Friday, Feb. 23

Hello Families!

Important Dates:

March 11th - Mrs. Khan's class to Telus Spark (All day)

March 19th - Mrs. Day's class to Telus Spark (All day)

March 25th - April 1st - Spring Break - No School

Thank you to our parents who have volunteered to help out with our Telus Spark field trip next month.  We are still in search of one more parent for Mrs. Day's and one more parent for Mrs. Khan's class.  Also, Mrs. Day's class will be getting the field trip forms next week. 

Our learning:

Literacy:

• We have been practicing our instructional writing and in the last two weeks we have learned about adding text features to enhance our writing.
• Within our writers' workshop we have planned and written how to get ready for school and how to be a superhero. 
• We have been working in literacy centres that include, reading with the teacher, reading with someone and word work.  Next week we are switching up and introducing some new centres. 
• Ask your child their favourite task is during Daily 6. 

Math:

• In grade 2, we are building our strategies of addition and subtraction using smaller numbers.  We have really focused on the strategies of doubles, doubles +1, doubles - 1 and are now moving on to making 10. 
  
• We have been also strengthening our addition and subtraction skills through daily number talks and math games.
• In grade 1, we learned the strategies of counting on and counting back within addition and subtraction.  
• We have also been learning some really fun games to enhance our skills.  

Inquiry:

• We have learned about some more Arctic animals, Polar Bears and Orcas.  We are becoming quite good at our scientific drawings with labels.  
• We learned the February Cree Moon is the mikisiwipiism (the Eagle Moon).
• After learning about different animals we introduced food chains and what they mean.  We have also been examining the different food chains we have in prairie and arctic communities.  
•  To continue our learning of Earth Systems, we created some seasonal tree art with paint.  

Friday, February 9th

 Hello Families!

Important Dates:

Thursday and Friday, Feb. 15-16 - No School - Teachers' Convention

Monday, Feb. 19 - No School - Family Day

Our learning:

Literacy:

• We have moved into more jobs during our Daily 5 literacy time.  Ask your child the different literacy centres they completed this week.  We have learned the routines this week and are moving towards building our stamina in the coming days. 
• This is the end of our 6 week literacy group cycle where we will look at everyone's skills and begin again in a couple of weeks. 
• In writing we practiced how to writing using the SAD formula to about making a snowman.  Ask your child what this means.  (Hint: sequence, action, detail) 
• We also listened to the story Stuck by Oliver Jeffers and worked on retelling the beginning, middle and end of the story.  Ask your child what the biggest part of a story is. 

Math:

• In grade 2, we are building our knowledge of the meaning of addition and subtraction.  We also reviewed the terms, equal, equation, adding and subtracting.  
• We completed word problems to make them addition or subtraction problems as well as created our own problems and equations based upon a picture prompt.
• We then practiced the counting on and counting back strategies to play addition/subtraction connect four. 
• In grade 1, we continue to build our addition and subtraction strategies.  
• This week we developed our ability to use addition to make 10.

Inquiry:

• This week we read many stories and non-fiction books about the Lunar New Year.  We also sang a song about the Monster Nian.  Which we learned means year - thank you Joecy!
• Ask your child about all the Lunar New Year traditions. 
• Today we excitedly cleaned the classroom top to bottom to get rid of all the bad luck for the new year. 
• In learning about the Arctic, we learned about Igloos and the term insulation.  Mr. Kelly was in our class today and taught us about an Inuksuk and lead us through an art lesson. See below for our beautiful drawings. 
• To continue our learning around Black History Month, we learned about the artist Alma Thomas. She was an artist and a teacher whose painting "Resurrection" was unveiled as part of the White House Collection in 2015 and is the first in this collection by an African-American woman. 
• We were inspired by her art to create our own using paint.  See below for a picture. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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. 

Friday, January 26th

Hello Families! 

Important Dates:
Monday. Jan. 22 - Friday, Jan. 26 - Lacrosse Residency
Monday, Jan. 29 - Thursday, Feb. 29 - Swimming Lessons (Grade 1 and 2)
Tuesday, Jan. 30 - Report cards available in MyCBE

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

Our learning:

Literacy:

• This week we learned how to give detailed instructions, ask your child what instructions they had to give to Mrs. Day (Hint: bagel) 
• We learned how to used sequence words such as first, then, next, and last. We used these words to give "How To" instructions for getting ready for lunch
• We wrote our own "How To" instructions using sequence words about how to clean up after lunch.

Math:

• In grade 2, we practiced sorting 3D shapes based on different attributes. 
• The grade 2s also created a variety of 3D shapes with play dough. 
• In grade 1, we had our first introduction to the meaning of addition. We used ten frames and number paths to show addition. Grade 1s were encouraged to think about addition as joining, that is, identifying the initial amount and the amount to be added. 
• We also practiced solving addition word problems. For example, 9 children were playing in a sand box, 2 children joined them. How many children are playing in the sandbox?

Inquiry:

• In wellness, we read a story called "The Magical Yet" by Angela DiTerlizzi. We talked about resiliency and how you might not be good at something... yet. In our visual journals we created "Yet" posters. We thought of different goals of something that we would like to work on and that we can't yet do.   
• This week in inquiry, we began talking about The Arctic. We enjoyed learning about the aurora borealis and created art to reflect out learning. 
• Today, we were given a challenge with the Indi Robots. Our challenge was to have our robot go the furthest distance, we used our feet to measure the distance our robot travelled. 
• We had so much fun learning about lacrosse this week. Our lacrosse teacher, Mr. Tyler taught us a variety of different skills such as cradling, pancake flips, passing, and a variety of different tricks. 

Friday, January 19th

Hello Families!

Important Dates:
Monday. Jan. 22 - Friday, Jan. 26 - Lacrosse Residency
Monday, Jan. 29 - Thursday, Feb. 29 - Swimming Lessons (Grade 1 and 2)
Tuesday, Jan. 30 - Report cards available in MyCBE

Huge thank you to everyone for returning the swimming forms!  

Our learning:

Literacy:

• We read stories and brainstormed the different between stopping an event story versus an ending.  Ask your child the formula to writing an effective ending (HINT: topic + feeling)
• Then we used examples in story books and the formula to write effective endings to an event story.  Next we will be moving onto instructional writing. 
• We are also testing our comprehension of stories that are read aloud.  Ask your child about the books that were read this week and the lessons the main character were taught. 

Math:

• In grade 2, we are learning about the names and different attributes of 3D shapes.  Ask you child the names of the 3D shapes. 
• We learned the terms edges, vertices and faces and learned how to draw some of the shapes as well as identifying where we might see them in the environment. 
• In grade 1, we continued to explore 3D shapes. We learned to identify the nets of various 3D shapes and used those nets to create 3D shapes out of paper.  
• Today we used our knowledge of shapes and also learned how to slide, rotate and flip 2D shapes to create shape art.  (see pictures below)

Inquiry:

• We have been finishing up our prairie community inquiry and learned some interesting facts about the Prairie Dogs. 
• We also brainstormed all the facts and our understandings of the prairies to begin to create a visual representation of our knowledge. 
• In wellness, we have discussed following the group plan and this week we talked about including others and making connections. 

Friday, January 12

Hello Families!

We had a wonderful first week back in grade 1/2. 

Important Dates:

Monday, Jan. 15 - Non - Instructional Day - No School

Monday. Jan. 22 - Friday, Jan. 26 - Lacrosse Residency

Monday, Jan. 29 - Thursday, Feb. 29 - Swimming Lessons (Grade 1 and 2) 

Tuesday, Jan. 30 - Report cards available in MyCBE

Our learning:

Literacy:

• In writing, we learned about "move-along" words or transition words such as next, later, then, after that, and finally. We talked about how we can use these words to move our stories forward and practiced using them in our writing.
• We continued to practice writing event stories, we started with a plan and then used our plan to create our stories. We tried to include transition words in our stories this week. 
• We practiced making words with a given set of letters and tried to figure out the "secret word" by using all the letters. 

Math:

• In grade one, we learned about 3-D shapes. We learned to identify and sort 3-D shapes. We had a 3-D shape hunt in our classroom!  
• The grade ones also created a visual journal page to show the difference between 2-D and 3-D shapes. We drew a variety of different 3-D objects such as oranges, books, earth, pencils, etc.
• In grade two, we have started to look at and explore 2D shapes. 
• We have analyzed the defining attributes (ex. # of sides, # of vertices, etc.) of different shapes and sorted them using our own sorting rules based on their attributes. 

Inquiry:

• We learned about different industries in the prairies. We learned that the primary industries in the prairies are agriculture and services. We drew a picture of common crops that are grown in the prairies.
  
• We learned how to draw "2024" in bubble letters and wrote about some of our goals for learning in the new year.
• We had time to explore our school's Indi robots today! Each mat gives the robots a different command, so today explored different ways we could make our robot move.  Some of us were able to move our robots a pretty far distance. We had so much fun!  (see some picture below)

Thanks for reading!

Friday, December 22nd

Hello Families!

We had an amazing last week before winter break. We had so much fun carolling in the gym with the whole school! 

Thank you so much for your generosity this holiday season. We really appreciate it! We wish you a happy holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Important Dates:

Friday, Dec. 22 - Last Day of Classes
Dec. 5 - Jan. 5 - Winter Break
Monday, Jan. 8 - Classes resume

Monday, Jan. 15 - Non - Instructional Day - No School

Our learning:

Literacy:

• In writing, we continued to talk about event stories and we came up with some great ideas. We also wrote about our favourite activities to do in winter.   
• We also has the opportunity to share our writing with our classmates during "Author's Chair". We continued to learn how to give feedback to each other and gave some great feedback on how we can improve our writing.

Math:

• In grade one, we continued to learn about 2D shapes and learned about how we can sort them by using a sorting rule. We came up with some great examples of sorting rules.  
• The grade ones also learned a new game called "Snap!", this game helps with comparing numbers. Ask your child to teach you how to play!
• In grade two, we learned about increasing patterns and practiced estimation. See some of our increasing patterns below!

Inquiry:

• We learned about different plants that are found in the prairies and did a guided drawing of an Aster flower.
• We have begun learning about prairie communities.  Ask your child the typical landscape of the prairies and what animals they might see. 
• We continued to discuss the importance of bison in the prairies. 
• We also created a winter scene for art.

Thanks for reading!