Coffin Cares!

This morning we had our Coffin Cares Assembly. Our assembly was about recognizing students who have been helping to care for our school and our community. We celebrated our Green Team who helps to make sure our school is recycling, the destination conservation club, and the WE club who organized our Veteran's Food drive.

After recess we worked on our survey project. Today we were ready to conduct our surveys. We had to ask 20 people our question and we had to get them to sign their name on our survey so we could remember who we had asked. Here are some videos of us at work:

This afternoon we finished our self-portraits. Today we had to finish our details and add a background colour. Then we had gym. We played basketball-ish again. After that it was time for music. We practiced our Winter Fun song for the festive evening.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be working in the Whispering Woods. Please dress for the weather!

Our helper on Monday is: Addison

After centers and guided reading we continued working on our important things categories for our All About Me project. Ms. Boyer also gave us a preview of the types of books we will be making. The books are made using paper bags and have pockets and flaps that make them really interesting.

After recess we didn't have printing and wordwork time. Instead, we got together with Room 1 and the Portable to practice our song for the festive evening.  Then we worked on our survey project. Today we had to make sure our survey was all set up. We needed to have our question and our explanation about why the survey would be important written down, and our survey chart set up. We will be conducting our surveys tomorrow.

This afternoon we painted our self portraits. We had to learn how to make skin colours using watercolour paints. We learned that we can make skin colours by using brown, beige, or pink and spreading it with water until it is the right shade.

Then it was time for gym. We played basketball-ish. It is the same as basketball except instead of shooting into the basketball nets we have a team member that stands in a hula hoop and we have to pass to them to get a point.

Tomorrow we are having our first Coffin Cares assembly. If you have a Dr. Coffin t-shirt please try to wear it. If you don't have one, please try to wear a green shirt.

Our helper tomorrow is: Dhvani

This morning we worked on planning the topics we want to share in our "All About Me" books. We read a story called The Important Book and then brainstormed topics that would be important about us. In math we started working on our final graphing project. We are trying to come up with survey questions that will help Dr. Coffin School. Ask me about my question. 

This afternoon Ms. Boyer was away at a meeting so Mrs. Wilkens worked with us. We continued our colour study by learning about tints and shades. We used white and one color to paint different tints of the color. Then we had music. Mr. O'Reilly was away so Ms. Stephure was here to teach us. 

Tomorrow our helper is: Leander

This morning we had guided reading and journals. Today the goal was to do hamburger paragraphs. In a hamburger paragraph you need to have: 1 topic sentence, 3 detail sentences, and 1 wrapping up sentence.

After recess we finished our 4 choice graphs. If we finished early we got to play mathletics.

After lunch Mrs. Polski came to read a story to us. It was a story about Canada and each of us got a copy to bring home!! Then we did our finish up time.

After that we had another visit with Saa'Kokoto. Today he taught us about the Medicine Wheel on Nose Hill. He taught us that the Medicine Wheel has 4 quarters. In each quarter there is a symbol for people. The 4 people symbols show the 4 tribes of the Blackfoot nation.  We also talked about the plants, trees, and birds on Nose Hill. He told us that you can even get medicine from some of the plants.  He taught us that when we go to Nose Hill and wish to take something from the Hill we should give back an offering. This is a way of giving back to Na'a (Mother Earth) and showing respect.  Today was our last visit with Saa'Kokoto until the spring. We are sad that we won't see him for a while but we are looking forward to the spring!

After our visit we had some outside gym time before the end of the day.

Tomorrow is Treat Day! If you are bringing treats please drop them off at the table in the front hall.  Don't forget you 25 cents!

Our helper tomorrow is: Shawn

Visit with Saa-Kokoto

This morning we started by meeting with the portable to examine our two amaryllis plants. When we got together we shared our observations and measurements. When we shared our measurements we discovered that our classes had been measuring differently and that meant we had very different results. We had been measuring from the soil and the portable had been measuring from the start of the new growth. We decided that next week we will both measure from the dirt so that it will be easier to compare our plant growth.

Then it was time for our first outside activity of the day. We began by talking about the words prey and predator. We learned a little rhyme to help us remember a way to tell if an animal is a prey animal or a predator animal: Eyes on the side, ready to hide. Eyes up front, ready to hunt. We talked about the strategies that prey animals use to hide from their predators. Some of the strategies we knew were that animals will have fur that matches their surroundings, that animals will stay really still so their predator's eyes aren't attracted by movement, and animals will stay very quiet so their predators won't hear them. This includes keeping themselves quiet and also moving through their environment without making loud noises. After we had talked about these strategies we went outside and gave them a try by playing a game of Camouflage. Ms. Boyer was the predator and stood at the edge of the Whispering Woods. We were the prey who went to hide. When Ms. Boyer yelled "Camouflage" we had to try to stay really still and quiet so that she wouldn't see us. If Ms. Boyer saw us she would call our name and we would go join her at the predator spot. We really enjoyed the game and discovered that the designs of boys snowsuits are much better for Camouflage than girl snow suits...all those pinks and purples were tricky to camouflage!!

After that we had our recess break inside and then we did our next outdoor activity. This activity was called the rainbow chip walk. Ms. Boyer brought out a big bag of paint chips and our job was to see how many of the colours we could find in nature. The job was challenging since lots of the world is covered in snow right now, but once we started looking closely it was amazing how many colours we were able to find.

When we were finished outside we came in to have our time with Saa'Kokoto (Randy Bottle). Today he was here to help us learn more about colour and the importance of colour to the Blackfoot People. We learned that all colours come from the earth and that we can even made paints from natural materials found in the earth like stones, clay, berries, and grasses. For the Blackfoot there are 5 important colours: red, yellow, blue, white, and black. He showed us some pictures of his great grandfather White Clay who was dressed all in white. This is because white is a very important colour. He also told us that we can still see some very old painting that is done in the red ochre paint at Writing on Stone provincial park. These paintings are called petroglyphs and were made by mixing the red ochre powder with buffalo fat. He told us how colours would be used to paint a Moyiss (lodge/tipi). He told us that blue is used to represent mountains and yellow can mean the sun or fire. Black is used to show the dark night sky and sometimes brown is used to show the earth.  He also told us a story how the horse was given its name in Blackfoot (Ponookomita) and how the Blackfoot people were introduced to horses. Saa-Kokoto told us this story and he has also published the story as a graphic novel which he gave us as a gift. The story is called Ponookomita. On Monday we will get to visit with Saa'Kokoto again.

Our helper on Monday is: Joachim

Lights, Camera, Action!

This morning we started working on our big version of our self-portraits. We are making them on very special watercolour paper. Today we started by sketching our portraits with very light pencil lines. Next week we will use watercolour paints to add the colour.

After recess we did graphs to go with our 4 choices surveys. We needed to have 4 towers in our bar graph this time to show how many people wanted each of our choices. Today's graphs were a bit more challenging because we used smaller graph paper and had to write our numbers and labels very carefully to fit them in the correct spaces.

This afternoon we had our recording session for our CBC music class project. Ashton's dad came to help video our performance. We learned that you have to be really quite when the recording is about to start because the microphones are really sensitive and will pick up any tiny sounds we are making. We also learned that it is important to work as a team and to play in unison so that the beat and the melody are really clear.  We got really good at listening for Mr. O'Reilly to call "Lights, Camera, Action!". Those words meant we were ready to record.

 When we were finished recording we had gym outside.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be working with Randy Bottle, our friend and Blackfoot Elder for part of the morning and we will be spending time in the Whispering Woods. Please dress for the weather (waterproof clothing recommended for the slush!). 

Our helper on Monday is: Joachim

Dress Rehearsal!

Mustache Day was a great success today! We had lots of kids wearing fantastic store bought and home made mustaches and even some mustache themed clothing!

This afternoon was our dress rehearsal for our CBC music project. We rehearsed in the gym because the music room it too small to fit everyone. The singers and the piano were on the stage and everyone else was on the gym floor. Mr. O'Reilly told us where we will be sitting and we need to remember our spots for tomorrow. We were great. The music sounded good. At first, the drums were too loud, but once the drums played quieter they sounded really good.  Tomorrow afternoon is the big recording day! We will be doing our recording right after lunch.

Tomorrow our helper is: Senna

Parents: Please remember our class is hosting treat day next Tuesday. If you need any information about what that means please contact me or our room parent for details. 

Self-Portraits

This morning after centers and guided reading we moved on to the beginning of our All About Me project. The first step is creating self-portraits. A self-portrait is a picture of your head and your shoulders that you make of yourself. The first step was to fold your paper so that you could center your head on the page. We had to work hard to try to make our head shape on the paper match our head shape in real life. Some of us have oval faces, some have round faces, some have pointy chins, some have round chins. Then we focused on drawing our eyes and ears. We learned that our eye are in the center of our head, not up at the top. Before we started our portraits Ms. Boyer also showed us a fun thing on the internet for making ourselves and that sort of helped get our brains warmed up for portraits. It is called Peanutize Me and turns you into a peanuts cartoon character! Here is our version of Cedar:

Cedar Goes Peanuts!

Here is the link if you want to try it at home: http://www.peanutizeme.com/

After recess the grade 1's worked on a review page for printing and the grade 2's started practicing their three sets of spelling words (days of the week, months, and number words to 20). The grade 2's used whiteboards to practice writing their words and then had a friend test them if they felt confident with one of the word sets. We will be practicing for the next two weeks and then Ms. Boyer will give us a little quiz on the words.

After that we started working on a 4 choice survey in math. We each needed to come up with a survey question where our survey participants would be given 4 choices. Several of us chose to ask about favourite hockey teams and asked questions like: Do you like the Flames, Oilers, Penguins, or Golden Knights? Tomorrow we will conduct our surveys.

This afternoon we finished up our colour wheels by adding in the tertiary colours. We needed to mix the paints to get these colours: red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, red-purple, and blue-purple. Here are a few examples of our colour wheels:

Please remember that tomorrow is Mustache Day! It is also library day tomorrow. We are bringing home our school photos today! 

Parents: Our class is hosting Treat Day next Tuesday Nov. 28. Please see the email sent by our Room Parent for more details about this. 

Tomorrow our helper is: Ashton

Colour!

This morning we started with journals and guided reading. Today Ms. Boyer showed us how to make a hamburger paragraphs.  In a hamburger paragraph, the top bun is for our topic sentence. The tomatoes are our first details sentence. The lettuce is the next detail sentence. The pattie is the last detail sentence. The bottom bun is the wrap it up sentence. The grade 2's (and some grade 1's) then tried to make hamburger paragraphs in our journals.

After recess we had printing and book time. Today's letter was "N".  Then it was time for math. Today we got to try mathletics! If you are working on mathletics at home the two strands we are focusing on are the shapes strand and the statistics (gr. 2) strand. You could also be doing mathletics live to practice your basic facts.

This afternoon we continued our colour study by looking at the colour wheel.  The colour wheel includes all the colours in the colour spectrum. Before we started the colour wheel we learned about the next set of colours. They are called tertiary colours and are made by mixing a primary colour with a secondary colour (1+2=3).  Then we started painting our own colour wheels. Today we painted the primary and secondary colours. After that we watched a short video about colours and learned something new at the end of the video. Here is the video:

Then it was time for gym. We are starting to practice basketball skills.

Our helper tomorrow is: Cedar

Ready Set Go!

This morning after guided reading we were finally ready to play our Guess Who game! Here are some pictures of us playing the game. It was really fun! We will have our bags here to share with you tonight and then we will be using some of our ideas to start our big All About Me project.

After recess we met with Room 1 and the Portable to learn about a new friendly competition we will be having from now until our winter break. Room 1-2 and the Portable will each be trying to grow an amaryllis plant. An amaryllis plant grows from a bulb and grows very quickly. It should take about 6 weeks to have a blossom at the top of the plant and the plant will get very tall. We will be measuring our plant everyday to see which plant is growing faster and then we will wait to see which plant blooms first. Which ever plant blooms first wins! Ready, Set, Go!

After lunch we finished up the final part of our secondary colours page and then we got ready for Parent Teacher Conferences. After that it was time for gym and music.

Ms. Boyer is looking forward to seeing everyone at conferences tonight and tomorrow. Please try to arrive a few minutes early so that you have time to look through your work with your parents before it is time to meet with Ms. Boyer.

Our helper on Monday is: Katie

Graphs and Secondary Colours

This morning we started with guided reading and centers. Then we worked on our Guess Who Game. When we were finished our clues we went with some friends and started practicing reading our clues so we will be ready to play the game.

After recess we started making graphs to show the results of our Yes/No surveys. We started by setting up the page and tomorrow we will try to add our towers and get the graphs finished.  Ask me about the important pieces that a graph needs to have!

This afternoon we worked on our secondary colours page. We mixed the primary colours together to make the three secondary colours. We are showing the ways to make secondary colours by making colour equations on our page. Ask me about making secondary colours!

After our painting activity Jasper shared his favourite book. Then it was time for gym. We did our small equipment stations again. When we finished gym we had our finish up or free choice time. We have been really focused this week so everyone had earned free choice time! Lots of us chose to do iPads.

Tomorrow our helper is: Aiden

Guided Reading!

Today was our first day of guided reading! First we had to meet at the carpet so we could find out our groups from Ms. Boyer. Then we took turns going to guided reading and got our folders and books ready to go. When it isn't our turn for guided reading we do our new centers. This week the centers are: word work on ipads, bookmark making, and literacy games.

After guided reading we worked on finishing our Guess Who clues. We were really focused and lots of us got 10 clues finished!

In math we conducted our Yes/No surveys. We used tally marks in bundles of 5 to record our results. Some of us are realizing that learning to count by 5's will make this type of work even easier!

This afternoon we continued our colour study by looking at secondary colours. We learned that the secondary colours are: green, purple, and orange.  They are called secondary colours because they are made by adding two primary colours together (and 1+1=2!).

Then it was time for gym. In gym we did small equipment stations. They were balls, scoops, skipping, and hula hoops. After that we went to music. We got to start using the instruments for our music project!

Thank you for all the food donations that have been brought in. Tomorrow is the last day to bring in donations. 

This morning we started with journals. After we finished our pictures Ms. Boyer showed us her journal entry and we had to decide what she had done well and what she needed to fix. We noticed that she did a good job with her finger spaces between her words, she didn't have any popcorn letters, and she remembered to make the word "I" an uppercase no matter where it was. But, we noticed that she forgot to put the periods in her writing and forgot to put capital letters at the beginning of her sentences. We helped Ms. Boyer fix these things in her journal and then we went to write our own entries.

After recess we did word work and printing. The grade 1's worked on the letter J (Josie was very excited, she has been waiting for a long time to finally get to J!). The grade 2's started practicing spelling number words correctly. So far the grade 2's have focused on spelling days of the week and months of the year correctly and now we are adding in numbers to 20. These spelling words would be a great thing to keep practicing at home!

Then it was time for math. Today we needed to decide on our question for the "Yes or No" surveys we are going to be conducting. We spent some time talking about how to make a Yes or No question and then we each went and wrote our own. After that we talked about tally marks. We learned that tally marks are a great way to record the results of your survey because they can help to keep your work organized and make it less likely that you will make a mistake when you are counting up your totals at the end. To make sure we are all comfortable with tally marks we did a little review practice to finish our math time. Tomorrow we will conduct our surveys and record our results using tally marks.

After lunch we finished up our Nose Hill posters. We will be putting these up on display for you to see when you come for parent-teacher conferences.  Then we had gym and our finish up/free choice time.

At the end of the day all the grade 1-2's met together to talk about guided reading. We will be starting guided reading tomorrow morning at 8:45. We will be finding out our groups tomorrow and we will begin our new centers routine that will happen along with guided reading. Please make sure you are on-time for school so you don't miss anything!

Our helper tomorrow is: Lawrence

Remembrance Day

Today was our Remembrance Day assembly. Our class did a great job of showing respect during the assembly and our performance of Waltzing Matilda was awesome! Between the dress rehearsal and the real thing, the assembly took up most of our morning. We had a bit of time for centers and watched a few remembrance day videos at the end of the day. Here is a great video that explains the purpose of wearing poppies. The video is from Scotland, but the information is very applicable for Canada.

Our helper on Monday is: Abdul Ahad

Getting ready for Remembrance Day

Today we spent the first part our our morning finishing up our Remembrance Day artwork for tomorrow's assembly. We have created poppy artwork that is inspired by Kandinsky's Circles. The project required a lot us to use lots of stamina to stick with it, even when we through we couldn't possibly cut one more circle!! The final products look amazing and will be a beautiful addition to tomorrow's assembly.

After recess we practiced our song for tomorrow and then we worked on our Guess Who games. We are trying to write at least 5 clues (and hopefully more) about ourselves and then we will get to try out our games next week. These games are a warm up for a big project we will be starting about ourselves and our families.

After lunch we completed our primary colours page in our art journals using paint. We had to be careful not to let our red, yellow, and blue paints mix or our primary colours page would have looked more like a secondary colours page!

When we were finished our primary colours page we went to the music room to practice our song with all the other grade 1's and 2's. We sound really great as a big group! Then we had gym and music. At the end of the day some of our grade 2's performed the poem In Flander's Field for us. They have been learning the poem during word work.

Tomorrow is the Remembrance Day Assembly and it is also picture re-takes day. Due to these special events we will be staying indoors for the morning. Students are invited to wear black, white, and red (and maybe something a bit fancier than usual) for the assembly.  Please also remember to bring donations for the Veteran's food bank if you haven't already (our bin is still pretty empty).

Today we are bringing home a special red card that has all of our log-in information for our CBE account, mathletics, and raz-kids. Mathletics and Raz-kids are great ways to reenforce the skills we are learning at school. Our Raz-kids accounts have been set to our current reading levels. In mathletics, the sections about shapes and data (graphing) would be great places to start. 

Our helper on Monday is: Abdul Ahad

Home Reading!

Today was our first day of home reading! That means that your child will be coming home with their first home reading book today.   In your child's home reading bag you will find a book, a recording book to help keep track of their reading, and some information about learning to read.

Here's what you can expect from home reading this year:

Home reading is in place to help developing readers practice important skills associated with literacy. Some of these skills include comprehension strategies, fluency, vocabulary, sight word and high frequency word recognition, phonemic awareness, and decoding. The leveled books are at the student's independent reading level. This means they can read the book fairly independently with minimal support. 

In guided reading with a teacher at school, the students will work to read books at their instructional level. Here they are learning reading strategies, which they then practice at home through their home reading books. 

At Home:
Your child will bring home a new home reading book on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Please have your child practice their book a few times with an adult or older sibling. Once the book has been read please fill out the recording booklet, sign it, and return it along with the home reading book each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Supervised daily reading practice is important to ensure success and supports your child's reading development. 

At School:
Each day (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) a volunteer will be here to help with the home reading program. Your child will re-read their home reading book to the volunteer and then choose a new book to bring home and practice. Your child will bring home a new book each time unless they are reading a chapter book. Those students who are reading chapter books do not need to bring their books back each day and should instead keep reading at home and just bring their books back when they need to exchange them. 

Happy Home Reading!

This morning we did centers and then we worked on our Smarties Graphs. We noticed that by putting our information in a graph it was a lot easier to read and to quickly understand. We will have them on display for our parent-teacher conferences.

After recess we had printing and wordwork and then we played a game called Guess Who with the teachers. The teachers made clues about themselves and we had to guess which teacher belonged with the clues.

After lunch we started our new study of colour. Today we talked about the primary colours and read a fun story. We also started a new page in our art journals about primary colours.

On Friday we will be performing the song "Waltzing Matilda" at the Remembrance Day Assembly. Here is the video we have been using for our practice. Please try to practice a few time at homes.

Our helper tomorrow is: Aiden

At the end of the day some of our friends from grade 5-6 came to talk to us about the Veteran's Food Bank Drive. For the next week we will be collecting non-parishable food items and other supplies for the Veteran's Food Bank.  Here are some ideas of things you could bring:

- Canned goods (soup, tuna, vegetables etc.)
- Peanut butter, jam etc.
- Pasta, Kraft Dinner, Dried soups, rice
- Pancake mix and syrup
- Coffee, Tea
- Oatmeal, cereal
- Toiletries (soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, kleenex, toilet paper)

Brrr it's cold out there!

This week our blog team is: Josie, Aiden, Ashton, Cedar, and Taylor.

This morning we started with journals. Lots of us went sledding and toboganing this weekend. Lots of us also stayed home and watched movies.

In word work, the grade 2's are doing a special project with the poem In Flander's Field. The grade 2's are practicing their printing and finger spaces by copying the poem and then they will work with a buddy to learn to recite the poem in a strong speaking voice. The grade 1's worked on printing the letter K.

After that we had math. Today we started learning about graphs. We are going to make smarties graphs using the charts we made last week. We learned that a good bar graph has to have a title, labels for the categories along the bottom, numbers up the sides, and neat towers or bars.

At lunch Josie was very excited because her tooth fell out! The rest of us were excited for the snow, but it took some of us a long time to get all of our outdoor gear on!

This afternoon we tried to finish up our Nose Hill posters. Today we focused on getting the facts and discoveries written down. Some of us got to work in the library, but only if we had most of our facts already recorded.

Our helper tomorrow is: Aksel

Parents: We will be having a home reading information meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:45. At the meeting we will talking about some small changes to the home reading program this year and we will provide some guidance for those parents who are planning to come in and volunteer.

November is here!

Before recess we did a game called get to know you. It was a game to help us get to know other people better. Each person got a page with ideas on it like "Has a birthday in July" and we had to find a person in our class that matched the idea. We had to keep asking each other questions until we had 2 names beside each idea on the page.

After recess we didn't do wordwork and printing. Instead we came up with the categories for our helper sharing. We will start having a special helper tomorrow. Then we worked to finish our 3D shapes reflection.

After lunch we worked on our Nose Hill posters. Ms. Boyer showed us her two posters. One that is a good example and one that isn't a very good example.  Ask me to explain why one of these posters is better than the other: 

In gym we worked with the scoops and balls. We warmed up our catches and throws and then we practiced picking up the ball without using our hands and only using the scoop. Then we played don't throw your junk in my backyard.

After gym we had some time to finish our leaf study. If we finished we got to have free time.

Lily is our first special helper of the year tomorrow. Lily will get to stand at the front of the line, sit on the special chair, help Ms. Boyer with special jobs, lead the warm up in gym, and bring sharing! Our category for sharing is: Favourite book.