Language
During Daily 5 this month, the grade 2 students visited with me at the “Read to Someone” centre to practice a Reader’s Theatre all about Thomas Edison and the invention of Electricity. As we learned about this form of Energy, we practiced our ‘sounding out’ skills, the strategy of ‘skip and come back to it’ as well as ‘what word would make sense?’ as we read. After a few days of practice, paying close attention to ‘voice’ and ‘pace’, the 2s presented their theatre to the 1s. As your son or daughter which role they played! Why Use Reader’s Theatre? Looking forwards to Valentine’s Day, students listened to the read aloudSomebody Loves You Mr. Hatch and then re-listened at the Listen to Reading Daily 5 Centre. As part of Black History Month read many books and had many discussions; we read Freedom on the Menu, and watched the stories The Patchwork Path and “The Patchwork Path” (on TumbleBooks @ TPL) On World Social Justice Day February 20th, students listened to the book “For Every Child”. Afterwards, we created posters that illustrated these rights with images and labels. Students also listened to the Read Aloud The Little Yellow Bottle (watch the book trailer here) It’s a pretty heavy story, about the effects of war on the physical and emotional lives of children; we talked about children’s rights and even made some text to world connections, remembering Terry Fox and his amputated leg. *please watch the book trailer and have a talk with your son or daughter at home; if you’d like to borrow the book for BAB, please let me know* The Character Education Trait of March is Honesty: Students listened to half the story of Ruthie and the (Not So) Teeny Tiny Lie: and then Dramatized the Problem Solving between Ruthie, Martin and their teacher. Once students had showed their role plays/skits to the class, we finished reading the story to see if our predictions were right! #integratedlearning #literacy #drama Math – 2D Shapes, Positional Language and Number Sense: Subtraction Online Games and Videos to Try @ Home Number Sense: Catch a Bouncing Ball : Grade 1s should try 0 - 50 and 2s should try 0 - 100. I love this game because it uses different number lines (count by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s), ten frames, tally marks and rekenreks (the white and red balls, in groups of 5 and ten). Students should practice skip counting and recognizing numbers quickly. Number Sense: Line Jumper (more number lines!) Play the 'medium' setting with #s between 1 and 20; easy addition and subtraction extension. Number Sense: Memory!: All students should play with number representations from 0 - 20. *This is JUST LIKE hands-on card games we have in class :) Number Sense: The Action of Subtraction read aloud on You Tube Geometry: Geoboards Play around with making 2D shapes, just like we do in class! How many straight sides does your shape have? How many vertices? Can you name your shape? Geometry: Shape Maker Be a problem solver and use the pattern blocks to fill the puzzle outline (just like the puzzles we use at school!) We've been using our 2D Pattern Blocks and some 'positional language' (above, below, on top, to the left, to the right) to play barrier games in class. Try your own versions at home! It doesn't have to be with 2D Pattern Blocks, use any small object that you may have! For Parents: What Are Barrier Games? (pay attention to minute #4, they talk about attribute blocks!) Integrating Oral Language & Mathematics :) Science – Energy and The 3 States of Matter The Downsview Eco Centre: Have you checked out our Twitter Feed? Look at some of the fun pics we shared! John took us outside in the morning to play cooperative games. We all boarded a space ship together and blasted off to new planets to find ourselves a suitable habitat. Once we did, we played a ‘migration’ game where were all had to work together to move from one habitat to the next! After lunch, we visited with Lizzie and talked about the Importance of “Waste Not, Want Not!” – what can we do to reduce, reuse, recycle and SAVE Energy?! One fun way is to reuse household materials to craft and build – your sons and daughters created some amazing pieces of artwork! Hopefully they shared their experience with you once they got home J Visiting Scientist Zane: We learned SO much about Energy! The BIG Ideas: 1. Everything that happens is a result of using some form of energy 2. The sun is the principal source of energy for the earth 3. Humans need to be responsible for the way in which we use energy. We travelled through 5 stations: 1) Energy Conservation (with Claudia), 2) Solar Panel Centre (with Scientist Zane), 3) Solar Energy (with Tanya), 4) Heat Energy (with Kendra) & 5) Light Energy (with Susan). Ask your child about each centre and some of the awesome activities they took part in! A big thank you to all our volunteers J Just in case your children need a few reminders about what they did … @ 1) Students followed the story of the Saver Family to help them conserve energy in their home. They explored different ways to conserve energy in their surroundings and daily living. @ 2) Students used a solar panel to create the electricity required to operate a spinning machine that created a piece of art. @ 3) Students discovered how the sun affects the movement of air over land and water to create wind and constructed pinwheels which use the wind to move. They investigated energy sources for a wide variety of everyday products, activities and resources. @ 4) Students investigated how colour affects the absorption of heat energy and how heat energy can be transferred from one object to another @ 5) Students discovered the importance of the sun’s energy in the growth of our food and identify the energy inputs for different light sources. Renewable and non-renewable energy were investigated. Some Videos and Books we’ve shared: Click here to access TumbleBooks through the Toronto Public Library Site, then search for the story “Wired” all about electricity! Bill Nye the Science Guy: Matter Social Studies We did some integrated learning with Lillian using Oral Language/Social Studies/Visual Arts to celebrate Lunar New Year. As students listened to Oral Instructions (and watched me create my Lion Dancer on the Smart Board), they drew their own Lion, step by step. Though we all listened to the same Oral Instructions, some of our Lions turned out a little different! Once we had done the outline, Lilly helped the students finish the product in Visual Arts class. Students also listened to a read aloud Yeh Shen – A Chinese Cinderella story, and then watched the video on YouTube. We talked about some similarities and differences between the 2 stories. Other – Visiting Dancer On February 7th, we had a visiting Dancer, Hazel from The Groove, come to class to do a workshop with us! All afternoon we were in the ‘dance studio’ movin’ and shakin’ J The BIG Idea of the day: No fancy steps to memorize - just simple movements that you DANCE in our own unique way! We can’t get anything wrong because it’s not about following-the-leader - it’s about US dancing for the health and for the FUN of it!
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In our Room 108 Classroom Community, we foster an engaging, respectful and caring environment. I aim to balance a consistent program with flexible responsiveness to students' individual needs. Archives
November 2017
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