News for March 1

This week the class learned about math probability, international flags and their countries and fables and fairy tales.

On Monday, Ms. Heath asked me to accompany the primary choir to the Kiwanis Festival. Since six children from our class are in the choir, the balance of the class spent the day with either Mr. Baillie or Ms. Tiralongo.

In math, the children were introduced to the probability words for grade two: certain, likely, equally likely. unlikely and impossible. The students made word cards to help them recognize and create statements that apply to each probability words. The children also learned about spinners and how to design ones that are "fair".

In social studies, the class talked about how the world is divided up into different countries and their flags. Each child chose a different country to learn more about by doing a research project. First we brainstormed questions that the students had, for example, "What language do people speak there?". Then we focused on flags and how flags say the name of a country without using words. As a class we will do a country project on Canada. The students learned a song about the Provinces (10) and Territories (3) of Canada to help them remember the names and their order from east to west. The class reviewed some Canadian facts (for example, Canada became a country on July 1, 1867) and wrote the names of the Provinces and Territories on a map of Canada. The students also began to make their big research posters.

The class learned about the musician K'Naan who was born in Somalia and came to Canada when he was a child. The children heard the story of his life and how he used the words from a poem written by his grandfather to create a song that became a hit worldwide.(He wrote: "When I get older, I will be stronger, they'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag". The students also watched a video of K'Naan singing his song. Here is the video:


The class has begun to talk about fables and fairy tales. We learned about a man named Aesop who is credited with creating many well known fables, or stories with a lesson or moral. Did you know that Aesop lived in Greece over 2,500 years ago? We have also started to talk about what makes a fairy tale different from other forms of fiction stories. So far, the children have identified that in some fairy tales animals talk and act like humans and some fairy tales have royalty characters like kings and queens.

In cursive writing, the class learned the cursive letters, j, k, l, r, and s.

As an act of kindness, the children created a bunch of glovetopuses for the caretaking staff at our school to thank them for all they do at our school to keep it clean and safe. We brainstormed the kinds work that they do from cleaning up the lunch room to shoveling snow and wrote a letter to them to thank them. The caretakers were so pleased!

The Room 222 Interview Show episode 3 was filmed this week. Our guest was Ms. Macina. She is a vice-principal at our school. This video can be seen in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson
When I Get Older - The story behind the song "Wavin' Flag" by K'Naan