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