March 1 - French Carnival - school-wide event
March 12 to 16 - March Break holiday
March 30 - Good Friday holiday
April 2 - Easter Monday
News for February 9
News for February 9, 2018
Writing
The class began the week by writing thank you letters to Ms. Judy, the woman who came to our class to teach us meditations techniques. (We will be giving these thank you letters to Ms. Judy next week, when she comes by our class to be on The Room 204 Interview Show.)
Each child picked his/her favourite Robert Munsch book that we read for our author study unit and wrote a short book report by answering questions about the book.
The children learned the cursive letters i, u, y and w.
Math
The class reviewed how to interpret the information in pictographs and how to create a pictograph too. Next the students looked how to put survey information into a bar graphs and how to “read” the bar graph’s information.
The children each wrote his/her own survey question to learn more about the students in our class. The students then went around the classroom to answer all 22 survey questions. Afterwards, each child tallied up the responses to their questions. The children will analyze the results of these surveys next week.
Guided Reading
In guided reading, the groups read and discussed the Robert Munsch book, “Moira’s Birthday”. This book illustrates how authors can represent words differently to make the reader emphasize the meaning of the word. We also made connections to the way Robert Munsch writes his books to create humour.
Science
The children continued to work on their research projects on different animals. They used books from our school library, encyclopedias and worked with me to google information on the iPad and filled in key facts about their animals using a graphic organizer worksheet.
Social Studies
February is a great month to focus on traditions and celebrations in our world! We began to learn about Chinese New Year last week and continued the conversation this week. Did you know that Chinese New Year begins on February 16th and it is the first day of the “Year of the Dog”? We talked about the Chinese Zodiac and the twelve animals that are used to represent different months of the lunar year.
The class learned about Flag Day in Canada. It is celebrated on February 15th each year and it represents the “birthday” of our country’s flag on February 15, 1965 (53 years ago). Did you know that up until 1965, Canada did not have its own flag? (Before 1965, the flag was red with pictures of both the British flag and the coat of arms of Canada.) The students learned how to make a Canadian flag and these are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.
The class learned about the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The children read about the history of the Winter Olympics, about South Korea and the Olympic logo and mascots. Did you know that there are almost 3,000 athletes representing 92 countries at these Winter Olympics? (The children also began to solve a jigsaw puzzle of all the flags of the world!)
Here is a link to online Olympic-themed games and activities:
The students also wrote down all the names of the children in our classroom to help them write their Valentine’s Day cards for next week.
Oral Communication and Media Literacy
The students used their posters depicting the words to the poem, Salutation to the Dawn, to create a video!
The class recorded a Room 204 Interview Show this week. This video can be seen in a separate posting.
Books read aloud this week:
Our Flag: The Story of Canada’s Maple Leaf by Ann-Maureen Owens
Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (chapter book)
Sunday, February 4, 2018
The Room 204 Interview Show!
This week our class had two interviews!
Our first guest was Ms. Francesca. She is a gym teacher at our school.
Our second interview guest was Mr. Pearce. He is a supply teacher at our school.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Update from Ms. R
Update from Ms. R
The homework for this week is for each child to teach an adult the “Dice Story” cooperative writing game. Using two dice, players take turns rolling the dice and writing the number of words corresponding to the total on the dice. For example, a roll of 5+3 means the player writes 8 words of the story. By using different coloured markers, pens or pencils crayons or a pen and a pencil, the players can keep track of the words each player writes. Then the student can write a “report card” on how the adult did on learning and doing the activity. There is also a math sheet reviewing concepts covered this week. These parent/child cooperative stories will become part of a class book. This homework is due on Friday, February 9th.
February may be the shortest and coldest month of the calendar year but there are at least 11 special days/events! Including:
Groundhog Day - Feb. 2
2018 Winter Olympics begin - Feb. 9
100th Day of School - Feb. 12
Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday/Mardi Gras - Feb. 13
Valentine’s Day - Feb. 14
Flag Day - Feb. 15
Chinese New Year begins - Feb. 16
P.A. Day - Feb. 16
Family Day holiday - Feb. 19
Kiwanis Festival performance - Feb. 23
Black History Month
* Our LIBRARY DAY (Day 1) now falls on TUESDAYS . Please help your child to remember to return his/her library book each week.
Important Dates:
February 13 - Term 1 report cards go home
February 15 (evening) and February 16 (morning) - optional parent/teacher interviews
February 16 - P.A. Day (no classes)
February 19 - Family Day holiday
February 23 - Kiwanis Festival choir performance at North Toronto Collegiate
March 2 - French Carnivale - school-wide event
March 12 to 16 - March Break holiday
March 30 - Good Friday holiday
April 2 - Easter Monday
News for February 2
News for February 2, 2018
On Friday, our class calculated that we are now officially half-way through the school year with 94 days of school so far and 94 days of school left to go, for a total of 188 school days.
In math, the children began the Data Management unit. We talked about how to collect data, or information using a survey. A survey asks a question to get more information about a group (usually people). The children reviewed how to keep track of data by using tally marks. This method is useful as it keeps track of numbers in groups of five, which is easy to skip count. The class is learning how to read and create graphs, or pictures of information. This week the class looked at pictographs or graphs that use pictures to record information. Also, the children now answer a daily survey question and discuss the results. Did you know that most children in our class prefer chocolate ice cream? We also took some time this week to review addition and subtraction facts, to keep these skills strong.
In science, the children continued the unit on animals by starting research projects and choosing an animal to learn more about. Before learning about the animals they chose, they were asked to draw a picture of the animals. (The children will be asked to do this again at the end of the project so they can see how much they learned.) We also read a book about the different kind of eyes that animals have. Did you know that the eyeballs of the colossal squid are as big as a basketball? Did you know that the scallop has up to 100 eyes that are blue?
In writing, the children finished their stories about the penguin in the Oliver Jeffers’ book, “Lost and Found”. Each student designed a poster to display his/her story and used the origami penguins to decorate the poster. These are now on display in the hallway outside of our classroom.
The students worked in partners to play the Dice Story cooperative writing game. Using two dice, players take turns rolling the dice and writing the number of words corresponding to the total on the dice. For example, a roll of 5+3 means the player writes 8 words of the story. By using different coloured pens, the players can keep track of the words each player writes. When the stories were finished, the partners read aloud their stories to share with the rest of the class.
The children began to learn how to do cursive writing. It is useful to know how to do cursive writing because all personal signatures are in cursive, cursive is a faster way to write and it helps to be able to read cursive writing. This week the children learned the letters a, d, g, c and q.
The class began a poetry + art group activity. As a class we are going to learn about and memorize the poem “Salutation to the Dawn” by the ancient Indian Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. It's a poem that reminds us how to live a happy life. To help us learn the poem, each child is making a large poster of part of the poem, and these will be displayed in our classroom for us to read during the morning message each day.
February is a month of special days and occasions. We began the month learning about Groundhog Day. This year the groundhog saw its shadow which means 6 more weeks of winter. However, this is not science, just a fun story as winter ends in 6 weeks anyways on March 20, 2018. Did you know that the groundhog is mammal and is also known as a woodchuck?
The children also learned a bit about Chinese New Year and began to create paper lantern decorations using “lai see” or lucky red envelopes. The secret to this activity is, the lantern is actually a 3D skeleton of an octahedron, with the folded envelopes as the edges of the figure!
The class recorded two Room 204 Interview Shows this week. These videos can be seen in a separate posting.
Books read aloud this week:
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Mud Puddle by Robert Munsch
My Family Vacation by Dayal Kaur Khalsa
Eye to Eye - How Animals See the World by Steve Jenkins
Groundhog Day by Michelle Aki Becker
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