Christmas concert costume ideas

Here are some low cost quick Christmas costume ideas. Please have them ready for this Thursday as that is the day of our dress rehearsal. 

angels

http://www.netmums.com/christmas/christmas-crafts---how-to-make-angel-wings

Shepherds

http://www.ehow.com/how_7712548_make-shepherds-costume.html

Bible character(for those who do not have a specific role or part)

http://www.icschool.org/assets/Uploads/Docs/Music-Files/HowtoMakeaTiedShepherdHeadpiece.doc

King:Look for wise man ideas http://www.theschoolrun.com/8-no-sew-nativity-costumes 

 

Christmas makes me want to dance!

We are into our final week before the Christmas break. This final week of Advent we celebrate love. We celebrate the love of our families and friends as well as the love for our fellow human being by taking care of those who are not as fortunate to have a warm house and a warm meal for Christmas. We also recognize God's love for us by sending us his only Son. 

In Math we continue to explore how to read and use data from simple graphs as well as how to make simple graphs. 

In Language we will be using our listening skills to create a personalized elf drawing as well as to listen for key words and then represent that data in a graph. 

Friday we had the pleasure of listening to stories on the seven sacred teachings of the First Nations people by Daniel Richer an Algonquin elder. 

Mr. Richer demonstrates the Algonquin sing language word for respect.

We also have been reading about the celebration of Christmas around the world. Today we started making heart ornaments from Iceland. 

And we also celebrated by dancing to Christmas songs for some DPA. 

A reminder as well that thisbWednesday we will be doing outdoor gym since the gym is being used for the kinder Christmas concert and practices for the other grades. Make sure that your child comes with extra socks, mitts and clothes since the forecast high is 2 degrees above zero and the snow can get wet.

Get into the Christmas Spirit(Week)

We will be hosting a Spirit week next week as a final lead up to the Christmas Break. The breakdown is as follows:

Monday: Christmas morning(pj's)

Tuesday: Christmas Cheer(favourite Christmas sweater, socks, red and green colours)

Wednesday: Candy Cane day (grade1-6) wear red and white and/or stripes.

Thursday: Christmas/Winter characters (grinch, elf, Santa, Elsa, Jack Frost)

Friday: Christmas concert. Wear Christmas Character clothes (angel, star, sheep, shepherd.) Students already know their specific roles. 

Hope to see lots of participation!

Joy

The third week of Advent is a celebration of Joy as we are getting closer to Christmas. We will continue to learn about the Joy that Christ brings. 

We will begin Data management next week and explore how to record data collected through surveys and how to create a graph from that data. 

Today we learned a new game with our Grade 4 buddy class called 99. It's a great adding and subtracting card game. 

And yes some of us played chess too! 

Peace be with you

Apologies for having two posts in a row. It seems the first week of Advent post never got published. 

This week marks the second week of Advent which focuses on Peace, the peace that Christ brings. We will complete our work on peace in language by having students describe peace in their own words. 

In math we will finish our patterning study and begin investigating Data Management which looks at how to accurately represent information that will be collected through surveys. 

We will also be having our dental screening for all students in grade 2 this Thursday. This is simply a screening and does not replace regular dental care through a dentist or hygienist. 

A notice that Scholastic book orders are due this Friday, no exceptions. I will be inputting the order over the coming weekend to hopefully ensure delivery before Christmas. 

Enjoy the snow and drive safe. 

It begins...

This week we begin our first week of Advent, a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus. We prepare for the celebration of Christmas. The theme for the first week of Advent is hope. The things our class hoped for was for happiness for our family and friends. We also discussed how we can make that happen through our actions. 

In Math we continue to explore patterns through our patterns centers. We are learning to recognize the difference between a growing/shrinking pattern and a repeating pattern. 

an ABA pattern in a snack!

Hundreds chart patterns

Is it a growing or a shrinking pattern? 

What happens to the numbers in the chart when you add another row?

A growing triangle and trapezoid pattern.

Hexagon and triangle growing pattern. 

In Language we continue to write about Peace using our five senses. We asked question such as what is world peace and how big is peace and answered them using our give senses to help us find descriptive words. 

Last week was also Stand up to Bullying Week at St Anne's.  We took part in a school wide stand up to bullying while reciting the St. Anne Lions Pledge. Our class also prepared and performed some skits for drama class on how to use our WITS. Here is a link to a video of some of the students performing the skit. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y4JcNh6JjE

In science we continue to design our amusement park using simple machines. A few students had a chance to explain their brainstorming ideas using the document camera and LCD projector. Here is a link to one of the presentations. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=luIgxB5XWd4

On a final note scholastic book order forms have been sent out. Please return the forms as soon as possible to ensure Christmas delivery. 

News story on St.Anne

View the link to see a story featuring some students from St. Anne. Very exciting to be featured through our deep learning initiatives.

http://globalnews.ca/video/3064823/canadian-war-museum-teaching-the-past-to-the-future

A poppy is to Remember

This week we read A Poppy is to Remember as an inspiration for our perspective drawing. We focussed on making objects bigger in the front of the picture and objects smaller in the background of the picture. 

We will also be starting our patterning unit next week in Math. Please try to follow along with the  homework calendar as that will directly support what we are doing in the class. 

We will continue our descriptive writing with a major writing piece on What is a Peace in light of Remembrance Day. 

We also had our Scientist in the schools visit is past week. Students enjoyed getting a hands on experience of how simple machines work. 

Great Spirit and Remembering week.

Thank you to all students who made this a great Spirit Week in support of the United Way. The students had a great time dressing up and our class raised almost $40. 

Crazy Hat and hair day!

Next Friday is also Remembrance Day.  We encourage all parents to attend especially those who serve or have served in the military to attend. 

We also read "A poppy is to Remember" and will be focussing our art project this week using the poppy as inspiration. 

This week we Will conclude our study of simple machines and will also conclude our 2D geometry unit. 

Students will also be exploring the concepts we taught in geometry through geometry centers. 

Symetrical shapes

Create your own symmetrical shape together. 

Create a shape with tangrams.

Geometric properties with geoboards

Cover over a shape with smaller shapes

Spirit Week and Math Monsters

This week we continue to work on our descriptive writing. We began by drawing our house in as much detail as possible. We will then begin to describe our house based on our drawing and using descriptive words.

In Math we continue to name and sort different 2D shapes. We are beginning to sort shapes by geometric properties such as number or vertices(corners) and number of sides. In order to help develop our understanding of shapes we are creating monsters made of specific 2D shapes just in time for Halloween.

In Science we continue to develop and understanding of simple machines and where to find them in everyday life. Next week we will have Scientists in Schools come to visit us to demonstrate simple machines and movement. We will need volunteers for November 3rd and November 9th. Scientists in Schools will be conducting a half day session with each of the grade 2 classes. Since there are 5 grade 2 classes our class will be split up during those days to attend the workshops with one of the other grade 2 classes.

Finally next week is also Spirit Week in support of United Way. Please bring in a donation of whatever you can to support the United Way. A suggestion would be to bring in a dollar for everyday your child is planning on participating in the Spirit Week activities. The Spirit Week activities are as follows.

Monday October 31: Orange and Black Day
Tuesday November 1: PJ day. Students are encouraged to bring a stuffy to be used for a descriptive writing activity. (they can bring their stuffy even if they are not participating in the PJ day).
Wednesday November 2: Crazy Hat or Hair day
Thursday November 3: Favorite Movie or Book Character Day
Friday November 4: Sports Day

We hope to see participation from everybody to support the United Way.

School visitor and canned food drive

Today we had a special guest come to the school to share with the whole school his explorations of the Canadian Arctic.  John Dunn shared photos, videos and stories of his travels under the midnight sun. We followed up with a class discussion of the simple machines he used to help him in his travels.

(photo retrieved from arcticlight.com)

This Monday as a reward for reaching 600 Dojo points as a class, students will have some time to explore the peace garden.

A reminder that photo day is tomorrow and that students are not to wear green tops as we will use a green screen for the background and the green colour on the shirt will show whatever background is chosen.

Next week is our annual food drive for the Kanata Food Cupboard. We will run the drive just like last year. We ask students to bring in non-perishable food items starting next Monday. Items will be collected and totalled each day and a winner will be announced at the end of the Food Drive. Let's show the school what our class can do!

Descriptive writing and 2D geometry

This week we begin new units in Math and Language as well as continue our study of simple machines in science. In religion we continue to explore what it means to belong to a community. 

Our Math lessons began this week with a look at all the 2D shapes we know through various exploration activities. We will explore and learn to classify shapes based on the number of sides and vertices. We will also learn how to identify a quadrilateral. 

In language we began our descriptive writing by describing everything that we can see in a picture in as much detail as possible. We also worked with word wall words and listed out adjectives. Continuing from our work on sentences we will be adding adjectives to our sentences to make them more descriptive. 

This week in Science we will continue to design and start to build our simple machines as well as learn about all the different types of simple machines. 

Simple Machine?

How many wheels does a bicycle have?

Today we looked at the wheel and axle as part of our simple machines unit in Science. We looked at a few examples and then the question was asked how many wheels does a bicycle have? To clarify we are talking about a kid's size one speed bike with no training wheels. The questions is now posed to the parents How many wheels does this bike have?

We also began our Global Read Aloud where we connect with classes around the world who are reading the same book. We are doing a study of author and illustrator Lauren Castillo.  Yesterday we read Nana in the City which describes the story of a boy who visits his nana in the city and how he was able to be brave in the big city. Today we read the story The Troublemaker and discussed whether or not we would like to have the boy in the story as our brother.

In Math we are finishing our focus on number sense which included finding friendly numbers to help us add and subtract, representing numbers in different ways, and putting series of two digit numbers in order from least to greatest.

We have also been taking part in weekly liturgies every Thursday for 1/2 a block with the other grade 2 classes. We will be facilitating the liturgy next week which the students are very excited to do.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Homework

I wish you all a very happy thanksgiving with family and friends. Today we made a thanksgiving pointillism turkey that students have brought home to complete our pointillism study in art. Students should have brought it home today to help complement your thanksgiving decorations.

We also had members of our class read the intentions at our Opening and Thanksgiving Mass today. I am so proud of how our students read and behaved during the Mass.

I have also started a twitter account to show what we have been doing in class. The twitter account will be used for more frequent displays of what we have been doing in class and the blog will be used to update parents on upcoming events and what to look forward to for the week of teaching. You can follow me @mr_spindler.

We will also be starting our homework calendar. Please see below for an explanation of how the homework calendar works. Students should have received their Homework Calendar for October today. If you wish you can do the homework from the beginning of October or you can begin from today's date.

October Homework Calendar

The completion of the homework calendar is highly recommended as the activities support the thinking and skills that are being developed on a daily basis in the classroom. Parental support is encouraged to complete the activities and adapting some of the tasks will be necessary to meet the individual skill levels of each child. Parents are also encouraged to extend, challenge and provoke further thinking when completing the calendar activities.  The calendar is not expected to be handed in at the end of each month.  The purpose is to provide the students with an additional opportunity to continue developing their skills from home.  Every month a new calendar will be sent home.  In addition, we encourage all students to be read to and/or to read to someone everyday.

Your Partners in Learning,

The Grade 2 Team

Samaritans on the digital road

This week we have been learning how to be good digital citizens. 

We started by using Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan to discuss how we can be a good neighbour. We then discussed how we can be kind to others while online. We also discussed how to be safe on the Internet by keeping our personal information private and to ask a trusted adult like a teacher or parent if we see something that makes us feel uncomfortable. Just like if we were walking in our neighbourhood we don't talk to strangers on the Internet either. 

There were also some excellent tie ins to media literacy as we learned how to identify an advertisement on the Internet and the he purpose of Internet advertising. 

In keeping with helping us to be safe online students received the use of technology form that parents are to review with their child and return signed by both parent and student. This is a pledge that students will keep themselves safe online and allow others to be safe as well. 

In Math we continued to explore representing numbers using a variety of strategies such as a ten frame, hundreds chart, number line and place value chart. We are also learning how to represent addition and subtraction using these strategies. 

In Science we continued to learn about simple machines. Students should have received a note home detailing there assignment to bring in an example of something that moves and to be prepared to talk about it by describing what the object is and how it moves. Students are to bring in an object for this coming Monday. 

Thank you again for all the parent support so far. 

Busy bodies

We have begun our Physical Education program by exploring the gym and learning how to be safe in the gym space. We will continue to develop basic movement skills as we work towards playing in more complex games. 

Bean bag balance relay. 

We also are exploring addition using the hundreds chart and practicing our skip counting to discover addition patterns in Math. A review of basic addition facts at home would be helpful. 

In language we began working on making sentences by first brainstorming what exactly makes a sentence and how do we identify the part of a sentence. 

Today is also Character Day. Our students watched a brief video and were asked the question what kind of person do I want to be? The video can be found here. https://vimeo.com/79444520 Please discuss with your child. Use the chart below to help discussion. 

It was also great to see all of the parents of our students at our Open House last week. It's great to see parents who are actively involved in their children's education. Keep reading to and with your child everyday. 

Student verification sheets

Student verification sheets went home today. Parents please check to make sure that all the information is accurate. If there is an error please correct it. All Please make sure to sign and return the form by this Friday.

We also started our research today using chromebooks and working in groups to discover basic information about the weasel through text and video websites. Please feel free to discuss and review the information with your child.

http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-weasels/
http://www.dkfindout.com/uk/animals-and-nature/weasels/weasels/
http://www.arkive.org/weasel/mustela-nivalis/video-00.html

Wild about weasels

We began our week inquiring about weasels as an introduction to some science concepts that we will be looking at in our growth and living things unit. We will return to this unit in the spring but we were presented with a unique opportunity to begin an inquiry now. We also used it as an exercise in following directions in Visual Arts. 

In Math we continued to work at various introductory centres. We also worked through some more review for me to get a better sense of where the students are at in their Math journey. 

We did an introductory gym class on Monday and began our library circulation Tuesday. grade 2 students are allowed to take out one French book and one English book for the week. The books are due every Tuesday although there may be an option to renew. 

There was an error in my previous post regarding the welcome back BBQ. The date is this Thursday September 15 but the times are from 5-7 instead of 4:30-6:30. I look forward to seeing everyone there. 

End of Week 1

We have successfully finished our first week of school. Thank you to all the students who helped make this such a great first week. There are always adjustments when there is a new school year and new teacher but they did great. Next week we will continue to look at where we are in our learning and how much further we can improve his year. 

Today we completed some math venters involving pattern blocks, tangrams, counting with money, creating numbers using base 10 blocks and examining the properties of 3D shapes. We also finished up our work in language including writing about our safe space design which we did yesterday and writing about our summer vacation. We also completed our reading of the Andrea Beatty bookset "Iggy Peck, Architect", "Rosie Revere, Engineer", and "Ada Twist, Scientist" which highlight the joy of following your dreams as well as the idea that failures can be part of our greatest successes and that the most important thing in learning is to ask questions like a scientist. I encourage parents to follow up with their children about the ideas in these books. 

In the afternoon we explored the living things in the peace garden (plants and insects) and did some inquiry learning inside about the living things we could see right outside our classroom window. 

Thank you to all parents who returned the media consent form. There will be more forms going out next week.

Have a great weekend. 

Discovering "blue" leaves from a tree (and looking for insects in the background.)

Tangrams

Can you count to $0.47 in three different ways?

Finishing up our working with words. 

BBQ forms

A quick reminder that Forms for our Welcome back BBQ and Open Housewent home today. The forms are due tomorrow to be able to place your order for the BBQ. The welcome back BBQ is on Thursday September 15. If you wish to attend the welcome back night but do not wish to purchase from the BBQ you are most welcome to attend. I look forward to seeing everyone at the BBQ. 

Day 2

This was another busy day of getting to know each other and the classroom routines. We began our day writing math sentences on our personal whiteboards. We then worked on a math sheet where we got to show what math we know. 

After recess we read "How full is my bucket" and discussed how we can fill each other's buckets by saying kind words and doing kind things for each other. We then rotated through language centres working on words endings, reading to our classmates, and writing about our summer vacation. 

After lunch we went to our welcome back assembly where our principal Ms. Campbell spoke to us about how to have a great year at our school. 

Our class also practiced what to do when we hear the fire alarm by walking out quietly in a line and sitting down quietly on the pavement. 

For the fourth block, Mme Sarah introduced the class to the French program for the year. 

Welcome to Grade 2

Welcome to Grade 2! I am so excited to be your child's this year! This is my 3rd year at St. Anne and my 11th year of teaching.

This blog will be used to communicate about what we are learning in our class as well as keep you informed about upcoming events.

Homework will be assigned through a shared calendar developed with the entire grade 2 team at St. Anne. It is recommended that each child complete the homework tasks each day to complement what is happening in the classroom. There are also a variety of programs and apps that we will use to help students practice their Math and Language skills. There will be more information about these apps in the next few weeks.

We had a very eventful day on our first day of school. We started by creating shapes out of playdough, drawing a picture of it in our scrapbook and then writing about our shape. We also sorted out the supplies and did a scavenger hunt of the classroom. The school supplies will be kept at school. The Kleenex, ziploc and glues sticks will be shared and the students will keep their pencils, pencil crayons, erasers, and highlighters in their desk. Those who brought earphones can also keep them in their desk as well. 

In the afternoon we collaborated to create structures out of pipe cleaners and paper clips. Students were asked to describe their structures. 

I made a springy thing. I made a snail.

We made a zip line together.

This is a tree

I made a caterpillar. I twisted them together. 

This is a spring but I did more. I made a connection on it. 

We also finished the afternoon by reading the story "In my Heart" and drew how our heart felt on the first day as well as write a sentence about how we feel right now. It was great to see the children express the variety of emotions they felt from sad to excited to happy to silly. It was a great first day and I know there will be more to come.