Happy Holidays!

It's been an extremely busy week! The Ernestown Secondary band also preformed for the school on Monday. We've had lots of practices for Thursday's Holiday Concert.  It was great to see how all three grade two classes worked together on the songs. We spent quite a bit of our Language and Social Studies time on learning about other celebrations. We read a book on Kwanzaa and then completed a worksheet. The students made Kwanzaa wreaths using the colours of Africa, red, green, and black. The wreaths also had the 7 principles of Kwanzaa on them. 

We learned about la Posada, which is celebrated in Mexico. Christmas is celebrated for 9 days and this time represents the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. We also learned about Three Kings Day, which is on January 6. This is when children get presents in their shoes in honour of the presents the Wise Men (Three Kings) gave to Jesus. Because of time constraints, we made piñata wands instead of actual piñatas. 

The last celebration we learned about this week was Christmas in Italy. The traditions in Italy depend on the region. In some areas, St. Nicholas Day is celebrated on December 6. In Northern Italy, St. Lucia Day is celebrated as in Scandinavian countries on December 13. In southern areas, the children receive gifts from La Befana on January 6. She was a kind witch who told the Wise Men that she was too busy cleaning to go with them to Bethlehem. She went on her own later but got lost. Now she leaves gifts every year for children, hoping that one of them is baby Jesus. 

On Wednesday we made Mexican hot chocolate. It's a slightly spicy version of a slow-cooked hot chocolate. The class enjoyed it with marshmallows, gingerbread men sprinkles and Christmas sprinkles. To go with this, they also had Italian "S" cookies for St. Lucia Day. 

We continued to learn about 2-d shapes. There continues to be some confusion for some between hexagons and octagons but we will continue to work on this in the new year. I hope that everyone gets a chance over the holidays to check out Prodigy. 

For our final Christmas craft, we had a lesson beforehand on how to tie reef knots. For some it was quite easy and for others it was a challenge. There are no pictures of this craft as the students made it as a present. 

I was surprised by how calm it was in the class today, especially after two concert performances yesterday where most were quite wound up all day. This morning we did a fun shared reading called "Le père Noël qui voulait changer de couleur". We did some follow-up comprehension questions after. We then had some quiet time to finish crafts and Ketchup work while watching a French Christmas movie. We did some math and then the class went outside for gym since they had missed their gym time yesterday because of concert set-up. This afternoon the class enjoyed a dance with all the other grade 1-4 classes. We then had a special dollar auction where all students could buy something and watched some more of this morning's movie. 

Thank you very much to all the families who sent in treats this week. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas with their family and I'm looking forward to seeing all the students in 2015!

Joyeux Noël. 

So Much Going On!

It's been a very busy week. There is so much going on around the school and in the class that it's hard to keep track of it all. In Language, the class practised the "x" and "y" sounds in "Le tyrannosaure" and "Un yack". We used some fun Christmas poems for our shared reading this week and focused on using punctuation to decide expression in both. (Question marks vs Exclamation marks) we continued to work on creating complete sentences in our writing centres. On Friday, we did a fun shared reading on the SMARTBOARD about a wolf who wanted to eat Santa and what happened to him. We spent quite a bit of time discussing vocabulary and did some follow-up comprehension questions together. We also discussed why certain words or letters were highlighted, i.e. silent letters...

In Math, we continued to complete centres on 2-d shapes and 3-d solids. We also spent some time on math talks using problems on the SMARTBOARD to initiate conversations. We also talked about the importance of making mistakes and discussing them together to help one another with reasoning and stategies to figure out how to best solve a problem. I always highlight that it's important to make mistakes in order for great learning to occur. We discuss wrong answers in the same respectful way we discuss right answers. In the case of the problem below, most of the wrong answers answered one part of the question correctly but missed the other step in the problem. It only took a bit of discussion to see that if they had included the rest of the problem, they would have been able to better check the reasonableness of their answers. I'm very happy that the class is so understanding and that we have an environment where all the students are comfortable sharing and talking about their answers, whether right or wrong!

We have continued learning about different celebrations that take place at this time of year. Jacob and Mitchell Bromberg were kind enough to come share some of their Chanukah traditions. They brought a menorah and some dreidls to show the class. Thank you very much, boys! We made menorahs and dreidls as follow-up craft activities. As I was unable to find "les soufganiots", a traditional Jewish doughnut type treat that is covered with powdered sugar and filled with jam, we made do with powdered sugar mini doughnuts topped with a bit of berry jam. Yummy!

We also learned about Christmas in England, Germany, and Sweden. We learned about Saint Lucia Day which the Swedes celebrate on December 13th of each year. The class watched a short video about how they celebrate this holiday and then we made Saint Lucia crowns. We will be learning more about Christmas in other countries next week. 

We learned about how most North Americans celebrate Christmas and where many of the traditions we have come from. (Christmas trees from Germany, Christmas cards and carolling from England, Poinsettias from Mexico...) We were busy Friday afternoon making a Christmas craft during Visual Arts but I won't be sharing what it is as many of the students are giving them as presents! 😄

Some other things that went on this week....

We watched Mme Adamson's grade ones perform "Pat le chat" plays on Tuesday. We've been busying practising for the Holiday Concert with the other grade twos. It's coming together nicely. Some of the girls have been practising with the choir for their performances. 

The Holiday Concert will take place this coming Thursday evening at 6:30 pm. Students are asked to be at school by 6:00 pm in order for classes/choirs to get organized. There will be a Dress Rehearsal on Thursday morning that parents can attend if they are unable to make the evening performance. 

Friday will be a pyjama day and there will be dances and a canteen in the afternoon. 

I have just registered the class with Prodigy Math. It's a free math game website where the students play games linked to the provincial expectations for their grade. Instructions with a student log-in and password will be sent home this week so that the students can play at home. 

Have a great weekend!

Posting for Two Weeks

Last week was the first time I did not do a weekly post. It was a bit crazy in my household with a sick child and having to be away to stay at home with him. This week's post will include information on what we did last week.

First of all, the December Newsletter has been posted at the top of the blog. Please check it out for upcoming important dates. 

Last week we looked at the "t" and "u" sounds in "La tortue" and "Une mule". We began a new cycle of Reading centres. The students really enjoyed the centre where they had to use a mirror to read words written backward. They then wrote their own words backwards and had other group members read them with the mirrors. We finished up our first cycle of writing centres. They went well. 

Last week in math, the students worked on math centres that focused on 2-d shapes and 3-d solids. They are still practising basic math facts in preparation of out next math unit on 2-digit addition and subtraction. 

Mr. McLatchie's grade twos joined our class one morning last week to watch a couple of episodes of The Magic School Bus so that he could attend an important meeting at the office. 

This week the students looked at the "v" and "w" sounds in "La vache" and "Les wapitis". They learned that the French alphabet never used to contain the letter "w" and that all "w" words in French are borrowed from other languages. They were also surprised that in French, the word "wagon" is actually pronounced "vagon". Our shared reading was the poem "On dirait que l'hiver tombe". We also started having Christmas stories as read alouds. We began another cycle of writing centres and finished up our cycle of reading centres. We will be focusing more on integrating Social Studies with Language in order to cover a lot of information on the different celebrations that take place at this time of year. 

In math, we have continued to learn about 2-d shapes and 3-d solids. There is a considerable amount of terminology that they need to know in this unit so we will spend the next couple of weeks on it. We also did a couple of "Math Talks". The students are getting used to sharing what strategies they use and are learning other strategies from their peers. 

In Social Studies, the class finished learning about London, England. Today we began learning about Hanukkah and will be doing some activities around this celebration next week. 

This week, I also began a "December Report Card" for the class. The report will cover the students' behaviour and work habits over the month. They are earning stickers for each instruction block and each nutrition break. This week I did all the tracking for them but starting next week, they will be responsible for bringing their reports to me to get their stickers. The reports will go home on the 19th. The students are also completing an advent calendar where they colour an item for each day leading up to Christmas. 

We had a great walk today for the Jingle Bell Walk. It was great that so many of the students brought in food items for the Food Bank. There is still time to contribute on Monday, if you child has not yet brought something. 

Have a great weekend!

Mlle Carmichael's Last Week

We were very sad today to say goodbye to Mlle Carmichael. It's been great having her in the class for the past six weeks. She has been home sick since yesterday morning so we were worried that she wouldn't be there for the small celebration we had this afternoon. Luckily she felt well enough to come in at the end of the day.

This week we read "Feuille rousse, feuille folle" for our shared reading. We practised the "r" sound in "Le robot" and the "s" sound in "Sissie". We finished up another cycle of reading centres and began a new cycle. One of our activities was to practise reading words quickly to improve fluency. One of our new activities is to read words using a mirror. We also began writing centres this week. They are rotating through a guided centre with me where we are doing mini lessons and then practising the skills being learned. This cycle is focusing on writing sentences. Another centre is using play doh to practise spelling word wall words. There is also a centre is to practise skills independently. Two of the centres are to practise the spelling patterns they need to master, one a booklet with sorting activities that they practise independently and the other a typing activity of words with that spelling pattern. The last centre is a group poem writing activity. 

In Math, we have been finishing up the unit on graphing. Next week we will be beginning a new unit on 2-D shapes and 3-D solids. We will begin a new cycle of centres. We have been completing activities for the interactive math journal we started. 

In Social Studies, we have been learning about Europe. This week the students learned about Sweden. 

Les champs flamands on display