Ms. Hobbins' & Mr. Irvine's Grade 2 Class!

We had lots of fun learning about Stony Plain’s past with a wide variety of activities. We got to talk to many different people who taught us a lot about what life was like in the past. I’d like to extend a special thank you to our Grandbuddies, the Multicultural Heritage Centre, Mr. Peter Backer, the Pioneer Museum, and all of the students who brought old items from their homes. The students loved being time travelling detectives throughout this unit, trying to uncover clues about life in Stony Plain years ago. Here are some pictures that I took throughout the unit. Enjoy!

One of our students brought a bunch of 3-D Mascot characters from a restaurant he visited while on vacation during Spring Break. He lead us through building our very own 3-D Mascots to take home. It was lots of fun buddy! Thank you!

We were very lucky to have Mrs. Johnson come into our class and lead us through working with clay. She showed us how to build cat and dog faces out of clay. We are still in the process of painting them. Here are a few finished clay projects. They are looking great!

We hope to cover these curriculum outcomes/concepts throughout this month:

Language Arts: We will continue our daily work on independent reading, words of the week, making words, sort and transfer, literature response, journal writing, guided and independent reading and writing, home reading, and reading comprehension.

Social Studies: We are finished all of the Social Studies units for the year. The students really impressed us with everything they learned and remembered about Stony Plain’s past. We would like to thank our Grandbuddies for answering questions about what it was like for them when they were kids, the Multicultural Heritage Centre for the wonderful program they put on for us where seniors explained what a variety of artifacts were used for in the past, Mr. Peter Backer for coming in and talking to the class about what school was like for kids in the past, and also volunteers from the Pioneer Museum for putting on such a wonderful program in our classroom, showcasing the important groups of people and individuals who were integral to the beginning years of Stony Plain.

Science: The students are working on the Small Crawling and Flying Animals unit in Science. The big ideas for this unit are:

Health: We will look at what it means to have good Mental Health, how to wash our hands properly and how to stop the spread of germs.

Physical Education: We are enjoying a variety of games outside now that the weather is getting much better. We have been reminding the students to try to bring an extra pair of outdoor runners and socks for outdoor PE if they want to wear flip flops at recess.

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Language Arts

This past week we worked on constructing a Grandbuddy report. The week previous we took our notebooks to Whispering Waters and interviewed our Grandbuddies in hopes of getting enough information together to write a report on their lives when they were young.

Because we received letters from our Japanese penpals this week as well, we started writing back to them. As usual our penpals were kind enough to send yet another gift. This time around each student got a hand-drawn puzzle which they will be bringing home soon.

We also studied for our Spellathon and completed the test this week! We all did very well and we are very encouraged by how well it was received with parents. Nice work!

Next week we will be wrapping up penpal letters and Grandbuddy reports.

Math

We have continued working on using personal strategies to solve subtraction problems and looked at trying to show one two-digit number in a variety of ways using all that we have learned in Addition and Subtraction to 100.

We will have our Unit Test on Monday and we will then be moving into Geometry looking at 3D objects and 2D shapes.

Science

In the month of May we will start and complete the final Science unit for Grade Two. Small Crawling and Flying Animals will take us outside to explore where animals live, what they eat, what eats them and features of animals that suit them to their particular environment.

Social Studies

We explored a couple of web sites about Stony Plain’s past. We were extremely fortunate to have Mr. Peter Backer visit us on Wednesday morning. He came in and talked to the students about what it was like to live in Stony Plain since 1940. He took us through a typical school day and what it was like being a kid in the past. The students also worked hard on creating posters that compare what Stony Plain looked like in the past and what it looks like now. They had to include 3 changes (transportation, roads, buildings, clothes, etc.), one important building to Stony Plain and one important person to Stony Plain. These will be used as one form of assessment for this unit.

Next week, we will have our unit test as another form of assessment and we are very excited to have visitors come from the Pioneer Museum on Tuesday. They will be coming in character as some of the historical figures of Stony Plain and will teach us some fun games the kids played in the past.  This will conclude our final unit in Social Studies.

Physical Education

On Thursday, we wrapped up our Dance unit and we will now be taking the skills and knowledge learned in the gym throughout the year out of doors with outdoor games. Let’s hope the weather cooperates!

Art

This week Mrs. Johnson (vice principal and resident artist) came in and led us through a fantastic first clay lesson. All of us built a cat or dog face with our fingers and the tools Mrs. Johnson provided us. They are being fired in our new kiln and will be ready to paint this week. Thanks again to Mrs. Johnson for coming in and showing us how to work with clay!

Health

We continued looking at integrity this past week. Some personal stories were shared and a Critical Thinking activity was completed and discussed. Some great conversation came out of our focus on integrity and we are happy to say we have been seeing some examples of it right here in our classroom!

Since September our Grade Two class has been reading with their Grade Five buddies. We have been very grateful for all of the help we have received with our reading skills and thought that we would share some of pictures we have of all of us reading together. Thank you Grade Five!

Language Arts: We worked hard on filling out our writing organizers for Cause and Effect Writing. We made as many words as we could with the letters: a, e, e, c, r, r, t, u. Can anyone figure out the “mystery word” that uses all of these letters? We then sorted as many words as we could into common word families using the words we made with these letters. We also practiced our Spellathon words and our Pinocchio reader’s theatre scripts. Finally, we learned a new reading comprehension strategy called “Questioning Owl” which reminds us that good readers ask questions while they are reading. Next week, we will continue practicing asking questions while we read during independent and guided reading times. We will also continue working on Making Words, Sort and Transfer and will practice our Spellathon words and Pinocchio reader’s theatre script. We plan on having the students interview their Grandbuddies about what life was like when they were younger by asking them powerful questions that will work with a set criteria we will decide together. We hope to have the students work on writing their Grandbuddies’ answers out in a report format.

Math: We have been working on using personal strategies to solve subtraction problems. We will continue exploring subtraction using a variety of different strategies. Some of the strategies the students are being introduced are: using a 100 chart, number line, ten frames, place value mat, and base ten blocks. What is your favorite strategy to use and why?

Social Studies: We used our detective skills to investigate pictures from Stony Plain’s past and present. Each group had to put the black and white pictures in order from oldest to youngest based on clues they see. Some of the clues they discovered were: dirt roads vs. paved roads, transportation (horse vs. style of car), what the buildings look like, and what the clothes look like. We also started reading some information stories about Stony Plain’s history and about John L. McDonald. The students then had to answer questions about these information stories. We will continue looking at more information stories about Israel Umbach, The Old Hotel, The Old Brick School, and the German/Austrian settlers. We are also very excited to go to the Multicultural Heritage Centre to partake in the Alberta Storytellers Bring History to Life program on Thursday afternoon. Thank you to Sophie’s mom, Maxim’s mom, Matthew’s mom, and Katie’s mom for volunteering to come along with us for this field trip. We look forward to having you come along with us. Also thank you to all of the parents who offered to volunteer! We really appreciate all of the offers that came our way and will keep the extra volunteers in mind for our next field trip.

Physical Education: We have been learning a lot of different kinds of dances and the students have been very quick to pick up the dance steps. So far we have learned the Cha Cha Slide, the Electric Slide and the Macarena. Next week, we will continue practicing these dances as well as will learn some simple Irish dance steps. We hope to get the students to start creating their own dance with a small group to a fun Nintendo beats song.

Art: The students have been working hard on building some very cool 3-D abstract art. They will be displayed in the hallway so please feel free to come and check them out. We are excited to do a clay project with Mrs. Johnson on Monday next week! Thank you Mrs. Johnson for coming in and showing how to work with clay!

Health: We looked at what it means to show integrity this week. We had some students come up to the front and act out what it would look like if someone was showing integrity vs. not showing integrity. We will continue looking at the concept of integrity next week.

Music: The students are excited to work with the Grade 6 students in Music next week.

Here are the questions we’d love to be answered in the comment section for this post:

• Can anyone figure out the “mystery word” that uses all of these letters? a, e, e, c, r, r, t, u
• What is your favorite strategy to use when subtracting in Math and why?

April Newsletter for Grade 2

Class Blog: Please feel free to check out our class blog! Simply go on the internet and follow this link http://grade2b.forestgreenschool.ca/. We plan to have the students visit this blog and comment on the blog posts as much as possible and encourage them to check it out at home too! Please feel free to add your comments as well. We will be trying to include a weekly blog post summarizing what we have covered over the past week as well as what we hope to cover in the coming week. We have also passed out the student’s individual usernames and passwords for their personal school blogs. Please let us know if you did not get your child’s username and password or if you have misplaced it and we can get you another copy. We hope to put a few more posts on their blogs before the end of the year.

Upcycling: We went to a session about Terracycle at the Teacher’s Convention and are very excited to start it both in our classroom as well as at home. We have started upcycling a few items in our classroom that would normally become garbage. We are collecting used sandwich bags and containers that will normally go into the garbage as well as used cookie and cracker wrappers. We are still encouraging students to reuse the sandwich bags as much as possible prior to putting them in the bin as well as are still encouraging litterless lunches. Once our containers are full, we will send these used “garbage” items to a company called Terracycle where they will be reused in a variety of ways. Please feel free to check out their web site (http://www.terracycle.ca/en-CA/) and sign up if you want to eliminate some of the waste that is being created in your home. They collect a wide variety of items used in our homes that would normally become garbage. It doesn’t cost anything to ship your “garbage” items you sign up to collect as all you have to do is print off a shipping label when you have collected enough to send. Some examples of other items you can collect at home are: old cell phones, digital cameras, inkjet printer cartridges, chocolate wrappers, laptops, MP3 players, personal care and beauty product containers, and Tassimo containers.

Healthy Habits: Our school has begun an initiative to remind and encourage healthy habits. One thing we are doing as a school is having the students write a healthy habit of the week in their agendas. We all have the same list of weekly messages that have been developed based on a survey conducted in 2008 and 2009 with students and parents from our school. Please see the school newsletter for further information.

April 2012

We hope to cover these curriculum outcomes/concepts throughout this month:

Language Arts: We will continue our daily work on independent reading, words of the week, making words, sort and transfer, literature response, journal writing, guided and independent reading and writing, home reading, and reading comprehension.

We will take a close look at the reading comprehension strategy of asking questions as we read. This strategy will help them to further think about what they are reading rather than just reading the words on the page.

The students did great with writing freestyle and diamante poems last month. We will be working on cause and effect writing as well as story writing this month.

Math: We are continuing our Addition and Subtraction to 100 unit with a closer focus on using a variety of strategies to solve subtraction questions and problems. Here are the key concepts the students will be expected to learn and be able to do by the end of this unit:

• correctly solves addition and subtraction facts to 100
• uses personal strategies to solve problems
• creates and solves addition and subtraction problems

Social Studies: We will be covering our final unit, A Community in the Past. We will become time travelling detectives and discover what Stony Plain was like in the past. By the end of this unit, the students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of how Stony Plain emerged, and of how the various interactions and cooperation among peoples ensure the continued growth and vitality of Stony Plain.

Health: We are continuing to look at character education traits looking at: integrity, perseverance, respect, responsibility, self-discipline, and trustworthiness.

Physical Education: We will be doing our dance unit this month. The students will work through demonstrating basic dance steps and movement both alone as well as with others, by using elements of effort, space and relationship. They will also work on performing simple movement sequences by using elements of body and space awareness and relationships, alone and with others.

We look forward to continuing a wonderful year with your child.

Ms. Hobbins and Mr. I

On Thursday, April 19^th, we will be walking to the Multicultural Heritage Centre to participate in their intergenerational program, Alberta Storytellers Bring History to Life. Through activities and storytelling, this interactive and inter-cultural program connects generations on a personal level, providing a unique opportunity for all age groups to develop respect and understanding. Under the direction of a trained facilitator, seniors from different cultural backgrounds share their experiences with the younger generation, based on memories evoked through the use of authentic artifacts from their award-winning Multi-Heritage Kits.

*They have asked that each student brings one large button (with 2 holes). We can keep them safe at school if you want to send it with your child ahead of time. We will ensure we have extras for any students who do not have a button by this day.

We will leave the school at around 12:00 and return by approximately 2:30. We will walk there and back as it is close to the school. Please remind your child to dress appropriately for the weather on this day as we are walking. We will be eating an early lunch on this day (at 11:40) to ensure we get to the Multicultural Heritage Centre for the program to start at 12:30. The program will run until 2:00.
We are in need of 3-4 parent volunteers for this field trip. Please let us know if you are available to come along with us on this day. Thank you in advance to all parents who offer to volunteer. We will take volunteers for this field trip on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Please sign and return the form below before Wednesday, April 18^th.

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I give ________________________________ permission to go to the Multicultural Heritage Centre to attend the Alberta Storytellers Bring History to Life program on April 19^th from 12:00 – 2:30.

_______________________________                      ___________________________________

(parent signature)                                                                          (date)

I am able to volunteer for this field trip.   ___________                   ____________

(yes)                                (no)

Volunteer Name: _______________________________________________________________

Contact Phone Number: _________________________________________________________

Hey Guys!

These will be the last set of new words we will study in Grade 2 this year! We will review the words we have on our word wall each week after Spring Break. Good luck!

much

something

Here are our new words!

girl

own

We won the trophy last week by 1%! Let’s keep it up Grade 2!