Sunday, October 30, 2016

December

Winter break is right around the corner and we are working hard to be ready for the concert on the 15th. There will be many fun and exciting activities happening this month. Please check our class and school newsletter for important dates and times. Please also check your child's BIRD binder on a regular basis for notes regarding activities happening this month.

We will be learning about polar bears this month. If you find any interesting news articles or have something interesting to share about polar bears, please feel free to bring any items in to enhance our learning!

Have a wonderful Christmas break and all the best in the New Year!!

Pumpkin Carving

Our class pumpkin carving was a success! Each pumpkin was very unique and it was apparent that everyone had a lot of fun! I heard a few students say that it was the best day ever! I am glad that everyone enjoyed themselves. Thank you to families that donated a pumpkin and thank you to our wonderful volunteers who came in to carve. Your help was much appreciated! We could not have done it without you!!





Saturday, October 22, 2016

Getting Halloween Ready and a Few Other Things!





We started our study on bats this week and began our math pattern centers. We cannot wait to share our pattern books with our families at triad conferences in November. We also completed some fall Piet Mondrian inspired leaves with our TIA artist, Mme Broughton.

Reading and Math

Please keep up with the hard work on home reading and playing the math games that were sent home. Reading and math fact fluency will continue to be a heavy focus in second term.

Reading
When reading we focus on:
- practicing reading each page smoothly without any choppy parts.
- retelling the story to make sure we have understood what we have read.
- use clues (picture, smaller words within a word, etc.) to help decode a difficult word.

Math Fact Fluency
When working on fact fluency we:
- try to answer a fact within 3 seconds.
- embrace that there are many strategies and ways to come up with an answer to a fact.
- make learning our facts as fun as possible!

Here are some of the facts we will be focusing on.

Grade 1 Students
- doubles to 5+5
- sums within 5
- combinations of 10  0+10, 1+9, 2+8, etc.

Grade 2 Students
- doubles to 10 + 10
- near doubles ex. 3+4
- combinations of 10
- making ten ex. 8 + 3  think of it as 8+2+1
- + or - 0, + or - 1, + or - 2

Fact fluency is beneficial for moving onto more challenging math and builds your child's confidence as a math learner!
Here is a helpful chart that shows the facts a student is expected to know by the end of grade 1, 2 and 3. Grade 1 is in yellow and Grade 2 in green. 


Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween

We will be carving pumpkins on Friday, October 28th. If you can donate a pumpkin or volunteer to help out with our pumpkin carving, please let me know! Pumpkin carving will happen from 2:00-3:00pm. Our Halloween celebration will take place on Monday, Oct. 31st. A reminder note has been sent out to all families regarding both Halloween and pumpkin carving.

Our class will be participating in We Scare Hunger. If you have any non-perishable food items to donate to Winnipeg Harvest, please send them to school with your child.




Our Learning in Room 23

Testing out different ways to practice our spelling words.

We finished off our study of line by creating these crazy line sculptures. You can see all of the line sculptures in the display case near the office!




We have been hard at work learning math facts, writing our 5 senses fall poem, learning about the ear in science and talking about our families and cultural backgrounds. Watch for some of learning about bats, patterning and the other senses! It is all coming soon!

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Spelling

We will begin spelling tomorrow (Oct. 3rd). Please be sure to have your child talk about their spelling sort with you. I have included the explanation page from the information booklet given out at the beginning of the year with the spelling sort for this week. Spelling practice will hopefully be fun! My intention with spelling is to build on spelling skills from where your child is at.

Yoga in the Gym!

Students had the opportunity to try yoga during gym class last week. They enjoyed trying it out and stretching their bodies. If you are interested in joining the yoga club after school each Friday, fill out the permission form and return it to Mrs. Parnell! Check out the link below for a short video at the beginning of the yoga session.