Winter Walk

On Wednesday, December 18, Miss Caughey and Ms. Adharsingh's classes went for a winter walk to Confederation Park. We spent the morning exploring the colours of winter, sea and the propensity of snow. Many students built a snowman, tunnels, forts with the snow. Others found a stick and drew pictures in untouched snow patches. A few made snow angels, rolled or slid down the hills. We had a lot of fun investigating the wonder of snow. I hope everyone has a relaxing and restful winter break and we will see you in 2020.

 Reminders: 
Please return signed report card envelopes to Ms. Adharsingh
No school from December 20 - January 6
Book orders due January 17

Curriculum News

Curriculum News - Grade ½

December 2019

 

Dear Parents and/or Guardians,

This is a brief outline of what the Grade ½ classrooms have been working on throughout the duration of this reporting period. As each teacher’s schedule varies depending upon when she has Music and/or Physical Education, subjects including: Math, Science and Social Studies take place at different times throughout the day.

It is also important to remember that Science and Social Studies are often integrated with Language Arts.

Language Arts

We usually begin each morning with a variety of Balanced Literacy types of learning tasks including: guided reading, guided writing, shared reading, shared writing, calendar tasks, teacher read alouds, an assortment of word work activities as well as independent journal writing. Teachers have many personal favourites when it comes to what books they like to read to the students but, we select and share texts pertaining to topics which are currently being studied. We also read a high number of books about mental wellness, self-esteem, bullying, getting along with others and friendship skills.

Math       

The primary focus for the students has been learning all about creating, extending and translating repeating patterns. The Grade 2 children have also been introduced to growing or increasing patterns.

The Grade 1 students have been working on developing Number Sense by enhancing their ability to subitize arrangements of dots from 0 to 10, counting by 1s up to 100, skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s up to 100, representing numbers from 0 to 20 in a variety of ways as well as working on mental recall of the basic addition/subtraction facts up 20.

The Grade 2 children have been introduced to the strand of Statistics and Probability. They have engaged in a variety of graphing tasks which include: conducting surveys, collecting data in the form of tally marks and interpreting the data in the form of bar graphs and pictographs. The students have also been developing Number Sense by participating in a wide assortment of learning tasks revolving around the use of dice games (i.e. Hit 100, Hit 0), Power of Ten cards and problem-solving types of activities. 

Science

Creating Colour and Seasonal Changes are the two units of study which have been presented this term.

Throughout the Creating Colour unit, students have engaged in learning tasks pertaining to primary colours, secondary colours, tints, shades, value and tones. They have conducted various experiments relating to colour (i.e. chromatography where they learned the colour black is actually made up of all of the other colours).

Throughout our study of Seasonal Changes, the students had an opportunity to go on a Community Walk to Confederation Park to explore the changes in nature as we transitioned from summer to fall (ie. colour changes, leaves falling). We also went to the Leighton Art Centre where we had the opportunity to discuss animal patterns as they get ready for winter. We read many stories about fall, collected natural found objects and created nature collages.

       

Social Studies

                        

In Social Studies, we have begun the unit of study entitled, “My Family, My History and My Community.” Students have been discussing or bringing in items from home to share their family’s heritage, traditions, and celebrations with their peers. We have talked about all of the different languages students speak at home and have engaged in whole group discussions about how every family is special with their own unique culture.

Physical Education

The students have been developing their basic skills (ie. locomotor, non-locomotor) in the areas of Cooperative Games, Skipping, Soccer, Volleyball, Badminton and Curling. Throughout these units, students have also been working on developing the skills of sportsmanship, fair play, teamwork and communication needed to be successful in team activities.

Health

Making healthy food choices, engaging in physical fitness, establishing positive friendships, setting personal goals and mental wellness are all integral components of the Health program. 

Sincerely,

The Grade ½ Team

*Please Note – You can access more information about the Alberta Program of Studies by

  going to the link below:

https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mychildslearning/

Floor Curling

For the last 2 weeks we have been learning the sport of curling. We first practiced the curling stance and pointing to the target. Then we released the rock so it rolls to the target. We self-evaluated every time we "threw a rock" so we would either roll it a little harder or lighter the next time so we can get it in the house and hopefully on the button. Then we learned to bump the other team's rock away from the house and get our rock in. The last few days that we played, we counted a point for the closest rock to the button and for the quietist team to retrieve their stones at the end of each round. We played many different teams throughout our class time.

Winter Celebration

Hello Families,

Please join us this Thursday December 12 between 6-8pm for carolling, make and give winter activities, buskers and some warm drinks (hot chocolate and cider). Some of the activities will include stuffing socks with the toiletry donations for the Mustard Seed, bird seed feeders, letters for seniors and place mats. 

Please bring cash to purchase drinks and make donations. 

The children are so excited to give back to the community this winter.

We look forward to seeing you all there!🎄

Animal Research

This week we started learning about research on animals. First, we learned how to organize information using headings in our "flip books". As a large group we read sentences about bears and then underlined the important information. In the flip book, students found the correct page to add a "jot note". Students learned to only write 3 or 4 words from a sentence (not complete sentences at this time). I want the students to know that we always write sentences in their own words when we do inquiry work.

For our animal inquiry project, students chose their own animal that prepares for winter. They are working in a group using non-fiction books from the public and school library as well as using iPads for internet access.