3/4 of the way through the year - Wow!

We are back, well into the swing of things! Everyone returned last week bright eyed, well rested and ready to learn!

As we continue through to the end of the year, we have some exciting activities coming up. As swimming finished before spring break, everyone is excited to begin our Alien In-Line skating next week. Please remember to send your child with his/her own helmet. If that is not possible, one will be provided. They also must come to school with a pair of socks.

We also have a few guests joining us for some in-class field trips.

So far we have been learning about Acadian clothing and houses, as well as the land. As we continue on, we will have an Acadian adventure with our guests from Teachers Pet!

We will also have a couple of hands-on Science afternoons with some special visitors! We are just wrapping up our learning of hot and cold temperatures, and will be moving on to Small Crawling and Flying Animals.
We are very excited to explore with our class to enhance our learning!

Finally, we have a pizza lunch coming up next month. Just a reminder that the forms are due by April 22.

It has been a couple of weeks already, but thank you so much for sharing in our "Sharing Assembly"! We worked so hard and were so proud of all of our work. We were all so excited to perform in front of our school. The students even wrote the script of what they wanted to share!

As the year marches on, we have finished more units and move on to more exciting adventures. We have now finished learning all about the Inuit in the north and are moving on to the east coast to learn about the Acadians. In science, we have explored and experimented with magnets and are soon ready to move onto temperature. We are continuing to write our Alphabet Stories and are so excited to be reading James and the Giant Peach as an entire school.

Gymnastics has been an exciting addition to our school, and our class can't for swimming to start.
Just a reminder that it starts on March 12 and goes until the 19th. It runs from 9:30-11:15 am. Please send your child with their bathing suit under their clothes and with their underwear and change of clothes in a plastic bag, along with their towel. The pool will not provide any missing items. We welcome any parents who would love to come along and who have volunteer clearance with our school! :)

How Time Flies!

             Who can believe that it is almost the end of January 2015?! Here in Grade 2, we are living proof that “time flies when you are having fun!” We recently journeyed to the Military Museum to learn more about boats and buoyancy for Science. Did you know that it is the biggest naval museum in the country? We had a wonderful time and learned a lot. Thank you so much to our awesome parent volunteers!

Yesterday we had a school wide PJ Day which was a ton of fun! We all had a thoroughly Snoozy Tuesday and loved showing off all of our stuffies.

        Just a reminder that January 30 is a PD Day so no school for students!

In class we are plowing ahead in our Nunavut Social Studies unit and learning more every day about the Great North. We have also moved onto patterns in Math and are starting a brand new unit in Science- Magnetism!

We welcome you to come in for Student Led Conferences on Tuesday, February 10 from 4:00-8:00 and Wednesday, February 11 from 8:30-12:30! We can’t wait to show off our learning and all the fun things we have accomplished in class.

One other reminder- a number of students have outstanding library books. These need to be returned as soon as possible as some students will have to pay to replace the books. Please check your homes to see if there are some library books hiding around!

Welcome Back!

      Welcome back and Happy New Year! We are very excited to be back at school and ready for the 2015 school year. We hope that everyone had a fabulous break! We are continuing on with many of our units from before the Winter Break. We have a field trip on Tuesday, January 13^th for Science. We are going to the Military Museum to learn about Boats and Buoyancy. Please remember to return your child’s permission form! We still need parent volunteers so please, if you have CBE security clearance, feel free to join us! Give us a call on Monday to arrange.  Students need to dress appropriately for the weather on Tuesday as well as bring a water bottle and a cold lunch. We will be gone all day at the Museum! In Social, we were lucky enough to have a warm break in the afternoon on Thursday and we were able to experiment with building igloos and quiniseis. All looked amazing and we had a lot of fun! In Math and Language Arts, we are continuing along with number sense and letter writing.

     We have had many questions about homework and the time is finally upon us! Students will be given nightly homework starting Monday January 12^th. Most of the homework will consist of word work involving high frequency words. Students need to be completing this nightly in order to increase their familiarity with common words. Students also need to be continuing to read at home. Our monthly draw is still ongoing; some of our students have read over 20 books already!

    As well, even though it is still a little over a month away, Student Led Conferences are coming up and we cant wait to see all of you again! More information and bookings will be sent home soon. 

Winter Wonderland

Hello Parents!

It always amazes us how fast time flies when you are having fun! It is hard to believe the holidays are almost upon us.

A couple of things to note first; since it is almost the holidays, our Christmas store is now opening up for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Students who bring in some money will be given the chance to buy gifts for their friends and families if they so desire. Everyone did their walk-through last week and are very excited to explore the store once again.

As the first half of our year winds down, report cards have been sent home and as many of you may have noticed, the grading scale has been changed this year. We are now grading on a 4 point scale rather than a 5 point scale. As a result, grade level has now been determined to be at a 2. Although your child may have grades which appear to be lower than last year, this is not the case. The basic overview for each assigned number is listed below:

1 - The student demonstrates limited and insufficient understanding.

       The student struggles to use knowledge and skills to engage in learning tasks.
       The student can experience success when learning situations are rehearsed and highly
       structured 

2 - The student demonstrates an adequate and simplistic understanding.

      The student uses knowledge and skills to engage in common learning tasks.
      The student experiences success in familiar learning situations. 

3 - The student demonstrates an in-depth and well-developed understanding.

       The student uses knowledge and skills to engage in a variety of learning tasks.
       The student experiences success in familiar and new learning situations. 

4 -The student demonstrates a subtle and thorough understanding.

      The student uses knowledge and skills to engage in complex learning tasks. 

      The student experiences success in novel, diverse, and unique learning situations. 

If you still have questions about your child's report card then please let us know! We would be happy to answer any questions. 

Now on to what we have been working so hard on in class!

During our writing periods, students have been working hard on writing their own stories in order to create a class library. They have recently chosen what they believe to be their best story, made sure it was nice and tidy, and submitted it to be laminated for display! We are going to be holding an open house in our classroom on Wednesday, December 15th from 10:45 am - 11:45 am in which teachers and parents can come and explore our books and ask our authors questions. Everyone is very excited to share what they have done!

In Science, students have been put into their own navies and have been experimenting with building their own boats. In one of our biggest challenges, we tested how heavy of a load each groups boat could carry. The boat which carried the heaviest load was able to support 7 pieces of plasticine cargo (about 7 small cubes). Everyone was very supportive of each other in their groups and all in all did a great job!

Creating our boating hats for the navies!

During Social, we have moved right along into our Inuit unit. We have learned about how the land in Nunavut is vastly different from our own, how people travel, what they wear as well as how they create some of their pieces of art. We had the chance to have an in-class field trip where we made our own soapstone polar bears to take home. The class worked hard and they turned out fantastic! We would also like to give a big THANK YOU to our volunteers who were able to come in and help us out! We would also like to thank TPet and our wonderful guides Twila and Kimberly for teaching us about Polar Bears and how to make them out of soapstone! 

We would also like to take this time as we finish up our final week to wish everyone a very happy holiday! We can't wait to see all of our Monkeys and Frogs when we return on January 7th!

 - Miss Code and Ms. Gloge

November Update

          It is hard to believe we are only 4 weeks away from the Winter Break! We have been busy in our classroom in the last few weeks as we have wrapped up many units and embarked on new learning journeys. In Math, we recently had a Math test and many students were very successful. We are continuing to learn different strategies for single digit addition and subtraction! 

         In Language Arts, our story writing is continuing on in full force. Miss Code and Ms. Gloge are amazed every day by the imagination and writing skills of our students. They have so many interesting and unique ideas and are very creative and imaginative.                 In Science, we have finished our Liquids Unit and moved onto applying those concepts in our Boats and Buoyancy Unit. Students have been placed into their own Navies and each has created an amazing name and flag to represent them. We are working on experimenting with different materials and seeing their different buoyancies. Soon we will be moving onto building our very own boat designs! 

Our Navy Flags 

         The first unit in Social Studies has also finished; the students did very well on their Prairie Unit Exam. We have now moved to the Canadian Far North and we have begun to learn about the Inuit in Nunavut. On Thursday, we learned about the Northern Lights! Everyone was very impressed by the video footage of the Northern Lights, especially those students who have never had the opportunity to experience it in person. We began an Art project using water, paint, salt and pastels to create our very own views of the Lights. We cannot wait to see how they turn out this week!

The start of our beautiful Northern Lights Art Project

Even though it is still a few weeks away, the Holiday concert is on December 11^th and there will be two showings, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. More information will be sent home soon! The students have been hard at work in Music class and it promises to be a great production that shouldn’t be missed!

Pizza Lunch is on December 12^th and forms and money are due by Friday, November 28^th.

Report cards will also be sent home on December 12^th. 

These past couple of weeks have just flown by for all of us! We have started some new and exciting activities in class to further everybody’s learning. In Daily 5, students are just beginning to work on developing specific reading goals with Miss Code and Ms Gloge to enhance their skills. We are also working on creating our own stories to develop a personal library of books students can be proud of!

We are all ready for our pre-Halloween celebration on Thursday afternoon in school. We will all be dressing up for the afternoon only, so please be sure that your child is able to get dressed and add any finishing touches on their own if he/she stays at school over the lunch period. We will be doing a Parade of Costumes for all the students to see what everyone has chosen to be this year, as well as some fun activities to get them ready for the weekend.

We are so excited to be able to meet so many of our students families this Thursday night and Friday! The students have been working hard and have so much to share. In addition to their work books, there will be stations set up around the classroom for you to explore and to see just what your child can do! 

Just a friendly reminder that if you haven’t booked your conference yet for either Thursday evening or Friday morning, then please do by tomorrow. We would love to see you!

Miss Code and Ms Gloge