News for October 26

News for October 26

This week the children measured the length of the hallway outside of our classroom, learned about the traditions of Halloween and even welcomed a new student to our class!

In math, the class continued the linear measurement unit by using what they know about non-standard and standard units. The students now have benchmarks for understanding the length of a centimetre, metre and kilometre. The children had many experiences measuring their bodies and things in the classroom using non-standard units (for example, plastic blocks) and standard units, using rulers and measuring tapes. At the end of the week, the class went into the hall outside our classroom and estimated, then measured, the length of the hall using metre sticks (standard units) and then grade two student bodies (non-standard units). The hall is 60 metres long or 46 grade two student bodies long! We talked about how this made sense, since a grade two student body is longer than one metre...

The class learned a different way to tell a story by using your voice and a piece of paper and scissors. The children learned how to tell a Halloween story by folding and cutting an orange piece of paper to reveal a jack-o-lantern pumpkin design. Each student told the story at least two times, so there could be one pumpkin to decorate the wall outside our class and one pumpkin to take home. The children were also give some orange paper to take home to orally tell the story to family members too.

In our guided reading groups this week, the children learned how to listen for and recognize words that rhyme. They read aloud the children's classic, Chicken Soup With Rice and noticed that many rhyming words share common spellings, for example, rice, nice, twice. Sometimes this strategy can be used to help spell unfamiliar words. If a child wants to spell the word "sheep", he/she can think of a rhyming word that he/she does know how to spell, to help them, perhaps "keep". (However, English is a crazy language and words that rhyme or sound the same, are not always spelled the same way, for example, floor and more, but this strategy does give some form to the phonetic spellings.)

In science, the children wrote down and shared their research questions for their animal research projects. These questions will be compiled into a graphic organizer to help the students organize their research next week. The class also read and wrote about various adaptations that animals have to their environments. Did you know that some frogs have long sticky tongues to help them catch flies?

In social studies, the class formally began the unit on Traditions and Celebrations by brainstorming the symbols, activities and food associated with Halloween. The children drew pictures of people celebrating Halloween and then wrote about their pictures in their journals.

Finally, on Friday, we planted an Amaryllis flower bulb. This type of plant not only grows beautiful flowers, but also it grows very, very tall flowers. So when I asked the children where the math was in this project, they said, "We'll measure it!"

Books read aloud this week:

The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg
The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak