January 29, 2016

Literacy

We've have completed publishing our book! They're going to hang out for a little bit in the classroom so student's have time to share their books with one another before I send them home.

We've also completed some daily journaling. Student's enjoyed journaling about "If it really rained cats and dogs"!

Math

This week we've continued to practice our subtraction strategies, as well as looking at the relationship between addition and subtraction:

10 + 3 = 13

13 – 3 = 10

13 – 10 = 3

Science

This week in Science we've been exploring "how heavy liquids are" [density] and how liquids of different densities act when introduced to each other. 

Looking at the density of different liquids (Bottom to Top: syrup, dish soap, water, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, cooking oil, baby oil)

Looking at Oil and Water

Social Studies

This week we've been looking at the City of Saskatoon, exploring it's buildings and similarities to Calgary.

Student's created building's we would find in Saskatoon.

January 25, 2016 - Special Blog Entry

Today our student's received their logins for Mathletics. You can let them explore Mathletics by following this address:


www.mathletics.ca

You will need your username and password. You can find this taped to the inside of your child's agenda.

January 22, 2016

Please note, report cards have been sent home today, Friday January 22.

Literacy

This week in Literacy we've continued to work on our stories. Student's have been peer editing their work, as well as conferencing with myself to edit work.

Many of us have completed word processing and we'll begin to move onto illustration and binding our books next week.

Math

This week in Math we've begun to explore subtraction.

Grade 1's have been looking at simple subtraction with numbers of 12 or less.
Grade 2's have been looking at column subtraction, without regrouping. Some student's who have secured their knowledge in subtraction are working on subtraction with regrouping (borrowing).

Science

This week in Science we've been exploring mixing liquids with other liquids (oil, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and corn syrup) to see how they behave when left, and when stirred.

We've also looked at what happens to solids (flour, cornstarch, coffee, sugar and epsom salts). Student's learned about solids dissolving in liquids.

Mixing Liquids

Dissolving Solids

Social Studies

This week in Social Studies we've moved onto looking at Saskatoon, where it is and what we might see if we went to Saskatoon.

January 15, 2016

Literacy

This week in Literacy we've continue story writing on our big pieces. Students have completed their plans and are drafting their work. We hope to have editing and word processing done for next week!

A sample of our writing drafts.

Math

This week in math we've continued to practice our addition skills and problem solving in addition. Please take time to review and practice adding skills with your children at home, as this will help them build fluency in addition.

Science

This week in Science we've looked at the surface tension of liquids, specifically water, through a variety of experiments.

Looking at waters meniscus. 

Looking at how many water drops we can hold on a penny to explore surface tension.

Examining how we can break the surface tension of water.

Social Studies

We're wrapping up this part of our study on the Arctic and Inuit people.

Students built an igloo from straws and connectors.

January 8, 2016

Welcome back to the first week of school!

Literacy:

This week in literacy we read the book So Cozy by Lerryn Korda. It's a great story about a group of animals snuggling up... but get's a bit out of control!

We've used the book as a springboard to look at story cycles and building narratives. The story was also our first exercise in look at what quotation/speech marks are and how we use them. Student's had a chance to practice creating sentences with speech and speech marks in their word work this week.

We'll be authoring our own stories in the coming weeks, from drafting, editing, typing them out, illustrating them and book binding them!

Math:

This week we've been looking at the following skills:

Looking at ways to create different number sentences based on a number or equation:

12
6+ 6 = 12	7+ 5 = 12	8 + 4 = 12	9 + 3 = 12
10 + 2 = 12	11 + 1 = 12	12 + 0 = 12	5 +7 = 12
4 + 8 = 12	3 + 9 = 12	2 + 10 = 12	1 + 11 = 12

We've also been learning about how order does not matter when adding, in that you'll arrive at the same sum no matter how you add, however, this is not the case for subtraction.

We've also been looking at finding the missing number (for grade 2's) in adding:

____ + 13 = 19  or     14 + ___ = 23

This would be a great time for parents to practice basic adding and subtracting skills with their children at home. Practicing and becoming fluent in the basic skills will help give your child confidence. We practice using a variety of methods at school to find sums in addition, such as using our fingers, objects, number lines and 100 squares to count on from. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.


Science:

We've begun our new unit on Liquids and their properties. We explored how water acts and moves, looked at different types of liquids to examine their colours, smells, textures, as well as an experiment to "race" different liquids to examine the concept of viscosity.

Social Studies:

This week in Social we've continued looking at the Inuit people and land. We've looked at what modern life is like today for the Inuit and completed a Venn diagram to contrast the differences and find similarities.

Phys Ed

This week we've begun volleyball skills in P.E. and we also began our weekly Zumba class with Peirre and Michelle.