Happy Birthday Baby Jesus

What a special day today was. We celebrated Jesus` birthday with so many great activities. We began our day with a mass to celebrate the 4th week of Advent (the theme of Love). 

Next, we went to the gym to eat a delicious turkey lunch cooked by members of the Vanier community. We are so fortunate to be part of this great school. They cooked us turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy and so much more! We loved it. Huge thank you to all those who spent so much time to cook for us and to celebrate Jesus` birthday in a special way. We ended the lunch with cake and happy birthday of course!

In the afternoon, each class got to visit with SANTA! He gave us some presents, including our very own plush beanie baby. We love them so much. What is the name of your beanie baby?
We also got to watch some Christmas movies and left with some sweet treats from Mrs. Swan and myself! We had such a fun day. 

Reminder that tomorrow (Friday December 20th) is a PD DAY - no school! We will enjoy the Christmas holidays from December 20th until January 3rd. Wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas. May your holidays be filled with love and family. And may you enjoy many blessings over the New Year!!!

See you back to school on Monday January 6th, 2014!!!

DreamBox

Great News! Our school has signed up our class on DreamBox Learning. DreamBox is an online math program that children can access at home. A letter with password information was in your child`s school bag today. You can sign in and start using DreamBox for math right away. It will be a great tool to use over the Christmas break to play some fun math games and review some math concepts. 

You can find our class login page here: 

https://play.dreambox.com/login/bau5/38564

Click on our class, find your child`s name and put in their password. Happy playing (and learning)!!

Christmas Surveys

Our Christmas graphing continued today. We are learning how to read data using different types of graphs. We also continue to work on converting one piece of data on a graph into another type of graph (for instance data on a tally chart into a pictograph).

Yesterday, we spent much of our day composing survey questions. We used our questions to poll teachers and students around our school. We created a tally chart to track our data. We consulted our Must Have checklist to see what we needed to add to our work. 
Today, we used our tally chart data to create a pictograph! Students worked with their partners to create pictographs. We consulted our Pictograph Must Have checklist to make sure we included all of the important information. Students are recognizing that the number of tallies is the same number of pictures in our pictographs. 

Great work grade 2! Our charts will be posted in our classroom to remind us how to read graphs once we get back from our Christmas holidays. 

Graphing Must Have's

In class today, we continued to focus on data to show information. We are looking at charts and graphs to help us show information based on survey questions. 

We focused on pictographs today. Pictographs use pictures to show information. We used the same information from our tally chart to create our pictograph. The survey question was: What Christmas tree ornament is your favourite? We focused on pictograph must have's. This list helped us to create the pictograph in our notebooks. 

We also labelled our work to show where each must have is located in our graph. The Must Have list will help us this week as we think of our own survey questions, poll students around our school, use tally charts to collect data and transfer the data to make our own pictographs! Stay tuned. 

Data & Surveys

In class we are started new learning in Math. We are looking at data in many different ways. Data shows/shares information about something. We are exploring different ways to collect data and how we can show the same information using different types of graphs. Our focus is showing how we can use a tally graph to show the same information using a pictograph.

A pictograph shows information using pictures. As a class, we are focusing on determining what a piece of data must have. This checklist will help us as we create our own survey questions to ask around our school next week. We will be creating our own pictographs to share information about a topic of our choice!

Ask your child what a graph must have. We will continue to practice creating pictographs and tally graphs next week.

What Child Is This?

Great news! Our class, along with our whole school will be participating in our school's Christmas Play taking place next week. The play will take place in our school's gym on Tuesday December 17th at 2:15pm. A note went home today with information and an invite to all parents who can attend. Our class has been preparing our special Christmas song What Child is This? If you are able to join us, we would love to have you watch our performance! In the mean time, we will be practicing this song each day to prepare for our performance. I sent home the lyrics to the song today. Please review and practice each night. Here is the Veggie Tales link that we are using to help us practice the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0ba98gP1EA 

Song Lyrics: What Child is This?

What child is this who laid to rest 

On Mary’s lap is sleeping?

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King,

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing.

Haste, haste to bring Him love,

The Babe, the son of Mary.

So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh,

Come, peasant, king, to own him.

The King of kings salvation brings,

Let loving hearts enthrone him.

This, this is Christ the King,

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:

Haste, haste to bring Him love,

The Babe, the son of Mary.

Hot 89.9 Christmas Surprise

Hot 89.9 arrived at our school this morning for a fun surprise! They entertained us in our gym while we ate breakfast! It was a rocking good time. Josie from the radio station spoke to us about the importance of eating breakfast each morning. She also shared with us why it's so important that we enjoy a healthy breakfast on a daily basis. We had a fun morning dancing with the whole school while eating a nutritious breakfast together. A huge thank you to 89.9 for the surprise today. Ask your child about our fun morning!

I-Can Checklists

In our Literacy Centers, we co-created I-Can checklists and have added them to our literacy centers. Together with the students, we created a checklist at a few of our centers. These checklists help us to keep track of what we need to do while working in the center.
We created one for the Read to Someone center. Our checklist reminds students how to find a just right book, and how to use our reading strategies while reading with a partner!

At our Writing Center, students are working on descriptive Christmas tree writing. They were using the checklist on their own last week so we decided to create mini checklists to refer to. Now students are using the checklists while at the center! Students are saying that the checklists help them to know what to do next. It is also helping students to recall what they can do in their groups while working on the acitivities. Way to go grade 2! Ask your child about our 2 I-Can Checklists...the descriptive writing checklist and the read to someone checklist. 

Advent Liturgy

This morning our class along with the grade 3 class led the 2nd week of Advent Liturgy! We have been preparing all week for this liturgy. Our classes did a wonderful job of singing our 3 songs and doing all of the readings. We were so proud of their great work!! A special thank you to the parents who were able to join us this morning. It was so wonderful that you could attend today!

During the liturgy, we talked about the theme of peace. Our 2 classes wondered about this theme and created a video to share what peace meant to us as we wait and prepare for the birth of Jesus at Christmas. We showed the video to the school today and then had a discussion as a school how we can prepare our hearts during the Advent season. 

In addition to the movie we created as a class, we watched a special video that talks about the story of Advent through a social media perspective. It ties in perfectly with our school board's focus on being safe, responsible and kind digital citizens.  What would the story of Advent look like if it happened in modern time? Here is a link to this beautiful video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sghwe4TYY18&feature=youtu.be

Language and Math Goals

We had a very busy week in Grade 2! Students worked all week on various patterning activities. We focused on repeated patterns and growing patterns. We talked about changing attributes, the pattern core and the pattern rule for many different pattern questions. 

Today we worked on an activity using snap cubes. We had to explain pattern rules using the manipulatives. Ask your child to identify the pattern rule for a growing pattern!

In Language we continue to talk about descriptive writing. We have been using adjectives to describe a Christmas tree and writing a story about it. We created a descriptive writing "look for" checklist that we used to help us create our own piece of writing. 

We use our 5 senses to describe just like we do when we visualize while reading. Students are doing a great job at labelling and describing their Christmas tree pictures with many details. We have been working on a rough draft the last few days. It was great to see that students created their own writing checklist at their desk while writing about their trees!! Excellent job friends. Good writers use a look for checklist to make sure they are on the right track. Next week we will continue to write about our Christmas trees. We will also add to our padlet thinking of Christmas trees. Here is what we have so far: http://padlet.com/wall/christmastrees

Advent Liturgy Preparations

This morning students worked with the grade 3 class to prepare for the Advent liturgy this Friday. We practiced the liturgy readings as well as the songs in the gym. We will be singing 3 songs in total! 

We also worked on the theme of Peace for the 2nd week of Advent. We wondered what the word peace means and how we can show peace during the season of Advent as we wait for the birth of Jesus. We pair-shared some ideas and created a list. Next, we used a Christmas ornament to write and draw about our peace plan for Advent. The whole school is participating in this activity in preparation for the liturgy this Friday. 

Just a reminder that our Advent Liturgy will take place this Friday morning at 9:30 in our gym. Please join us if you can! The students cannot wait to be the choir and the readers for this liturgy.

Advent Liturgy and Raz Reading

This Friday morning at 9:30 our class along with the grade 3's will be participating in the Advent Liturgy. The Liturgy will take place in our gym. Our classes have worked hard all week to prepare for the mass. Some students will be saying a reading. If you can join us please do!

It is great to see students are logging into Raz Kids reading at home! A reminder that students are encouraged to read the Raz books instead of listening to the story. This will allow students to practice reading on their own and help to build their vocabulary. Don't forget to complete the quiz at the end. Just 15-20 minutes of homework a night is recommended. Thank you for your ongoing support of your child's learning!

Create a pattern

We continue to work with identifying patterns in numbers. Today students worked on creating their own patterns. We practised creating our own patterns using different objects. Students are creating patterns, extending a repeated pattern, identifying the pattern core, the pattern rule and the changing attributes. Ask your child to explain some of the pattern rules in the pictures below!

Advent in our Room

Today students helped to design our prayer table for the start of Advent. We talked about each symbol and the significance to the story of Advent. We started to read an Advent story and learned about why its so important to wait and prepare for the birth of Jesus. Ask your child about the symbols we added to our prayer table today.

We wrote about what Advent means to us and talked about what we can do as we wait for Jesus to be born on Christmas day. The students shared many great ideas on how they can show peace, hope, kindness and be helpful to others. Ask your child what they will do to prepare for Jesus throughout the season of Advent! We are sharing our thoughts and recording a video. The video will be shown at our school's Advent Liturgy this Friday at 9:30 in the gym. Please join us to see our class as we participate in the mass.

New Word Wall Words

Below are our 5 new word wall words. These words will help us as we work on our final animals assignment this week. We will be describing an animal of our choice and writing about it. Students can use these 5 words to help make sentences for homework. Ask your child which animal they chose and how they can describe their animal using these words!

Patterning in Math

In Math we continue to work on recognizing patterns. We are familiar with patterning vocabulary and are using different questions to determine what the pattern rule, the pattern core and the changing attributes are. 

Raz Kids and Newsletter

The December newsletter was sent home in your child agenda. Please read all about our fun learning in December. Please note that next Friday our class along with the grade 3's will be planning the 2nd week of Advent mass.  It will be at 9:30 in our gym. We hope you can make it!

Raz Kids information was sent home too. Login information is attached in your child's agenda along with a note.  You can access leveled books at your child's just right level.  There is important information in the letter so please have a read. Login and password information!!! 

Students got the chance to practice all week during our literacy centers. It is important to click on the eye and not the ear when reading a book. Students can practice reading on their own and then complete a reading comprehension quiz. Students may also write about their raz book in their book worm homework book!

Happy reading!

New Learning

We are working on some new learning goals in our classroom. In Math we are starting to talk about patterns in numbers. We are looking at different patterns and trying to determine what the pattern rule, the pattern core and the changing attributes for each problem. We created a chart to show what we know. We also added some different types of attributes. We learned a grade 3 math word: Orientation. Ask your child what orientation is another word for. And ask your child to name some of the other attributes we learned about today!

In Language we worked in our new literacy center groups. Students are working in small groups on some descriptive writing activities. We also started to talk about a new online reading program called Raz Kids. I am in the process of setting up login information and passwords for each student. Parent letters will be going home soon! In the mean time, we will continue to practice using Raz Kids during our literacy centers in class. Ask your child what kind of learning they participated in during our literacy centers today!

Shared-Twitter Thinking and Learning

Together with Mrs. Swan's grade 3 class we created a Twitter wall in our school. We are using the wall to share our thinking and learning using the similar learning opportunities our classes participate in.  


Last week our 2 classes participated in similar problem solving and kindness activities. We were happy to hear that the grade 3's also participated in the kindness paper person activity. Our Twitter wall is a way for our 2 classes to share our thinking and learning about how we can choose to make a positive choice in a problem situation. 

The wall is located close to the lunch room. We hope to inspire other students to make positive choices when faced with any sort of problem or issue (whether big or small)! 

Our classes have already used the online version of Twitter for shared learning opportunities. We will continue to watch one another's learning on Twitter as well as use the Twitter Wall in our school to share our learning in many ways over the year. If you are in the school, come by and visit our Twitter Wall!

New Word Wall Words

Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Visit

Today we enjoyed a visit from the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Center. Kate, the Educational Coordinator talked about many of the animals that live around us in Ottawa. We talked about raccoons, foxes, porcupines, skunks, deer, moose, baby bears, bats, beavers and more! 

We focused on why these animals are important and how we can help protect them.

We learned about their habitats, what food they eat, what they do for our city and how they adapt to their surroundings. We shared our learning on our Class Twitter page, click to see! @MrsCiampaClass

Ask your child to tell you what they learned today about habitats, the different animals and how we can protect the animals around our city!


For more information about the local center, check out their website: http://wildlifeinfo.ca/

Sharing our Learning

We have been working on our bullying awareness posters all week long. We are sharing in different ways all that we've learned about making good choices when we face a problem. We used the paper-person kindness activity, songs from Maria Hawkins and the stories we read to recall how we can solve our problems. We used describing words and thought about how we can make the better choice in a problem situation.

Today we used the Tellagami app to share what we wrote about on our posters. Have a listen to some of the problems we've faced, and the positive choice we made to solve it:

MD: https://tellagami.com/gami/6VMOPH/

NN: https://tellagami.com/gami/7FRPJL/ 

CW: https://tellagami.com/gami/G5CA9G/ 

AB: https://tellagami.com/gami/93OD4B/ \

DL: tellagami.com/gami/8UT6GJ/ 

CO: https://tellagami.com/gami/K52HG9/ 

HH: https://tellagami.com/gami/SU38MJ/ 

EC: https://tellagami.com/gami/ZQ3LWZ/ 

WN:  https://tellagami.com/gami/X9QQMU/ 

RC: https://tellagami.com/gami/YX0JEY/ 

PJ: tellagami.com/gami/OIY2SF/ 

FF: https://tellagami.com/gami/7PXTL3/ 

AO: tellagami.com/gami/XVZB4D/ 

Paper Doll Kindness

We continue to focus on bullying awareness this week. This morning we read a story about Howard B Wigglebottom and how he learns about bullies. He taught us to Be Brave, Be Bold...a Teacher Must be Told!

We also completed a kindness activity using a paper person. We worked really hard to make a beautiful paper person of ourselves. Next we ripped and marked up our person (to the surprise of the students). We did this to show the affect our words and actions can have on us. We say hurtful things or do mean things to someone and we don't realize how it makes them feel.
We tried to use tape and erasers to fix our paper person but it didn't work. We made a wordle to describe how we felt about ripping up our beautiful paper people. We connected how these words also make us feel when someone is unkind to us. Ask your child more about these describing words. We will talk about this again tomorrow!

Math Practice

We are preparing for our math test this week. We are skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's forwards and backwards. We are recalling how to represent numbers in different ways. The students recalled so many different ways to represent numbers.  Today we represented numbers using number lines, tally marks, number words, number sentences, place value and standard form!  Way to go friends.  Keep practicing at home. Our math test will be on Friday!

Maria Hawkins

What a fun morning we got to enjoy - again! Maria Hawkins joined us for the 2nd day in a row. She shared some inspiring songs that focus on Bullying Awareness. We got the opportunity to work in groups where we had to work together to perform a song! We also shared what makes friends in our class special people. Maria Hawkins is a lovely performer. Thank you so much for sharing your gifts with us!!
       

Our tweets focused on some key concepts we learned from Maria Hawkins together. Have a read at what we loved about singing and dancing with her the past few days! 

Homework this Week

Our Word Wall Words for this week! Please copy these words into your homework books, practice making sentences and spelling each word at home this week.

In Math we continue to focus on Place Value and Representing Numbers. We will be having our first Math Test this week! Details on when we will have the test will be shared soon. In the meantime,  how can you help your child prepare for the test this week?

-Practice counting forwards by 2's, 5's and 10's!

-Practice counting backwards by 5's!

-Choose a number between 1-200 and represent that number in 3 or 4 ways!

-Choose a number between 1-200 and determine the place of the ones, tens and hundreds in that number. 

Anti-Bullying Week Kick-Off

Today we enjoyed an inspiring morning with a musical performance by Maria Hawkins. She made us laugh, dance and sing! But most of all she made us think about how we can be the positive change in the face of bullying.

Here is a video link of one of her memorable performances. She encouraged us to distinguish between small and big issues. She also showed us how teachers want students to succeed. Be happy not sad. Be caring and kind. And if you say sorry mean it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMuPKZr7dbM

All week long we will be addressing various topics about bullying to raise awarenss as well as to give our class problem solving tools to help them! We are using Twitter to connect with other classrooms to share how we can be the positive change. Follow our tweets @MrsCiampaClass and watch as we use the #nomorebulliesocsb hashtag!
Today we read the story The Recess Queen about a school yard bully. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJiWhQDz4_c  We used the story and the musical performance by Maria Hawkins to tweet to our friends in Mr. Robinson's class. We talked about what words that come to mind when we hear the word bully. 










Today the Ottawa Catholic School Board appeared on CTV to show how we as a school board are using social media in positive ways to promote bullying awareness across all of our schools. Here is the link: http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/videoclipId=1045521&binId=1.1487308&playlistPageNum=2

Tadpole Wonders

At the end of the day today, we started to read a book about tadpoles. In Science, we continue to talk about animals, habitats and cycles of life. We are working to identify the life cycle of a tadpole. Tadpoles become frogs or toads.  During our story we learned that when a tadpole hatches from an egg, they look like a fish. They have a tail and no legs. We started to wonder....how does a tadpole get their feet? 

RC suggested we check on Google to find our answer. We can go to google.ca and search "Tadpoles for kids" and then we will see how tadpoles get legs! This is exactly what we learned about all week long during our digital citizenship lessons! 

Our homework for this weekend will be to find out how tadpoles get their feet! Please bring in your proof on Monday. You can bring in a book, or a printed answer from the internet. 

Can't wait to see the replies!

PS...don't forget to watch our Digital Citizenship iMove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_20PwcxHZs

Digital Citizenship iMovie

Today we made a movie all about being a good digital citizen! We used the iPad app iMovie! Here is the link to our YouTube movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_20PwcxHZs

Digital Citizens and Safe Googling

Today we focused on using Google to help us search kid friendly content on the web. Just like when we look for books that are just right, we can add "for kids" in our Google searches to find just right websites! 

Here is what the students had to say about safe internet searching:

-CH says: Only talk to people you know

-AB says: Only play games that are just right for you!

-HH says: You go on kids stuff. You watch a movie that is for your age.

-FF says: Ask your parents if you can go on the computer.

-CO says: Play games that are FOR KIDS!

Donations for the Philippines

Father Pedro from Assumption Parish was on CTV news today. He is appreciative of all of the donations that our community has provided for the victims of the typhoon in the Philippines. He is urging our community to donate cash donations instead of materials and food. Please watch this video for more information on how you can help:  http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1043061

Our school will be collecting money for the victims in the Philippines. If you can help, please do!

Digital Citizenship

All week long we are using the parable of the Good Samaritan (from the bible) to relate to being a good digital citizen. This is an initiative created by our school board to help us practice safety on the internet!

Digital Citizenship means practicing safe and responsible choices while using the internet. We watched a few videos today and talked about how we show safe internet practices at home and at school!

Being safe on the internet means a lot of things. It means only talking to people you know. Asking permission  from an adult to use a device or the internet. Being responsible and only posting information if you have someone's permission.

In our classroom, we practice good citizenship everyday. We have our own class Twitter and Blog account. We use video chat (Google Hangout) to talk to Mr. Robinson's class. The students know that the teacher is my friend and it is safe to video chat with people you know. We also use Twitter to talk to other classrooms and share our learning. We do this in a safe and responsible way and are kind with our words!
At home students are making great connections. They are using YouTube to watch videos. They are using a DS and video chat to talk to family far away. Technology allows us to connect and learn with family and friends both in our classroom and at home!

Here is a great video about online digital citizenship and safety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oOZ93jfAhg&list=PL6ABC8F3C315AFA16 


Ask your child what they have learned about Digital Citizenship today. They have a lot to share!

We Remember

Today we had a Remembrance Day liturgy in our school's gym. We remembered those who died and those who had to go to war to fight for our country. A police officer named Constable Salinas spoke to us about the importance of being a peacekeeper. He said he gets to be a peacekeeper each day and its his favourite part about being a police officer. He said that his brain and his heart are the most important tools we can use to be peacekeepers in our community. He left us with a question: What can you do to help your community? How can you help keep the peace in your community? Talk to your child today about  how we can do these important things. If we work together, we can all be peacekeepers!

Students also got to hear a few peace songs and listen to Jesus' gospel about love and peace.





Our Word Wall Words for this week:

\

How will you show you remember? We used the Twitter hashtag #werememberocsb to share some ways we can show peace and remember on Remembrance Day. Ask me about this today!

Remembrance Day Visualizing

In class today, we talked about Remembrance Day to prepare for our mass on Monday morning.  We started by reading the book A Poppy is to Remember.  We learned about the war from a long time ago.  We talked about why soldiers had to go to war.  We talked about peace and freedom and what they mean to Canada.  Ask your child about what they learned about peace today.

After reading the story we wondered: Why do we need to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day? Below are our word collage answers:

We also watched a video that shows how the soldiers who were Canadian in the war are heroes... here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsCVlM1CSPU

We also read the poem In Flanders Field. The students were not shown any photos of the poem but used their imagination to visualize and picture what the poem might look like! When we visualize we picture in our minds what a story looks like. We recorded AudioBoo samples to share what we visualized. Follow the links to hear our visualizing pictures!

CW: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713213-cw-visualizing

EC: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713210-ec-visualizing

FF: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713205-ff-visualizing

DL: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713181-dl-visualizing

CO: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713178-co-visualizing

MD: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713169-md-visualizing

RC: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713166-rc-visualizing

HH: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713168-hh-visualizing

AO: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713157-ao-visualizing

WN: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713159-wn-visualizing

AB: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713146-ab-visualizing

NN: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1713155-nn-visualizing

Place Value

We continue to work on identifying place value today. We are working with ones, tens and hundreds! Thank you to Naisha for teaching us that we use Base 10 Blocks to help us figure out how to represent a number! We are making a Place Value chart to help us as we work with numbers. 

Today we worked with partners to figure out how to make numbers with our snap cubes. We had to determine if the number needed a hundred, how many groups of 10 and how many ones. Students are using counting by 10's to help them get their answer. A lot of great team work today. 

We will review this again tomorrow and talk about how we can represent more numbers using place value and base ten blocks! Ask me about place value and see what I can remember tonight!

Place Value and Skip Counting

In class today we worked on identifying place value in numbers.  We have a good idea of how to represent a number using ones and tens.  We are working to represent hundreds on our place value chart too!

We also practiced skip counting by 2's and 5's today. We even skip counted backwards.  We need to practice this a lot more.  At home today, you can practice skip counting forwards or backward by 1's, 2's, 5's or 10's with the help of our hundreds chart. Enjoy!

Using Adjectives to Describe Animals

In class today, the students finished working on a describing animals activity. We continue to use adjectives and visualizing to describe animals in the stories we read.  

Students worked together to describe features of country animals such as raccoons, deer, mice, foxes and even skunks. We referred to our 5 senses to help us describe.

The students got the chance to read with partners. They also got the chance to add to our Padlet thinking using an iPad. We are using so many different adjectives to describe animals. Take a look at our  Padlet Thinking: http://padlet.com/wall/describeanimals

Raspberries Visualizing

On Friday we began talking about our new reading comprehension strategy...Visualizing! We recalled what visualizing means as a class and created this chart to help us. When you read, you visualize by creating a movie in your head! We use our 5 sense to help us visualize.

To help us understand how we can visualize, we used raspberries to help us. The students worked in partners to describe raspberries using their 5 senses. We wrote our ideas and posted them to our raspberries chart. Visualizing helps us to describe! We can do this while we read as well. We will continue to work on this reading strategy over the next few weeks.

AudioBoo for Fluency

In class on Friday we worked on a friend interview. The students worked with a partner to ask questions to find out new information about each other. It was great to watch the students work so well together. After we finished our friend interview, the students created an AudioBoo recording.We are starting to use the AudioBoo app to capture student thinking and to listen to our reading fluency. 

Have a listen to our reading on the AudioBoo iPad app:

HH: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700576-hh-new-friend

MD: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700574-md-new-friend

FF: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700566-ff-new-friend

DL: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700569-dl-new-friend

AO: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700337-ao-new-friend

WN: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700332-wn-new-friend

EC: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700327-ec-new-friend

NN: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700322-nn-new-friend

AB: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700319-ab-new-friend

CO: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1700314-co-new-friend

Pumpkin investigation continues

Fun day in grade 2 today. We spent much of our day working on Halloween activities. We worked with the grade 3 class on a math activity using our pumpkins. We worked together to count how many seeds in our pumpkins. We divided our seeds into groups and had to use counting strategies to count how many seeds we had. We needed to determine which class had more seeds in their pumpkin....Grade 2 or Grade 3!

The students used counting strategies like counting by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's to figure out how many seeds they had. In the end, we learned that the grade 3 pumpkin had more seeds! Great team work today friends! At the end of the day we enjoyed a fun Monster Mash dance party. Happy Halloween everyone!

Shared-Learning Video Chat!

We enjoyed a fun treat today. A grade 2 class in our city chatted with us on Twitter! They are also using pumpkins to count and describe. They asked us to guess how many seeds we thought were inside of their class pumpkin. Have a read at some of the tweet guesses we sent Mr. Robinson's class!

Mr. Robinson's class called us over Google Hangout. Google Hangout is a video chat that we used to do a shared read aloud. They started to read us the story...How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? It was so great to hear their grade 2 class read this story to us. Our class was really excited. They had many connections to the story today and we got to share one of them. We told their class how we cleaned our pumpkin yesterday. We had to separate the goop and the seeds!  We ran out of time and they will call us again tomorrow to finish the story! Ask your child about this neat opportunity!

Pumpkin Pumpkin

We continue to work on descriptive writing. Today the students focused on exploring nouns and adjectives in more detail. We used our Halloween word wall words to help us come up with fun ways to describe. We also talked about other nouns or adjectives that we can think of. Have a look at the list we came up with!


Next, the students used a pumpkin to help them come up with words to describe. Words that describe a pumpkin are adjectives. We used our eyes, our hands and even our nose to come up with some creative adjectives to describe both the inside and the outside of the pumpkin. 

Have a look at some of the adjective words we came up with today. We are using our pumpkin to help us with some pumpkin investigating. Tomorrow we will add to our investigation by estimating and counting the features inside and outside of the pumpkin! We will also get to work with the grade 3 class on a fun math activity. Don't forget to wear black, orange and have crazy hair!