Friday, February 1st

Hello Families! Happy Groundhog Day!

Ask your child if Balzac Billy saw his shadow and if we will have an early spring or six more weeks of winter. 

Important Dates:
Thursday and Friday, Feb. 15-16 - No School - Teachers' Convention
Monday, Feb. 19 - No School - Family Day

We had an incredibly busy week with swimming lessons. We were so impressed with everyones swimming ability and willingness to risk take in the pool! They demonstrated such resilience and perseverance during their lessons.  Thank you so much to the parent volunteers, this week would not have been such a success without you. 

*Some swim items may have gone home with the wrong child.  Just keep an eye out for any items that your child has come home with.

Our learning:

Literacy:

• In literacy we continued to build our reading and writing skills through our daily 5 jobs.  We read to self, worked on writing, read with someone and read with the teacher.  
• We are also strengthening our printing skills and working towards transferring our abilities when we are writing independently.
• In writing, we wrote about Groundhog's Day and facts we learned about Groundhogs. 

Math:

• The grade 2s are finishing up our work with geometry which includes 2D and 3D shapes. 
• We learned about the word symmetry and applied our sorting knowledge to sort shapes and objects based on their attributes. 
• We used our knowledge about turning, flipping and sliding shapes to draw objects and create artwork.
• The grades 1s were introduced to the meaning of addition and subtraction. We learned about part-part-whole (combining two parts to make up a whole), and solving addition and subtraction word problems. We also created our own addition word problem.   

Inquiry:

• February is Black History Month and we have begun reading stories celebrating the rich past and present accomplishments of Black people in Canada and will continue discussing their contributions as well as embracing the opportunities for the future. Ask your child about Ruby Bridges. 
• We have also have begun discussing the Lunar New Year, which is on February 10th. We read the story of The Great Race and the Chinese Zodiac.  Ask your child what animal they are based on the year they were born. 
• The learners were also excited to learn about the Nian Monster story within the Chinese Culture.  Ask your child what Nian was afraid of and how it has influenced the traditions of Chinese New Year .
• Today, we used the Indi Robots to complete a challenge.  Ask your child about the challenge and if they were successful.