Advent and Book Creator App

Instead of regular homework, we are sending home the 'Caring Angel' for students to complete.  They can work on them all week and bring in on Thursday or Friday. Please read the sheet that accompanies the angel and students are encouraged to do their 'best' work as we will be sharing:)
We lit the first candle on our Advent wreath today.  Baby Jesus is not in the manger yet but we are getting excited for his arrival!

During short French today, we explored a new app...Book Creator!  As we begin our Procedural Writing unit in language, I thought this would be a great app to compliment this form of writing.  Students were encouraged to work and learn with a partner.  They seemed to grasp the app fairly easily! 

Just for fun!  We watched Mrs. A's new favourite song (and video).  I wonder if we can learn some new dance moves from the monkeys?

Growing Patterns

On Friday, after gym, students were asked to create a growing pattern using anything in the classroom and post to our padlet. Here is what they came up with!

Created with Padlet

Why We Wear A Poppy

We finally finished recording our voices:) Please leave a comment and share with any veterans or people who are currently in the military.  Thank you in advance:)

Pattern Practice

Here are some links to practice repeating and growing patterns:)
Growing Patterns
How Does My Pattern Grow?
Adventure Sequences
Brenda's Bedroom
Complete Pattern
Describing Patterns

Have Fun!

What do humans need?

View on Flipagram

View on Flipagram

Growing Patterns/Parent Homework/Mustache Day

Today we looked at growing patterns and how they keep getting bigger.  Here is the anchor chart created for the class:

Please don't forget to complete the Google form about "What do you need" from yesterday.  We don't have all the responses.  It is confidential:)
Mustache Day is on Friday to support Movember.  Please bring in a donation to support our campaign.

What do YOU Need? Parent Homework and the Bead Problem

Yesterday, we worked on a patterning problem with partners and shared our work on padlet.  It was interesting to note that there was more than one way to solve the problem.  Today we had a similar problem that we had to solve all by our self.

Created with Padlet

As part of our deep learning planning for Grade Two, we would love for moms and dads to fill out this survey.  All information will be kept private and your names will not appear.  Thanks in advance!
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Peace In My Fingers

During Bullying Awareness and Prevention week, many of our read alouds focused on bullies, small acts of kindness and making friends (even though they my be enemies at first).  Some of the books we read this week included:

Students were able to make many connections to these stories and the message of standing up for yourself. They also realized that kind words and gestures can sometimes turn bad situations into good situations.  On Thursday, we brainstormed things that we could say to other people that are kind and promote peace.  Take a look at our short video (and apologies for the earworm...this tune will get stuck in your head!).

All About Liam

Kindness

We had a fire alarm today at school and we did very well!  Way to go grade 2s! Please check out our blogs here to look at what we have been up to at our math stations.
We also continued to look at being good digital citizens and brainstormed words about kindness.  Our words were turned into this beautiful heart:)

Created with Tagul.com

Samaritans on the Digital Road and Science

Today we continued to learn about online safety using the Samaritans on the Digital Road.  We learned that we should post nice comments on each other's blogs and to make sure mom and dad see what we are writing.  Try to post a positive comment on someone's blog tonight.  Don't forget to reread your comment and make sure you have spelled words correctly. We never talk to strangers online (or in the real world either) and we don't tell personal information either. Ask your child what else they learned today! Here are some of the videos we watched today during Religion.
BrainPop Digital Etiquette

We continue to explore and investigate air and water in science.  During station time, one of the groups got the chance to make it rain.  On Friday, I took a photo of the puddle near the fence and took another photo yesterday.  What happened and what do YOU think happened to all the water?  Today there was NO water at all!

Friday puddle

Monday puddle

Van Gogh, Picasso, Badly Drawn Dog and Science

Congratulations to Van and Grace for wining the Community Gospel Value certificate for the month of October!
In math, we began our patterning stations and some of us were able to post our work to our blogs. Later, we did a mini-artist unit on Van Gogh and Picasso.  We learned a lot about them and their style of painting.  It is hard to believe that Van Gogh only sold one painting in his entire life! Afterwards. we read the book Badly Drawn Dog.  Badly drawn dog does not look the way he would like and gets changed into various styles of 'dog' (a Picasso-esque dog and a Van Gogh-esque dog).  We agreed that the author's message was to probably be proud of what you look like and don't try to be like everyone else! Students decided that they would like to create their very own badly drawn dog and choose the style in which to represent it.
Here is the Google Slideshow Mrs. A made about the artists.  You can watch a cute video at the end too!

In Science, we continue to investigate air and water.  After we went over the science stations for this week and next week, we created a padlet about how people, animals and plants use air and water.  We sure did know a lot of information!

Created with Padlet

Our OK Book

After reading The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, we created our own ok book!

Google Drawings Revisited and All About Tessa

Our Grade Six tech buddies met with us today as we continue to explore Google Drawings.  Our learning goal was to create a pattern where 2 attributes changed (e.g. colour/shape, size/shape...) Together, we went over the success criteria before beginning to create our patterns on Google. When their pattern was completed, they had to move it into their Google Drive Math folder.  If they had time, they could also post on their blog using the Drive upload icon. It was a very successful block and the students were very engaged.  They are getting better at navigating Google and using the ipad to upload work to their blogs.

Tessa was our MonSTAR of the week and got to share some pictures of her family with the class at the end of the day.  Here is her Google Slideshow she made at the beginning of the year!

What do YOU need and Love It!

Today, we used padlet to answer the following question...What do YOU need?  Here are our answers!

Created with Padlet

My Monster

Remembrance Day and Recount

We continue to learn about writing a good recount.  At the end of the day, we collaborated to write a really good recount of our gym class.  It had lots of details and used linking words to bump the sentences up.  What do you think?

Tomorrow we will be having a Remembrance Day ceremony in the gym at 10:45.  Please wear your uniform or the colour red.  We watched a video called 'Why Wear a Poppy' and wrote about it at one of our literacy stations.


We also read 'Remembrance Day-The Story' during shared reading.  We brainstormed all the words we could think of that reminded us of Remembrance Day and made this...

Created with Tagul.com

Poppies for Sale

Poppies are for sale at St. Cecilia for Remembrance Day.  If you can join us this Wednesday, there will be a Remembrance Day Ceremony in the gym at 10:30.  Students who are in Scouts, Brownies or Cubs are encouraged to wear their uniforms. Please come if you can!

Homework went home today and is due this Thursday.  Students are encouraged to double-check their work and can use a pen to mark their work:)

Kidblog Posts at Science Stations

Be sure to check out our Science Station posts on our blogs!

All About Lucas and the OK Book

Lucas was our Star of the Week today.  He showed his photos on the smartboard and did an excellent job of explaining the photographs.  Here is his Google Slide show:

For the Global Read Aloud, we read the story 'The OK Book'.  We had a few ideas about what the author's message might be.  Some thought it might be about trying to do things until you become really good at them.  Other people thought the message might be to keep trying things even if you are not great at them.  You might still have fun!  The bottom line is...it's Ok to be OK at something.  as one of the students said...we can't be good at EVERYTHING!  Just imagine what it would be like if we never tried new things because we thought we might fail or thought we wouldn't be the best. What are you OK at?

We continue to practice rounding numbers to the nearest ten,  Look at your number and think about which two tens the number is between,  Remember that numbers that end in 1,2,3 or 4 round down. If a number ends in 5,6,7,8 or 9 you round it up!  If the number ends in 0 you leave it alone...it stays the same the number ends in 0 it stays the same:)

All About Rubi and November Newsletter

Our Star of the Week was Rubi.  Here is her Google Slides presentation:

You can also find the November newsletter here or on the sidebar.

It's Not Fair and Pumpkin Patch

I finally got around to putting our Halloween Version of the book "It's Not Fair" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  Take a peek!

We also have been learning about Secondary Colours and how to make them if you don't have the colours at your house.  Hint:  You can use primary colours (red, yellow and blue) to make secondary colours.  We mixed the three primary colours to make the secondary colours.  Afterwards, we painted a sky and grass.  Later on, we painted some paper orange (let it dry) and cut out pumpkins! Take a peek!

View on Flipagram

Rounding Numbers, Challenge and the Water Cycle

Today we did a quick lesson on how to round numbers.  Here is the chart to help us remember how to do it:

We also played a little game to see if we could put our 'numbers' in the right spot!  Our numbers could either round down to 60 or round up to 70.

Where should my number go?

Yesterday, our classes took part in the Marshmallow Spaghetti Challenge.  We talked about what made good collaborating and we created an anchor chart on how to collaborate.  We decided we would like to try and build the structure again!

In Science we continue to work at our stations and using apps to share our learning.  If you check out our blogs, you might see some of the things we have been doing:)

Health Nurse, Challenge and Science Stations

This morning we had a presentation from our Ottawa Public Health Nurse Kim.  She talked to us about medicine safety.  We discussed what we do if we are sick, how to prevent getting sick, prescription medicine, and non-prescription medicine.

Afterwards, we took part in the Marshmallow/Spaghetti Challenge. We had to construct a freestanding structure (using spaghetti, tape and string) with a marshmallow on top! On top of that, we had only 18 minutes to construct our structure. Two groups were able to build their marshmallow building and have it stand for at least one second. Some advice they gave to the other groups were to tape the spaghetti to the table or bundle all the spaghetti together at the bottom. Another group found that by creating four legs, their structure was more stable and did not fall down. One of Ms. Ng's group was able to create a structure that was 52 cm tall! Well done! All in all, we learned that we had to work together and if something did work the first time, to persevere and try something else.

This afternoon, we began our Science Stations for Air and Water.  Before we began our inquiries, we had to come up with some safety rules before we got started. We certainly had a lot of background knowledge of how to play it safe when conducting experiments!  Some of the groups are learning how to use their Google Drive to access videos and files that Mrs. A has put in their Science folders. Other groups are conducting experiments or learning how to be Water Wise.  Students have been given a lot of choice in how to show their learning (ex. Explain Everything, poster, piccollage).  Due to a fire drill, most of the kids were unable to post completed work to their blogs.  Hopefully, we will be able to catch up tomorrow and continue on our inquiries:)