Arctic History

This morning we did guided reading and centers. Mr. O was here with us for the morning because Ms. Boyer had to do a special job for Mrs. Polski. He did guided reading with Ms. Boyer's groups. After that we continued typing our Whispering Woods Writing. 15 of us have our writing all finished. The rest of us will finish tomorrow.

After recess we had wordwork. The grade 2's worked on finishing an activity for long"e" words. The grade 1's practiced words in the -ame family. We are learning about the magic 'e' that mades vowels say their long sounds. Then we did our pattern check. When you are done your pattern check you can work on finishing your pattern-palooza and then Mathletics. We have a new bar to work on in mathletics that is about counting patterns.

After lunch we kept working on our arctic study. We started working on our history books about the Inuit. We started making the transportation pieces to put in our book. Earlier in the day Ms. Boyer asked Peter to start his book because he is really talented at paper art. We used Peter's example to help us understand how to make our own pieces.

An Inuit Kayak
By Peter

Then it was library time. Most of us remembered our books. If you are having trouble remembering your books please remember that we always have library on Wednesdays but books can come back any day of the week.

Our helper tomorrow is: Jasper

Hockey!

This morning we started the day with guided reading and centers. This is our second week of the new center choices so we all got to start something new today. The centers are: Pattern-palooza (we needed an extra week for this one!), Robert Munsch stories (www.robertmunsch.com), and Arctic Vocabulary word searches.

Then we continued working on our Whispering Woods typing. Almost half of us finished today and we are hoping to get everyone else finished up tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. Then we will be ready to start the watercolour illustrations next week.

After recess we had a lockdown drill during Wordwork. During a lockdown we have to go sit quiety by our green lockdown meeting dot and pretend that the classroom is empty. We have to stay very still and we don't make any noise at all. When the drill was finished our school's police officer, Officer Johnson, came and told us that we did a great job! The grade 2's were in the portable during the drill and they did a great job staying quiet and still at their meeting dot with Ms. Stephure.

Once the lockdown was over we worked to finish up our Pattern Check. We will have 2 more days to finish this and then we will be moving on to some new work about counting patterns.

This afternoon we finished our conversation about Arctic transportation and then we tried to figure out which types of transportation would have been used by the Inuit long ago. Starting tomorrow we are going to be making history books to show our learning about traditional Inuit ways of living in the Arctic. We will be learning about transportation, clothing, food, houses, tools, and games.

Home Challenge: What is an Umiak? What is it used for? How is it made? 

(Email Ms. Boyer if you find the answer or bring it to school on a piece of paper.)

Today we are bringing home a green notice about the Festive Evening in our green folders. We are also still looking for home reading volunteers for Thursday this week and Wednesday and Thursday next week. If you are available please sign up on the Google Calendar. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Abdul Ahad

Arctic Games!

This morning the grade 2's met with Ms. Boyer to learn a bit more about writing paragraphs. Ms. Boyer showed us a hamburger organizer to help us create good paragraphs. The top bun was the topic sentence. The filling was the three detail sentences that need to go in the middle. The bottom bun was a concluding or ending sentence that wraps up the paragraph and maybe tells the reader something about your feelings. The grade 1's met with Mrs. Hamby and learned a bit more about when to use uppercase and lowercase letters. Mrs. Hamby taught us to use uppercase letters at the start of the sentences and to use lowercase letters in the rest of our writing.

In math time we got to do Mathletics. We were trying to finish the pattern section. Some of us finished at got to move on to the section about numbers. If you still aren't finished the patterns section please try to work on it at home if you can.

This afternoon we started with a story called Aurora and then we watched a short video of Northern Lights. Ms. Boyer showed us a special hotel where all the rooms are glass igloos and you can watch the Northern Lights while you go to sleep! Then we watched a Rick Mercer Report. He was visiting Labrador to see the Labrador Arctic Winter Games. They did lots of different traditional sports. Then, in gym we tried out some of the arctic games. We tried Seal Crawl, Scoops, and One Foot High Kick.

Tomorrow our helper is: Dominic

Thanks for Coming!

Thank you for joining us to celebrate the growth and hard work of our Room 1 and 2 students at our November conferences. Here is a brief overview of the topics that we have studied so far this year:

Language Learning:

Reading

All students are now engaged in home reading and guided reading.  Our grade 1 students are working in small guided reading groups 4 days per week and our grade 2 students are working in guided reading groups 3 days per week.

Weekly Journals: Each Monday students are asked to write about a topic of their choosing in their journal. Students often choose to write about their weekend or something exciting that is happening in their lives. Grade 1 students are working on writing 3-4 sentences using their “best guess” phonetic spelling with support from sentence starters developed together.  Grade 2 students are working on writing 8-9 sentences using correct letter case and punctuation. Grade 2 students are also encouraged to use their personal dictionaries as part of their focus on correct spelling.

Guess Who: For this project students worked to write clues about themselves as a way to learn more about each other and to begin thinking about writing in full sentences and using descriptive ideas. For the grade 2’s the expectation was to complete at least 4 topics about themselves and write small paragraphs about each topic. For the grade 1’s the expectation was to complete 4 sentences about themselves using their best sounded out spelling and neatest printing.

Whispering Woods Descriptive Writing: Our students have worked hard to integrate their understanding of the senses and their explorations of Whispering Woods with some descriptive poetry. The grade 1’s worked to develop two descriptive ideas for each sense. Their ideas needed to include strong describing words and a detailed illustration. The grade 2’s worked on writing three descriptive ideas for each sense. Each idea needed to include at least two describing words plus an interesting ending that helped the reader create a vivid picture in their mind. All students are now working to type their work on the computer and then they will be making watercolor illustrations for each page. 

Remembrance Day Poetry: Students used their understandings about descriptive writing to create a short sense poem to describe their feelings and ideas about peace. Although these ideas were short, they demonstrate each student’s ability to transfer their learning from our descriptive writing study into a different context.

Word Work: Grade 1 students are engaged in daily word work. They are focusing on developing their understanding of word families as well as short vowel sounds. Grade 2 students are engaged in word work three days per week. They are focusing on mastering their short and long vowel sounds. They are also learning to use their personal dictionaries to help them improve their spelling in their daily writing work.

Math:

Counting: We began the year exploring counting and developing strategies for counting large sets. We looked at grouping objects into sets of 2, 5, 10, and 100 in order to make it easier to count. We also looked at the ways we organize our sets to make them easier for other people to count.

Patterns and relationships: Students used objects in nature to develop an understanding of attributes and to learn to sort materials in a variety of ways based on common attributes. This included learning to create Venn diagrams and T-charts. Students have also learned to create and identify a variety of repeating and increasing patterns using 2-or more attributes (gr. 1), 3-or more attributes (gr. 2).  This pattern work is an important step towards understanding number patterns. Students have used their understanding of patterns to create a special name pattern placemat to use for Fun Lunches.

Problem Solving: Students are engaged in weekly problem solving related to our current topic of study. Some of these problems are completed as a large group, some are completed as small group tasks, and others are completed individually.

Basic Addition skills: Students are developing their basic addition skills through math games and online practice in Mathletics each week.

Social Studies:

Community Stewardship: Following the harvest of our Sun Circle garden we cooked and baked using the vegetables from the garden. This was a way for us to come together as a community around a common project and allowed us to give back to others by sharing recipes with our families.

An Arctic Community: We were excited to help Ms. Boyer prepare for her trip to Churchill, MB. We learned about temperature, landscape, animals, and transportation in the north. We shared what we learned by compiling travel packages. Next, we will continue looking at traditional ways of knowing in the arctic by exploring Inuit stories and culture.

Science:

Community Stewardship: Students were responsible for harvesting the sun circle garden and reporting the harvest results to the school community. Next, we will be starting our indoor garden where students will be responsible for watering and monitoring our plants.

Temperature and Liquids: As part of our study of the Arctic students are learning about the ways that humans and animals adapt to harsh temperatures. Students are learning about insulation, including animal insulations such as fur and blubber. They are also looking at the differences between salt water and fresh water as well as ways that warmer temperatures affect our oceans, ice caps, and animals in the arctic. Students will be continuing this study through a series of science experiments in the next few weeks.

Learning to Self-Reflect

Today we started our day as usual with guided reading and centers. This is our first week of some new center choices. Ask me about the new centers. After that, we continued working on our Whispering Woods writing. We are trying to finish our good copies on the computer.

After recess we had word work time. The grade 1's worked on the -um word family. The grade 2's worked on finishing up work in their wordwork book and then had a chance to play some long vowel games. Then it was time to work on our pattern check. A few of us were able to finish but most of us need a few more days. Before we started working we took another look at our target and talked about trying to do a self-reflection (or self-assessment) of our own work using the target. This means looking at our own work and trying to decide where we would be on the target. Then we try to decide what we need to do to move closer to the center of the target. This is sort of a tricky thing to do, but we are getting better at it with practice and by looking at our work with Ms. Boyer.

After lunch we spent a little bit more time working in our groups to brainstorm types of transportation that are used in the arctic. We started this job yesterday when Ms. Boyer was at her afternoon meeting but we needed some extra time to finish. Then we all came together and made a group list of types of transportation. We put the transportation into 3 categories: Land, Water, and Air. Here is our list:

Ask me why some items have an * in front of them.

Please remember to register for parent-teacher conferences if you haven't done so already. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Katie

Target Day!

This morning we had a surprise when we arrived at school. Our desks were moved to new spots! Ask me about my new neighbors.

In journals Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby introduced our journal target. We had talked about the expectations before but today we got to see it as a target. We each glued one into our journals so that we can keep looking at our writing to see if we are moving towards the center of the target.

In math we started working on our Pattern Check. Ms. Boyer reminded us about the requirements and also got us to glue the target for this project into our books. It was a big day for targets!

This afternoon we worked on finishing our arctic folders by gluing on our arctic landscape paintings. Then we went with a buddy and typed up a title on the computer. We learned how to change the size of the writing and how to pick a fancy font.

In gym we stayed inside. We practiced our basketball skills. We worked on trying to dribble with one hand rather than two. We also practiced shooting and passing.

At the end of the day we got to choose a new category for helper sharing. The new category is: Something you made. When it is your turn to be the helper please remember to bring sharing that fits in that category.

Please remember that tomorrow is Twin Day and Treat Day! 

Our helper tomorrow is: Isabel

Evergreen Theatre Show!

Today was our Evergreen Theatre show! Our play was called "The Polar Bear Cubs". You might be surprised to know that all the facts in our show came from our Room 1 and 2 polar bear experts. Natalie, our Evergreen leader, was so impressed by our polar bear knowledge.  These were the facts we included in the show:

- Polar bears have black noses.
- Polar bears eat seals. They mostly eat the blubber.
- Polar bears sleep on sea kelp in the summer.
- Polar bears clean themselves by taking snow baths.
- Polar bear cubs practice pouncing to get them ready for pouncing on seal dens when they are older.
- Polar bears can move silently even though they are enormous. They need to silent to sneak up on seal breathing holes and catch the seals.

"I thought being in the show was really cool!" ~ Sarah
"My favourite part was when Ms. Boyer screamed!" ~ Isabel
"I really liked the costumes. They were cool." ~ Jessica
" I liked it when we sneaked up on Ms. Boyer." ~ Isla
" I liked it when we scared Ms. Boyer." ~ Levi
"I was fun to see Moms and Dads watching." ~ Lily
"I liked how Natalie had music for different parts of our show." ~ Anjalika
"I thought that the show was very cool!" ~ Dhvani
"I really liked the music that they played for our show." ~ Reid
"I liked that lots of parents could come." ~ Tessa
"The show was really funny." ~ Jasper
"Today we did a dress rehearsal before the parents came." ~ Ashton
"I liked the music a lot." ~ Hussain
"I liked the show!" ~ Abdul Ahad
" The play was really fun!" ~ Addison
"I liked the part when the big scary polar bear walked by. It was Mrs. Polski!" ~ Max
"I liked Natalie!" ~ Katie
"It was kind of scary to be in a show." ~ Bilal
"It was awesome!" ~ Shawn
"It was really exciting." ~ Ezra

Evergreen Theatre Day 4

This morning following our guided reading time we started working on our good copies for our Whispering Woods writing. A few of us still had to finish up some ideas but most of us were able to start typing.  We are going to be creating artwork for each sense and using our typed ideas to create our own Whispering Woods books. Sadly, these won't be ready in time for our Parent-Teacher conferences next week but we will be happy to share our rough copies with you and we will bring the good copies home when they are finished.

After recess we had our Evergreen Theatre rehearsal. We practiced our lines and got to rehearse in the gym. After that Natalie showed us our costumes. We will each be wearing a special polar bear costume! To complete our costumes it would be helpful if everyone can wear white, gray, or light brown bottoms tomorrow.

Then it was time for fun lunch!!! Thank you to all the volunteers who came to help out today.

This afternoon Ms. Boyer started introducing our pattern check. This will be our final project to show Ms. Boyer how much we have learned about making patterns. We talked about the idea that this will be important evidence for Ms. Boyer to use when she is writing our report cards so it is important that we push ourselves to make our most interesting patterns for each category. Here are the patterns we will need to show:

-  A repeating colour pattern with 4 colours.

-  The same pattern two different ways.

-  A movement pattern with at least 3 elements.

-  An increasing pattern using sound.

-  A time pattern.

-  A number pattern.

Please remember that our Evergreen Theatre Show will start tomorrow morning at 11:15. Parents are invited to attend the show! (We will also be having a dress rehearsal at 9:00 so please make sure you are on-time for school tomorrow). 

Our helper on Monday is: Ashton

Evergreen Theatre Day 3

This morning we started with guided reading and centers except for Lily. She had a big tumble outside and got a bit scraped up. Thankfully she is now much better and came back see us this afternoon. We were all thrilled to see her! Please be very carefully on the compound coming inside the school. It will start getting a bit slippery with our winter weather.

During our writing time started by reading another Leo Leonni book called Frederick. It won a Caldecott medal. Then, we learned how to save our work correctly on the computer so that we won't lose our whispering woods typing. We didn't end up having much time to work after we were finished our computer lesson but we will carry on tomorrow.

We had Evergreen Theatre. First we did some more polar bear practice in the portable. Then we got to go into the gym to do a rehearsal of our play on the stage. We will get to do one more rehearsal tomorrow and then the big show will be on Friday. We found out we will get to wear costumes for the show! We hope you can make it to the big performance.

Today we had library. We had to have a silent library trip because Room 1 was busy practicing with Evergreen Theatre in the middle of the library.

Please remember that tomorrow is fun lunch! 

Our helper tomorrow is: Max

Evergreen Theater Day 2

Today we started the day with centers and guided reading. This was our last rotation of the three centers we have been working on. In our writing time we continued working on our Whispering Woods writing. The grade 1's and 2's spent some extra time talking about the expectations for their finished rough copy and then worked to get finished. Some people were able to get their rough copy finished and will be starting to type their good copies tomorrow.

Grade 1

Grade 2

At Evergreen Theater we started practicing being polar bears. We practiced pouncing, hiding, making our beds out of sea kelp, and hunting. We snuck up on Ms. Boyer when we were practicing being silent hunters. Ms. Boyer closed her eyes and put up her hand anytime she could hear us moving (Polar bears can move silently). We were so quiet that we all snuck right up to her and then roared. She was so surprised that she screamed!

This afternoon we continued learning about growing patterns. Yesterday Ms. Boyer noticed that most of us were very good at understanding growing patterns were the pattern grows by 1 element each time but we had more trouble when the pattern grew by 2 or 3 elements each time. We spent some more time practicing these together and then tried to do some on our own. After that we had music and then we had inside free choice time instead of gym. We could not use the gym because of Evergreen Theater and many of us had very wet outside clothes from lunch and didn't think we would be comfortable outside again.

Please remember tomorrow is our library day. Make sure to bring back your books. Tomorrow is also photo retakes day. If you are getting retakes, please bring your original photo proofs with you. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Evelyn

Today was our first day with Evergreen Theatre. We are going to be making a play that we will be performing on Friday.  Our show is going to be about water and polar bears. We have two Evergreen Theater teachers named Natalie and Brett.

We had outside gym. We practiced basketball skills. We practiced bounce passes, chest passes, dribbling, shooting, and defense skills. We played bounce-pass monkey in the middle to work on our defense skills and on our passing.

We read two books by Leo Lionni. One was called Pezzettino.  In math we worked on a new kind of pattern. They are called increasing, or growing patterns.

Today we found out that our Twins and Triplets Spirit Day will be happening on Tuesday Nov. 22.

Remembrance Day Assembly

Today was the Remembrance Day assembly. Each class performed as part of the assembly and did a wonderful job.  We all came away feeling proud and lucky to be Canadian and to have such brave men and women keeping us safe. Our class performed the song "Sing for Peace". We have been practicing the song for several weeks and did an amazing job using our strong singing voices.

This afternoon we did our arctic animal research and had outside gym. Can you believe this November weather?!

At the end of the day we found our that our class won the Veteran's Food Bank competition. Our class donated 125 items! What an amazing demonstration of generosity by Room 2!

Please remember that there is no school tomorrow. Also, if any parents were able to get a video of our class performing in the assembly this morning please let me know. I would be happy to upload the video to our blog to share with parents who were unable to attend. 

Our helper on Monday is: Sarah

Remembrance Day Preparations

Today we worked on our poppy art for the remembrance day assembly. We used colored coffee filters and created poppies. Then we read a story about peace and created our own ideas about peace to add to our artwork.  You will be able to see our artwork on display in the assembly tomorrow and then we will be bringing it home.

This afternoon we had library. Most of us remembered our books. YAY! Then we had gym. We have started our basketball unit. Today we worked on bounce passes, chest passes, dribbling and passing to a partner, and shooting hoops.

Tomorrow the Remembrance Day assembly will be at 10:50. Lots of us will try to look our best by wearing black, white, or red. Some of us might want to wear nicer clothes tomorrow but please no tuxedos or ball gowns. If you are in girl guides or scouts you are invited to wear your uniform tomorrow. Parents are invited to attend the assembly. 

If you have any last donations for the Poppy Fund or Veteran's Food Bank please bring them tomorrow. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Katie

An Update from Ms. Boyer

We had extra music practice today in order to get ready for the Remembrance Day assembly and did not have time for the blog. So, just in case you can't make it to the parent council meeting tonight, here is the Room 1-2 update from Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby:

Reading: Guided reading and home reading are continuing successfully. We have had some trouble getting volunteers for home reading in both classes. If you are able to volunteer please contact the room parents and they can add you to our Google calendars.

Word work: Grade 1’s are continuing to study word families. Both Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby have noticed excellent improvement in our grade 1’s abilities in sounding out words thanks to this work. Grade 2’s are working with Ms. Stephure to solidify their short and long vowel sounds. This is helping our grade 2’s to sound out more difficult words accurately.

Writing:  We are getting ready to start our good copies of our Whispering Woods writing. This project has focused on improving descriptive writing skills, especially for our grade 2 students who are already confident writers. As the project has progressed we have noticed great improvement in our students ability to use strong adjectives to describe the whispering woods.

Math: We are coming to the end of our patterning study and students will be spending next week working on a final pattern assessment called our Pattern Check. This is a chance for students to demonstrate their understanding of a variety of patterns independently.

Science: We are currently finishing up some research about arctic animals and will be moving on to our study of temperature and water starting in 2 weeks. This study will continue to be linked to our ongoing study of the arctic.

Social Studies: Our arctic study is continuing following Ms. Boyer’s trip to see the polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba. We are now learning more about traditional ways of living in the arctic through Inuit stories. We will be continuing to work on our arctic travel guides for the next few weeks.

Also, thank you again to all the families who have sent in donations for the Veteran's Food bank and for the Poppy Fund. Our classroom donation box is overflowing. What a generous group! We will continue accepting donations for the rest of this week. 

Tomorrow our helper is: Addison

To start the day today the grade 1's had guided reading. The grade 2's did not but they used the extra time to start their journals.  Then we all started working on our journals. We started by talking about what a "SuperWow" journal would look like for gr. 1 and gr.2:




After recess the grade 2's did solo booktime and the grade 1's worked on creating a word wheel for words in the "-ump" family. Then we had our computer time. We went to Mathletics and tried to finish up the patterns section. Many of our grade 2 friends are finding the number patterns particularly challenging.

This afternoon we worked on our animal research. Most of us are about half done. Lots of us are still trying to find our interesting facts.

Today was our first day of basketball in gym. We worked on dribbling and bounce passes.
After gym we worked to finish our journals. People who were already finished got to play word games on the computers.

We are collecting donations for the Veteran's Food Bank. Thank you to those people who have already donated. We are also collecting small donations (1 or 2$) for poppy's this week. All students will be given a poppy on Thursday as part of our Remembrance Day assembly. 

We did not have a home reading parent today. If you are able to volunteer please sign up on the home reading calendar. If you need help doing this please speak to our room parent, Marie. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Morgan

Temporary Art

We started this morning with our first Big Buddy activity for the year.  Our buddies brought a story with them and read to us. Our buddies this year are from Room 6. Ask me about my big buddy! 

Then we went outside to try to finish our Alphabet Signs Hunt. Most of us were able to finish but a few of us will need a little bit more time. The "T" sign was very hard to find. Jasper was able to find it at the end of the Whispering Woods. He told us that when you go into the Whispering Woods turn right and go all the way to the edge. Then you will find it.



After our Alphabet Hunt we had our snack break. After our snack we went outside to make some art. We were inspired by one of our favourite artists, Andy Goldsworthy. He makes land art. We watched a video of his work and talked about the difference between permanent art and temporary art. Then we went outside to make our own temporary land art. Some people were making very large art pieces using the huge branches in the woods. Some people made very small art using leaves and berries. We all created our art is special spaces in the Whispering Woods. Many of us made artwork inspired by a teepee shape.



Sorry the videos are narrow! Ms. Boyer fail!!

At the end of the day we went to the gym to rehearse our song for the Remembrance Day assembly. The assembly is on Thursday and parents are welcome to attend.

Our helper on Monday is: Shawn

Another Busy Day

This morning after guided reading and centers we continued working on our Whispering Woods descriptive writing project. Some of us have noticed that some of the senses are easier to write about than others. It was quite easy to come up with descriptive sentences for "I see..." but it was more challenging to think of ideas for "I smell...". We are really having to push our thinking to come up with these descriptive sentences!

After recess the grade 2's went to see Ms. Stephure for their word work time. The routine for grade 2 word work includes spelling centers every Thursday. The grade 1's had a word work holiday today because we had a special visit from Mrs. Polski. She read us the first part of a new picture book and then gave each of the grade 1's their own copy to bring home and keep! Lots of us will be excited to finish this book tonight at home.

This afternoon we finished hearing about Ms. Boyer's trip to Churchill, Manitoba. She showed us a new website called Explore.org that has some live streams from Churchill. We watched them for a few minutes and saw a some polar bears! Then she told us some more polar bear facts. Please ask me to explain the following ideas:
1. Why are more female polar bears only having 1 cub rather than having twins?
2. Why are the polar bears so hungry at this time of year?
3. How can you tell male and female polar bears apart when you see them out on the tundra?

After that we had a few minutes to work on our arctic animal research and then we went to gym. Today was our last day of hoops and skipping tricks. We took some time at the end to let people share the tricks they were proud of.

Please remember that tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be continuing our exploration of the Whispering Woods and our school's history with our Whispering Signs Hunt and then we will be exploring the idea of Land Art. Please make sure you are dressed appropriately for the weather. The mornings are often chilly and gloves and hats are always a good idea. 

Our helper on Monday is: Shawn