We had an exciting two days of catching up this week and getting back into the routine of things. Thursday was filled with lots of story telling about holidays and fun adventures with family. Students reviewed recount writing, and used what they remembered to write a recount of their holiday. Students brainstormed ideas first in a web and then selected ideas to write about. They were given the choice to hand write their recount in their journal, type it in a Google Doc or use the voice tool in Google Docs to record their verbal recount. Ask your child about this tool or try it at home! Recounts will be completed next week. We spent some time reflecting on the Learner Profile, and picking examples of when we demonstrated certain attributes. Throughout the year, students will be working on a Learner Profile journal, and they completed two pages in this during the week. Deepavali is on Saturday and we explored some books and short movie about this holiday. We also worked together as a class to create our own Rangoli. Hagen and Nayoung drew the design based off a printed pattern. The rest of the class took turns to glue coloured rice onto the design. These were displayed in the hallway across the school on Friday. During our morning meeting on Friday, we had a discussion about feelings, and not always feeling the same way as our friends. We looked at a slide show and had to move around the room to different areas, showing if we felt safe to do a particular activity, or if we felt we would be taking a risk, or if we felt it would be too dangerous for us to want to try. This brought up great discussions about why we felt comfortable or not so comfortable doing different things, and how this might be different from how our friends feel. Students chose at least one piece of math to put in their portfolio, along with a reflection. They also chose either a piece about visualsing or questioning from Daily 5. We exchanged classroom books with the other Grade 2 classes, so we will have some new books to view this term.
Friday concluded with an assembly and free choice before completing our reflection journals. Olivia, Nora, Bea, Eniko and Sophia (G2.1) performed a song and back up dance at the assmebly. Video will be shared soon! Well done girls, and way to be risk takers! Next week, we will be getting more involved with changes in matter and connecting this to how it affects us and the environment. Reminders: * 31 Monday - Picture Day! Please come dressed in uniforms on this day. We have PE on Monday so the PE uniform is fine. * Home learning will begin again next week, and students will receive a new word list
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This was an exciting and busy week, as we continued exploring instructional writing, measurement and matter! In writing, students looked at different examples of instructions. They worked with teams to determine what was needed. Students agreed that instructions need: materials/ingredients listed, the steps (either with numbers or using time order words), a title and bossy verbs. Ask your child to explain bossy verbs! We had listened to the book Little Miss Bossy to help us identify bossy verbs, too. During a group discussion, students were able to come up with a variety of bossy verbs that could be used when writing about sports, music class, library, packing up, and when at home. Students reflected on their own instructional writing, giving themselves 2 stars and a wish, and then drafting a new copy and including some of the necessary items not included the first time. We visually represented our ideas about measurement early in the week. Students had two tasks.
Task1: Think about the word measure. Draw how you thinking measuring looks. Think about the tools that might be used. Task 2: When and where do we measure things? Why do we measure things? Draw or write your ideas. Most students visualised ways to measure length, which is where we focused our initial exploring using nonstandard measurement tools to measure items around the classroom. We collected measurement data and with Mr. Gallagher's help on Thursday, turned this data into bar graphs on the computer. After the break, we will explore other ways to measure matter, specifically looking at weight and capacity. Students explored nonfiction books and the importance of the contents, index, page numbers and key words in a library lesson on Tuesday. With a partner, they chose a nonfiction book that related to our unit. We can't wait to start reading these! Students each had their own Matter booklet which was used throughout the week to collect information about solids, liquids and gases. We also worked with our groups to come up with questions, and practiced sorting solids, liquids and gases with some online activities. Friday was International Day and more pictures will be coming soon! We dove into our second unit, How the world works, this week. After listening to a 'Matter Rap', we identified words we didn't know, and those that we thought might be important. Students paired up using playing cards (ask your child how this worked!), and using a Frayer model, became the 'expert' about one word. Students investigated the words: matter, mass, solid, liquid, gas, and property. With a partner, they looked up the definition, thought about characteristics, and provided both examples and non-examples. Next week, we will continue exploring the states of matter and begin to make connections with our lines of inquiry. During Daily 5, students have been very independent in the choices they are making. Many students chose to practice Word Work, while others worked to create comics, stories and other books. We are continuing to work on remembering capitals and punctuation in our sentences, and were focusing on spelling question words correctly: Who, what, where, when, why, could, do. The reading strategy: Questioning, was a focus this week. Students practiced looking at the cover of a book, asking questions before, during and after reading. We noticed that some questions could be answered from the text, while others required some investigating and inferring based on the pictures and our own experiences. Students came to the conclusion that not all questions will be answered every time, but if we have questions about words, we can use a dictionary to help. In math, we began investigating data and worked hard to collect and organise data in different ways. Students came to an understanding that data is information. As we have been working on asking questions while reading, this integrated well into our math unit, thinking about different types of questions to ask in a survey. Many students realised after their initial survey, that providing choices usually helps. Sometimes, they may need to adjust a survey and add a 'none' or 'neither' category, because some people just don't know what Pokemon is, and some people have never been on a Universal Studios ride! Students organised their data into bar graphs, both vertical and horizontally, depending on preference, and explored the concept of presentation - thinking about writing neatly, adding labels, a title and being careful to organise it in a way which was readable. Next week will be our last week before the October holidays. Remember we have International Day on Friday. The students are looking forward to this exciting day! |
AuthorWe are 7 and 8 year old students who live in Singapore. Our teacher, Ms. Luttrell, will be helping us write blog posts throughout the year! Archives
June 2017
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