Week of February 25th

Upcoming Events the next few weeks:

MondayDay 1: PE swimming, start of book week and author visit-Tad Hills
Tuesday Day 2: Mini Academies 
Wednesday Day 3: PE
Thursday Day 4: CHARACTER DRESS UP DAY
Friday Day 5: PE, photos for new student 

Dear parents, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We had a busy week in 2CP and next week is full of fun activities and sharing our love for books with book week. We will be doing a "March Madness" bracket of picture books. If you want to check it out can go here. http://marchbookmadness.weebly.com/picture-book-bracket.html


Language Arts:
This week in writing we focused on a few of the grammar standards and implementing those into our writing correctly. We investigated plurals and possessives and did some activities as well as looked for correcting these in writing. We learned about simple versus compound sentences and how similes/comparisons can really help readers picture our facts. Students are still writing topics they are experts on and will soon write about healthy choices.

Our readers have finished reading about their expert topic and used their very large compilation of notes to create a project. They used Explain Everything to share some interesting facts and important Lingo words with the rest of the class.

Math:
We have started our new unit this week and have dipped our toes into various strategies for adding larger numbers. Our focus is on using multiple strategies, showing our work and being able to teach and explain to others. We did a lot of problem solving tasks, mental math challenges and a few 3Act Tasks as a whole class which they loved! We also worked on strategies for solving story problems with multiple steps and added information.

Science:
Getting adequate sleep and why that is important and drinking enough water in our hot climate with active kids were the topics of focus this week. We created a sleep chart and tracked our nightly sleep and set goals for better bed times, bed time routines and less technology at night. We are also trying to make sure our water intake fits how active we are. Next week is all about good hygiene and dental health. Floss and Brush and Wash, oh goody! Check out their exercise videos via Touchcast App posted on Seesaw.


Dinner Questions: 
What is your favorite book and why?
What are some healthy meals we can make together?
What are you writing about right now?
What is a wondering you have you will explore on Wondering Wednesdays?

February 5-9th

Dear Parents –

We had another busy week in grade 2, and next week will be short but
full. Our class has had multiple birthdays and has really enjoyed
learning all about making healthy choices with exercise and healthy eating.

Valentine's Day

We will not be doing official parties on Wednesday, but 
will be having some fun with fractions and baking! Students 
are more than welcome to bring in Friendship cards to share
 as long as there are enough for the whole class(17).

Here’s a look at our week ahead:

Monday (Day 5) PE

Tuesday (Day 6) Library

Wednesday (Day 1) SWIMMING

Thursday (NO SCHOOL)

Friday (NO SCHOOL)

 

Reader’s Workshop

We’ve been busy becoming experts on a topic by reading across books.
Students have looked at information in multiple texts and put them
together to learn about big ideas authors are trying to teach on their
topic. We will continue to focus on comparing and contrasting information
that is similar and different across books on a similar topic. Also, how to
ask and answer questions and share facts with each other to show that
we are experts.

Writer’s Workshop

Our writers continue to polish up their writing making it more 
readable for their audience. They are still working on elaborating
 all they know with key words, facts and details and organize 
chapters with good leads and wrap ups. They are excited to get 
to share them with you soon. 

Math Workshop
Mathematicians have been learning about partitioning shapes equally and
exploring equal shares. They are becoming experts on fractions and how to
describe them using thirds, halves and fourths. We will be finishing up our
fractions and geometry unit with our post assessment on content and
vocabulary this week.

Science
We are now learning about healthy eating and having balanced meals. We
explored different food pyramids around the world, studied food labels,
learned about calories and different nutrients each food group provides.

Dinner Questions

Do you have a balanced meal on your plate tonight, how do you know?
What nutrients does each food group provide?
What is an act of kindness you have done for others this week?
What is one thing this week you did that was challenging? How did
you overcome the challenge?

February 3rd

It was nice to have a mid week off day. Thank you to all the parents
who came to lead the mini academy on Monday. As always kids
had a lot of fun learning something from other than their teachers.
The hat parade on the hundredth day of school was a nice
experience for second graders. Thank you for helping your child
with their creative hats!

Language Arts

In reading, students practiced rereading like an expert when they
come across words that are not familiar with as yet another strategy
in their toolbox to help solve unknown words. Rereading not only
reinforces fluency but it also supports understanding. Summarising
continues with looking at the big topic, heading and key details
about the heading and giving a summary statement.

In writing, we are working on setting goals to elaborate our facts to

make our reader more informed. This includes twin facts, giving

examples, comparisons and using text features and mini glossaries

to help explain topic words. We will soon finish these up and start

our Healthy Choices research books.

Math

Students reviewed shape attributes this week including 3D attributes. We then learned about arrays and how to describe arrays using addition sentences as well as beginning multiplication. We studied and created rectangular arrays and how to partition rectangles equally. I am amazed at this class's ability to make connections, remember all of the geometry vocabulary and continually be enthusiastic about math class.

Science

This week, we finished up our portion of the unit on exercise. Students recorded their exercise videos and started using a new Application that will help them to create a news show about what they learned about exercise. Stay tuned for samples and a personal fitness goal via Seesaw. We will start discussing nutrition next week.

Important dates

Monday 5th January - Library and After school activities start

Tuesday6th- SWIMMING PE today

Dinner Questions

1 - What plane shapes do you see at the dinner table? Can you

describe the shapes using their attributes?

2 -Tell me some facts that you are writing about and some text

features in your nonfiction book?

3 - What strength activities are difficult for you that you could

practice as a family?

Week of January 29th

   Dear Parents –

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend.  Next week will be a short but full week!

Here’s a look at our week ahead:

Monday (Day 2) Art and WL-Mini Academies

Tuesday (Day 3) PE

Wednesday (No School)

Thursday (Day 4) Music and WL

Friday (Day 5) Art and PE-100th Day of School

Mini Academies
Our Mini Academies are scheduled for Monday January 29th,
thanks for signing up!
100th day of school

Our 100th Day of School is Friday, February 2nd. We have
a few events planned including our hat parade. Have fun
creating hats that display 100 things=)

PE Swim Dates
First swim date: Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Writer’s Workshop

This week students used a variety of self assessment checklists to set goals to make their writing even better with more elaboration, leads and wrap ups and organizing their information on their topic. The rest of the week we focused our attention on our audience. How to help the reader picture our information in their mind, clear up and explain tricky parts, make our chapters interesting and pull readers into the page with an interesting lead.

Math Workshop

Our work with plane and solid figures continues this week. We have been
practicing how to describe shapes and classify them using attributes.
We introduced the vocabulary words, right angles and parallel lines,
polygons, vertices and quadrilaterals and had some wonderful
math discussions about parallelograms and that special rectangle
called a square. The class explored three dimensional shapes and
attributes on Friday and will move into fractions and arrays next week.

Science

This week we continued to learn about the importance and examples
of the three main types of exercise: strength, flexibility and cardio. We
completed daily graphs as a class and individually and set some fitness
goals. Students will be creating a Kahoot for the rest of the grade to play
to test their knowledge and an exercise video for teacher to play for
students in class as a brain break.

Dinner Questions

What are some exercise we can do at home as a family to improve our
flexibility, strength and cardio?

What is the topic of the book you’re writing?  What text features have
you used?

What shapes do you see around our home?

This Week in Grade 2 Dear Parents – We have a few special events happening to make for another exciting week at school.   Thank you to the parents who are coming in this week to help students make their Christmas tree ornaments.  This is a wonderful way to kick off the holiday season at Melawati. We have our Mini Academies scheduled for Thursday, November 23.  Thank you to the parents who volunteered to lead an activity.  These are always special events and the kids love learning from our very talented parent community. Just as a reminder, our Home Learning is posted on our blog.  While these activities are optional, students are encouraged to complete one activity of their choice each week.  Students have an opportunity to share their activities each week and we’ve really enjoyed looking at some of the projects students have brought in to class.   Learning Celebration Mark your calendars!  Our Grade 2 Learning Celebration is scheduled for Friday, December 8 from 10:10 – 10:45.  Students will have the opportunity to share with you some math games, addition and subtraction strategies, and problem solving strategies that they’ve been learning this semester.  An invitation with an RSVP will be sent closer to the date so we can determine how many parents will attend. Language Arts In our Reader’s Workshop students will continue practicing reading and discussing books with their partner. We’ll work on strategies to help students hold onto their thinking when reading longer books. Students will practice writing their ideas, questions, and thinking on sticky notes throughout the book and at the end of chapters.  These notes form the basis of collaborative conversations with their reading partner. We continue our work writing like scientists this week. With a new experiment this week, students will have an opportunity to continue to develop their skills writing the procedures.  We’ll emphasize the importance of using exact measurements, science vocabulary and detailed steps as we write our procedures. Math This week we reviewed all three forms of story problems: change unknown, start unknown and result unknown. Students are now experts on setting up the right equation, showing their work and writing answers with units. They draw base ten blocks, write number lines and equations to show  thinking. We continue to review our addition and subtraction facts through games, quick images, times tests and sharing tricks. Please continue practicing at home. Next week we will move into subtraction with regrouping and subtraction word problems. Science This week we continue learning about the differences between physical and chemical changes.  Through our readings and experiments, we’ll explore how chemical changes are irreversible and create a new substance.  During our experiments this week, students will have an opportunity to see matter go through both physical and chemical changes.   Important Dates Here’s a peek at our week ahead: Monday (Day 5) – PE Tuesday (Day 6) – Library and Ornament decoration Wednesday (Day 1) – Swimming Thursday (Day 2) – World Language Friday (Day 3) – PE Dinner Questions What are the 3 R’s to being safe?  What do they mean? What are some chemical changes that you might see at home?  How do you know? Practice a reading partnership with your parents.  What are some questions you can ask them about the book you read?

This Week in Grade 2 Dear Parents – We celebrated two celebrations this week Halloween and Deepavali. The students studies each and got to witness a wonderful dance show with some yummy treats and traditions for Deepavali. They created books on Book Creator about them they will share with you at the end of the year with all their celebrations. They got to do 3 science experiments and lab reports this year and on Friday earned 10 stars and voted for a art party=) Pretty creative bunch! For Wondering Wednesday we got to learn about dry ice, pretty fascinating! Language Arts Alongside fluency that we practiced last week, students paid attention to the dialogue tags and adjusted their tone to the mood of the character. Students require comprehension skills in order to be able to adjust their tone appropriately. Another aspect of fluency that is important to practice is reading the text with a just right pace. Students listened to their own reading on the Ipad and completed their fluency checklist. Procedural writing continues with their science experiment this week. Students learned that writing a question and a hypothesis is the first step to their lab report. Important elements to include in their procedural writing would be the transition words such as first, next, later, finally and next to these words, they need to the action (verb) that they do such as put, pour, take etc. Math This week students finished learning about how to add two double digit numbers both with and without regrouping. We practiced showing our thinking with pictures and numbers and including appropriate equations. Students use number bonds of tens and ones, base ten block pictures and number lines to solve problems and even still many use manipulatives. We have also focused a lot of time on fact fluency but the class is still working on becoming more automatic with facts. Science Students tried different ways to change matter from solid to liquid this week. Some ways that the students explored with were putting ice under a hair dryer, putting it in the oven, under the sun, breaking it into small pieces. They timed how long it took to melt the ice and compared how long it took with the variety of ways. Students followed the scientific process while doing this experiment. Important Dates Monday Nov 6th - P.E. swimming Friday, 10th Nov - International Flag Parade - Your child can come to school wearing their traditional outfit from your country. Parents are welcome to watch the parade from 8:15 - 9:15 a.m. Dinner Questions What did you learn about dry ice? Which form of heat was the fastest way to melt ice?

This Week in Grade 2 We had a fun week learning about what scientists do and how we are all scientists. We observed how and why popcorn pops, experimented with Root beer floats(yum) observed ice cubes melting and condensing on a metal plate above a kettle and watch a phenomenon with hot water and a balloon. We also got to celebrate Rushdan's birthday and learn some new Apps on the Ipad. We are getting into our new units which means new partners and new reading and math groups. Thank you all so much for commenting on Seesaw as well as signing up for mini academies! Your support is always appreciated. I do a lot of communication through Seesaw so please try to check it every so often=) Language Arts As readers we have started “amping up our reading power” by paying extra special attention to our fluency and how we are reading our books.  Our lessons focused on being mindful of our fluency as we read with others or in our heads, pay attention to punctuation and word strings to scoop up our reading in larger phrases and pausing at appropriate times, and where dialog is present in our texts reading like the characters.  This fluency work will continue into next week. As writers we started exploring the way scientists document their work and their thinking by introducing lab reports.  Our main focus for this week was the procedural aspect where the students observed and then wrote “how to make popcorn” including using diagrams with labels, a list of materials needed, and the detailed steps involved in the process.  We will keep building on the this work to include all the different aspects of lab reports like the question, hypothesis, results, and conclusion. Math In math we introduced addition strategies with single and double digits without regrouping. Students will NOT do traditional algorithms till grade 4 so please do not teach them in this way. They need a conceptual understanding first in concrete ways before moving into abstract. They learned how to add by drawing and building base 10 blocks, using number lines as well as breaking numbers into tens and ones. Next week we will work on regrouping and then move into story problems. Science In science we started our investigation into matter and the difference states of it (solid, liquid, gas) through a series of small experiments. We will unpack how matter can change states and the difference between physical and chemical changes in the coming weeks by conducting further experiments.  It is my hope that all the students see themselves as scientists and that by asking questions and investigating they are open and excited to explore the wonders of the world around them. Important Dates On Monday, October 30th we will have our Mini-Academies.   On Tuesday, October 31st we will have a Halloween bash.  Students are allowed to come to school wearing costumes however in order to be sensitive to our diverse beliefs and cultures we ask you to be mindful of the following: No scary costumes, blood, weapons On Friday, November 3rd the Melawati campus will be celebrating Deepawali with hallway activities and an Elementary wide assembly at 11:00.  Parents are welcome and encouraged to join us. *Some students have brought home photos, they are slowly being handed to us. Please check their bags. Dinner Questions What are the traits of a scientist? What does it mean to read fluently? Tell me about how scientists write? What strategies can you use to solve addition problems?