In grade two we are starting to develop our digital literacy skills. We have been reading emails from our teacher in order to share information and links. We have been creating Google slides to demonstrate our understanding of topics, including Canadian Animals and Acadian Villages. We are beginning to take the skills we have learned about healthy, positive relationships with people, and learn how to continue to have healthy relationships in the digital world. We will be having a series of mini-lessons in our classroom as we learn about being digital natives, creating digital footprints, time spent using technology, and how to maintain healthy relationships while online (also called Netiquette). We know that many of us have limited screen time with TV's, computers, laptops, and Smartphones. This is a good beginning to developing healthy relationships with media tools. We also want to encourage you as our parents to talk with us about health, safety, and respect while online. Here are some initial resources that you can use as a parent: If you have any resources that you think would help other parents or would be great to share in our classroom, please email the online links to Ms. Bates: [email protected] We look forward to learning more about the digital world with you! - Ms. Bates' class As we learn about Nova Scotia, we discovered that curling is an important part of their local culture. Curling is a sport that was invented in Scotland in the 1600's and brought to Canada with Scottish emigrants. It includes throwing special curling rocks down sheets of ice toward a house made of concentric circles. Since Canada already had ice and rocks, it was a natural fit for a sport that has now spread across our country. Thank you to Edgemont's Parent Council, the school has been gifted with curling sets that allow us to experience the sport without the need for ice or the cold. We watched an instructional video that taught us how to throw a rock, sweep the ice, and communicate during the sport with sayings like, "Hurry Hard!" We adapted the sport for our learning environment, learned how to take turns throwing rocks, how to keep score, and how to congratulate the winners knowing that learning a new sport made us all winners. We will continue to curl throughout the year as we have enjoyed it so much! In early February as began to learn about buoyancy, boats, and liquids. Using hands-on activities coupled with real world experiences, we began our science experiments to explore these ideas. The first experiment we tried was bringing in 10 different objects from home, 5 we thought would sink in water, and 5 that we thought would float in water. During the experiment we wrote down our hypothesis for each object (sink or float), then we placed the object in water to observe the result. Students documented their learning as our test either supported or didn't support our hypothesis. We learned that it is not about being correct, it is about learning from our hypothesis and from our test. Adult scientists make hypothesis that are not always correct, which is how they learn and grow as scientists. We learn and grow in the same way. We will continue to develop our research and scientific skills as we learn about buoyancy, boats, and liquids.
- Ms. Bates We had a wonderful visit with Jamie, the nutritionist, from Byblos Bakery. She had the children excited to think how food different food benefit our bodies.
Food Super Powers: Vegetables & Fruit: keeps out bodies healthy Grain Products: provides energy Milk & Alternatives: strong teeth and bones Meat & Alternatives: builds muscles The children had the opportunity to create their own "super" food packed pitas. The conversation by the students while they were eating was very focused on what they put in their pita..."I had one of every super power. I'm a super food hero." We hope you enjoyed the pitas that Byblos Bakery donated along with a sample of Wowbutter. We look forward to the work we will continue on this subject with the grocery flyers you've sent in. Thanks for that support. We are busy learning about three places in Canada as part of the Alberta Program of Studies: Alberta, Nunavut, and Nova Scotia. Our class learning began with an activity in which we did our best to identify and organize unique objects that could be found in each province. We are now completing research through books and the internet that is helping us gather information in order to compare the similarities and differences between the three Canadian provinces. Our learning adventure took us into Alberta as we began talking about the hoodoos and badlands, as well as the Burgess Shale. These places make Alberta unique because fossils are found all over these regions. Fossils are the remains of a prehistoric animals saved in rocks or rock sediment. After sharing what we had learned our conversation lead to a desire to create our own fossils based on the prehistoris ones we would find in our own province, Alberta. As student found a fossil making project in an art book, so Ms. Bates made salt dough and we begin representing our learning through this artisitc medium. We used websites to find actual Alberta fossils, learn their names, and understand interesting facts about them. Each student then chose a fossil to create. We began learning how to manipulate the salt dough. Using several different tools we poked, carved, cut, and shaped the inside of our lumps of dough, each student creating the fossil chosen. Several of us had to work with the salt dough for some time to learn how to etch and carve a fossil in a realistic way. We used patience and shared tips as we created our individual fossils. When the fossils were complete, we shared them with our parents as part of our November parent and teacher conferences. We have had many compliments from teachers, students, and parents on our scientific and creative work. In understanding the land formations of our province (Burgess Shale and the hoodoos), and the unique contents of these places (prehistoric fossils) we see how our history influences our present. As we move forward in our learning, we will make connections between people and our first ancestors in Alberta, how scientific research and tourism in these areas support our communities, and ways in which fossils connect us to other Canadian communities. Students were very involved and excited about this work, took the creation of their fossil seriously, and generated some well made fossils based in our art and science skills. Excellent work making fossils to represent Alberta grade two's! - Ms. Bates Thank you to all the parents, families, and children who came to parent-teacher conferences over the past two days. I really enjoyed talking with you about the progress we all have been making in grade two. As well, it was interesting for me to find out what you were enjoying about our learning, and what you feel could improve about our classroom.
Your parents were impressed with the reading and writing skills you have developed over the past few months. They were positively surprised with our art infused science as we have developed our researcher skills, and learned how to communicate our learning through words, pictures, art objects, and conversation. Take some time this weekend to heal if you have been sick. Remember to help you body heal with sleep, fresh water, as well as eating fruits and vegetable, which we know protect the body. We will gather again on Monday to continue our learning journey this year. - Ms. Bates Our grade two ELL team has been working on learning how to read nonfiction texts and acquiring vocabulary about some of the geographical features of three communities in different regions of Canada. When approaching nonfiction texts, we found out that it is important to read titles, headings, captions, and text boxes and to look at the photos and images. Another important step is to stop ourselves after a few sentences to check our understanding by trying to put it in our own words. In our conversations about our learning, we have continued on our grammar focus of paying attention to plurals and making sure our subjects and verbs match when using the present tense.
Thank you for your hard work students and teachers! - ELL Team Today we learned about the coins we use in Canada as money. We learned about the penny (1 cent), nickel (5 cents), dime (10 cents), and quarter (25 cents). We are also learning about the loonie (100 cents, 1 dollar) and toonie (200 cents, 2 dollars) but these are not as important to learn about in grade two. We listened to and sang along with our new class song: Canada In My Pocket. Feel free to play this at home and sing along with your child. Enjoy! |
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June 2017
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