I'm actually pretty good at fractions.

This week we began our work on fractions. We have been exploring what a fraction is through various activities. Today, we were discovering what "halfness" is. We look at different ways to make a half out of something.

What is half of his height?

We used spinners to see what half of the carpet is

We filled half of the water bottle

I found the halfway point of this book

What is half of nineteen hands?

In Language we continued to work on our narrative stories using the prompt "There's a creature in my House." We have been using a graphic organizer to put our story together and the writing our rough drafts based on our outline form the organizer. Most of us will finish before the May Long weekend begins.

We are also learning about Animals and their adaptations in science with a focus on animals from the Arctic

Donations

Please consider donating what you can. The crate will be shipped within the next few weeks. You can also continue to purchase picture books. Supplies will be purchased from the money raised from sales of the picture book. Thank you for continuing to help students in this learning journey.

Education Week

Next week is education week which is a showcase for our school and school board. We have been hard at work getting ready for this week and for the open house. The Grade 2's have been especially busy as we have chosen this week to sell our My Community picture book which includes pictures taken by our grade 2's as well as grade 5 students from St. Luke in Barrhaven and Grade 5 students at Alookie school in Pangnirtung, Nunavut. We have been preparing ads to play over the school announcements. Here's what we have so far.

https://youtu.be/XrW5knRR9ys
https://youtu.be/VI_PwZ85IIE
https://youtu.be/l7PX3Lv9Mgs


Please help support this project.

I would also love to see you at the open house on Tuesday May 2, 2017 from 8:30-9:15 followed by an in class activity until 10:00 which parents are invited to take part in.

Easter

I hope that you have all had a happy and blessed Easter. We celebrate that Jesus is Risen. We also celebrate our earth week at St. Anne's which will culminate in our eco parade on Friday April 21.

We have been working this week on exploring 3D shapes by naming them, and describing them by the number of vertices, edges and faces. We are also discovering how a 3D shape is made up of 2D shapes.

In language we are working on writing to persuade. We worked in groups by discussing and coming up with 3 things that should be packed into the crate that is going to Pangnirtung and finding reasons to include each of those things.  We also read the story I wanna Iguana and had students write a letter persuading their parents to get them a pet. Parents are under no obligation to get their child a pet but please praise their efforts when the letter comes home later next week.

We are also wrapping up our exploration of solids and liquids in science by creating a structure that can float for 2 minutes in water, be moved 1 m by a fan and hold a little lego figure. A student posed the question whether or not cardstock would be a better choice than paper. We decided to do a test by floating a piece of paper and a piece cardstock. in a container for 2 minutes.

The cardstock still kept its shape but the paper quickly absorbed the water. 

Basketball skills in the gym.

Attending the stations of the cross put on by Grade 6 students.

working on the crate top. Oops we spilled some paint.

Our completed crate. We made our oops into a beautiful oops. Way to stay positive Grade 2's.

Tomatosphere. Most seeds germinated. This little guy came up but did not put out any leaves. 

Creating our Easter posters on cardstock. 

Busy beavers

This past week we have continued to explore different strategies for subtraction. We also built igloos last week as a way to practice procedural writing. We will finish procedural writing next week. We will also begin exploring time and temperature. Here are some highlights from the past week. 

Igloo construction

Sometimes it doesn't always work out. 

But we still keep trying

Rocks and rings curling.

We have also been practicing our addition and subtraction by keeping track of the Senators playoff run. They have finally clinched a playoff spot. Go sens go. 

Building an igloo and other procedures

This week in language we worked on procedural writing. We built our own creation out of Lego and then wrote how to build each step. 

We then read the story "Grandfather tell us about the igloo." We then came up with the steps for how the Inuit built igloos. We also decided that it would be great to build an igloo as a class. However we had just learned that to build an igloo you need hard packed snow. Because the recently fallen snow wasn't hard enough or deep enough we decided to build individual igloos indoors. Sugar cubes were used because they are the most like the hard packed snow and we used homemade icing to stick them together for extra strength. Igloos are being sent home today. Hopefully they will still be standing when they arrive home. 

Unfortunately there are sometimes cave ins. 

This cap cube was attached by putting icing on both sides of the cube and letting the pressure from the other cubes help keep it in place. 

Examining the waterproofness and structural integrity of the igloo. Students have since been instructed to check with parents before consuming their igloo. Some students were also inspired to build an Inukshuk beside the igloo. 

Capturing Community

It has been brought to my attention that some students were unable to see the Capturing Community workspace in Hapara. I have reshared the workspace and all students should be able to see the workspace now. The workspace is in the ANN-1LAN-22-1617 folder.

When submitting a photo insert an image into the Google slides under Evidence by first opening the document. The insert image and also add a one to two sentence caption describing why this picture best represents your community. 

Please feel free to contact me if there are any questions or difficulties logging in. 

Have a safe and enjoyable March Break!