Race to 100

In math, we played a new game called race to 100. To play you need to have 2 dice, a pencil, a paper, and a partner. To play each person takes turns rolling the dice. When you roll you have to add up the numbers on your dice and then put that many tally marks on your page. Each time you roll you add-on to your tally marks until one person reaches 100. The first person to get to 100 is the winner. This is a great game to play at home!

After recess we did word work. The grade 1's started practicing some new words. The words this week are: with, his, they, pit, sit, hit, bit, fit.  We practiced writing our new words using our neatest printing. The grade two's went with Ms. Stephure to continue their word study.

This afternoon we continued our work about human impacts in Whispering Woods. Today our groups needed to finish our pros and cons chart by considering the way our impact could be good or bad for animals, people, and plants. Then, we had to try to make a decision as a group of environmental scientist about our impact. We had to decide if it was an overall positive impact or an overall negative impact.

In gym we did jungle safari again. It was a bit different today because we had guards at each station to watch what we were doing and to make sure we didn't make mistakes.  After gym we went to music. We sang a song called "I can sing a high note and a middle note too".

Thank you to those students who have returned their 2017-2018 planning forms and their field trip forms. If you have not returned these forms please do so as soon as possible. Please remember tomorrow is our library day.  

Our helper tomorrow is: Tessa

Jungle Safari!

This morning we did journals. We worked on using the 5 W's to add details to our writing. The grade 1's were working to write 5 sentences about one idea so that they could write about each of the 5 W's for their topic. The grade 2's were working on writing two paragraphs using the 5 W's.

After recess we worked on our math assessments. People who were finished went on Mathletics and played Mathletics Live.  Mathletics Live is a great warm-up for our number operations study in math and it is a great idea to try practicing this at home.

This afternoon we continued our work as environmental scientists. We read a story where a vacation town gets built on an island and then made a pros and cons list about the idea of building the vacation spot. We were trying to figure out what positive impacts and negative impacts this building would have.  Then we reviewed the human impacts we observed in Whispering Woods on Friday. Some impacts were: Pathways, forts, broken and cut branches, the amphitheatre, and footprints and trampled grasses. In groups we were given one of the impacts and we had to start making a pros and cons list for that impact. We will continue this project tomorrow.  At home tonight ask me what impact I am examining. What pros and cons can you come up with?

In gym we had our first day of Jungle Safari! Jungle Safari is an obstacle course where we use our gymnastics skills to make it through a pretend jungle. There is a snake pit, lots of logs to walk across, a cave, a tunnel, and a crocodile infested pond! We will be trying out this obstacle course all week.

There are two notices coming home today. One is a new book order, the other is a field trip notice. We will be going to the Glenbow Museum on March 13th! Please return your forms as soon as you can. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Ezra

Environmental Science!

Today was Fresh Air Friday. We started the day by learning about a new study we will be starting. We are going to become jr. environmental scientists! We learned that environmental scientists look at the ways that humans, animals, and plants impact each other and how they impact our earth.

Here is a great video from David Suzuki that describes the type of work we will be doing:

Once we knew about environmental science we created title pages in our Fresh Air Friday journals. We will be using our journals to document our discoveries. Then, we went outside to the Whispering Woods to start investigating human impacts. We looked for ways that humans have changed, or impacted, the Whispering Woods and took some pictures as evidence.  We noticed that humans have had some positive impacts, some negative impacts, and some impacts that are a bit positive and a bit negative.

Pathways

The Amphitheatre

Cut logs

Ripped bark

Bent tree limbs

trampled grasses and bushes

Forts

Whispering Signs

If you have not returned your planning information for 2017/2018 form please do so on Monday. 

Our helper on Monday is: Max

A Snowy Thursday

Today we started the first step in our upcoming Northern Tales project. This first step was to start choosing a name for our main character. Since our stories will take place in the arctic we are looking for Inuit names so that our stories will seem more realistic. We went with a buddy and looked up names on an Inuit name generator. We explored the meanings of different names and tomorrow we will try to narrow down our choices to a few of our favourite names to include in our stories. Once we have chosen a name we will decide on our main character and the setting for our stories. Then we will start acting out our stories to come up with our problem, events, and solution.

After recess we had wordwork. The grade 2's are working on building words and focusing on words that have the long 'O' sound. The grade 1's did a spelling test for the 17 "No Excuses" words we have been practicing. Our tests are coming home today along with a list of those words. If there are any words that were tricky for us it would be a good idea to practice these at home.  When we were finished wordwork we tried to finish our math assessments. Quite a few of us were able to finish and got to play math games on the computer. Some of us still need another day to finish up. Once we have finished this assessment we will be moving on to number operations but it would still be a good idea to keep practicing counting patterns at home.

After lunch we painted our Northern Lights. We started by using sponges to get our paper wet with water. Then we added paint in northern lights colours. We were careful not to scrub the paper, instead we tried to use long strokes that blended together.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be spending quite a bit of time in the Whispering Woods so please come dressed for the snow and the weather.  We are bringing home a very important notice about next year's school attendance. Please make sure this form is filled out and returned by Monday. 

Our helper on Monday is: Max

Pink Shirt Day!

Today was Pink Shirt Day. We talked about the importance of showing kindness and respect to everyone in our school and the importance of supporting people who are being bullied.  We did a demonstration to show how mean actions can travel and also the way that kind actions can travel. We talked about the idea that if we send kindness out we will get kindness back. But if we send anger out, we might get anger back. We tried to practice this today in our classroom and during our recess breaks.

In our writing time we worked to finish our story maps for the story Hide and Sneak. We are getting better at including details in our story maps and at identifying the important elements in the setting and problem.

After recess we did our wordwork and then we had math. We continued working on the math assessment we started yesterday. Ask me how it is going and if there are any parts that I am finding tricky. 

This afternoon some of our friends from Simon Fraser came to visit us and talk about anti-bullying day. We worked with these friends to design some anti-bullying t-shirts. We have put our designs up on display by our coathooks. Feel free to drop by and take a look!

After that we had library and then we went to gym. We did our gymnastics circuit by following dots on the floor to the different stations.  We are getting more confident on the big climber and with the tall ladders. Next week we will be starting our jungle safari obstacle course!

Our helper tomorrow is: Isabel

Its Tuesday!

Today was Tuesday but started off feeling a bit like a Monday. That is because we started by working on our journals. We had quite a lot to write about after our 5-day weekend! In our journals today we worked on trying to use the "5 W's" to help us add more detail to our ideas. The "5 W's" are What, When, Where, Who, and Why. We tried to see if we could write at least one sentence for each W.  This really seemed to help some of us add more details and helped our grade 2 friends create more interesting paragraphs.

After recess we had wordwork and then we started working on a final math assessment for our study of counting patterns. We are trying to complete the assessment by ourselves to show Ms. Boyer what counting patterns we can do and where we might still need some more practice. We will be working on this assessment for the next two days.

This afternoon we talked about the Northern Lights and watched some videos of the Northern Lights. Then we read a story about these lights and learned a little bit about why they happen. Tomorrow we are going to be creating our own Northern Lights to go above our Inukshuk display in the hallway.

In gym, we continued with gymnastics. We continued with lots of the equipment we used last week and also added the climber!! We were VERY excited about this. Because we are working on gymnastics, please make sure you are wearing gymnastics appropriate clothing for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is Anti-Bullying day. To celebrate this day we are all going to try to wear pink shirts.  If you don't have a pink shirt in your closet (or your sister's closet) you can also wear red or white. Our friends from Simon Fraser will also be coming up to do some special friendship activities with us in the afternoon.  Please remember tomorrow is also our library day. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Jasper

Have a great LONG weekend!

This morning we worked on our story response for the story Hide and Sneak. Next week we will start planning our own stories and we will need to be able to include the 4 story elements we are learning to find in other stories.

In math, we finished our drumming problem from Monday. People who finished early got to play mathletics or the math part of ABCya.

This afternoon we worked on our Inukshuk challenge. Today we had to measure the dimensions of our inukshuks in centimeters. We learned how to use a meter stick to do this and how to measure things that were taller than 100cm. To do this we measured 100 cm with the meter stick and then had a friend mark the end of the stick with their finger. Then we would move the meter stick to line up with their finger and measure the rest. Then we would remember to add 100 to our number.

In gym we continued working on our routines for gymnastics. More of us were ready to share with Ms. Boyer today. Next week we will continue gymnastics and we will add in the climber.

Please remember that there is no school for students tomorrow, Friday, or Monday. Have a great long weekend!

Our helper on Tuesday is: Dhvani