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Money Money Money

Our current focus in Math is looking at money! Our goal is to add money amounts to 100 cents! Today we learned that 100 cents is the same thing as $1.00. We also learned how to count by 25's! Counting by 25 looks like this: 25, 50, 75, 100! 

We are getting more familiar with using different coins to represent various money amounts. We learned that if we use quarters (25 cents) we can add money amounts using less coins. This allows us to use less coins when adding. 
In class today, we played a few different math money games. We had to work together to find out how to add money amounts and how to show money amounts in different ways. Learning how to count by 25's makes adding money much quicker! Ask your child about the strategies we learned today.

Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day!

Students are getting many opportunities to learn how we can take care of our environment. Earth Day is a great reminder on how we can help protect our environment not just today - but everyday!

As a class, we read the story The Lorax. I have attached a link if you would like to read it again. We stopped to think about what changes were happening and why trees are so important to our environment. Students talked about how they must do their part to clean up and to protect the trees. Trees are important to help us breath. They give us food and shelter for many animals. They also protect us from pollution and smog. The Lorax is a nice reminder on how we can do our part to take care of this place. 

We are working on Earth Day pledges...a pledge is like a promise. We are working on what we can do and what we will not do! We must do our part to protect the earth!

We also got to view an amazing performance by members from the Junkyard Symphony. They put on a great show. They taught us about using recyclable materials in many ways. All of their instruments and tools from the show were made from recyclable materials they buy at garage sales. They also talked about what we can do to recycle including how to compost. We loved learning about how to reduce-reuse-recycle and ROCK! A huge thank you to Mr. Bob for organizing it!

Easter

Alleluia - Jesus has risen! Happy Easter! Hope you and your families enjoyed a nice long weekend together.

We have now entered the season of Easter. Easter is a time to rejoice in the death and resurrection of Jesus. He gave us hope for new life through his death. Our word wall words focus on some important words to recall as we think about the season of Easter. Our prayer table has changed to white and we will continue to talk about all of the sacrifices Jesus made for us for the next 50 days.

Today our class got to participate in a shared-learning opportunity with our friends from Mrs. Nehme's grade 2 class. We shared our thinking and learning about Easter through a shared Padlet. Click the link below to see what our classes know about the season of Easter:

http://padlet.com/MrsCiampa/easter

                         

Created with Padlet

Inferring and Talking Circles

We continue to focus on inferring when reading. Students have even inferred while reading various Holy Week stories as the week has gone on. They are making great connections and using what they already know to infer the hidden meaning in a story. Another important part of inferring is when we infer what the author's message is. Author's message is when we think about what important topic or message the author wanted us to learn after reading a story. We explored this when reading a story called "Oliver Button is a Sissy". First, students inferred what Oliver might be feeling. Next students inferred why the boys might be treating Oliver like they had in the story. At the end, we thought about what the author's message might be. What did the author want us to learn from this story? We did a Talking Circle to explore this as a class. The students had so many great ideas to share. We recorded a small part of our circle on AudioBoo that you can hear below. We will continue to infer and use a Talking Circle for class discussions as the weeks go by. We are working on being good listeners during this great talking session.

listen to ‘Best of All Talking Circle’ on Audioboo

Addition and Subtraction Word Problems

We continue to work on solving addition and subtraction problems. Today, students worked with a partner to solve some math problems. Students used the Educreations iPad app to solve the problem. They had to use the math problem solving steps and justify their answer with numbers, words and a strategy. Have a look below at our math thinking. We will continue to work on this next week. Great work today Grade 2!

SugarBush

We had such a great time at the SugarBush field trip today. We explored the forest and learned a lot about the nature around us. We learned about the animals and bugs that rely on the trees. We also learned how the red maple trees produce the sap and the delicious taffy that we got to taste! We also explored the museum and learned about the history of our Vanier neighborhood and community. It was such a great day. We were thankful that the rain held out. Our walk was even more enjoyable. Huge thank you to Mme. Paradis for organizing this great trip for the whole school! Ask your child what their favourite part was. I bet I know what they liked best....

Inferring with AudioBoo

In class, we continue to work on the Inferring reading strategy. When we infer, we use what we already know + the clues from the text to help us to read in between the lines. We are making predictions and determining what the author is thinking. It is important to explain your thinking when inferring. Our current focus is to make an inference, and explain our thinking with a why statement. Below, students recorded their inferring thinking after reading a story called "Ali Runs with the Pack". We are pair-sharing and writing about our inferences. We are also using the iPad app AudioBoo to capture our thinking during our Literacy Centers.

Some students are becoming AudioBoo experts. Our class is really benefitting from these experts because they are assisting classmates to use the AudioBoo iPad app to record an inference. This will come in handy when we add this to our Literacy Centers. Congratulations to AB and RC for being our class AudioBoo experts. And congrats also to DL for being our class QR Code expert!! Way to go grade 2.

 Click the AudioBoo links below:

Dance Unit

                          

In our Art unit of Dance, we continue to work on many different elements of dance together with Mrs. Swan's class. We are working on learning the dance to Waka Waka so that we can perform it in front of the school sometime this year.

Here is a link to the video - have your child practice this dance when they get the chance!

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

Shared Learning and Inferring!

We continue to work on the reading strategy: Inferring. Today, a few students got to participate in an interactive inferring lesson. We are doing a shared-learning opportunity with Mr. Robinson's grade 2/3 class!

We started by reading a story called The Yesterday Stone. Next, we had to share an inferring reading response on Padlet. A few students from Mr. Robinson's class are also reading this story and sharing an inference on Padlet. It is a great way for our classes to connect and to share our thinking and understanding using the Inferring reading strategy as our guide. The goal is to have students share their learning, and view other students' perspectives.
We will continue to do this shared-reading and shared-learning activity over the next few weeks. Here is the link to some of our shared-Padlet thinking:
http://padlet.com/wall/yesterdaystone 

http://padlet.com/wall/antsbelongoutside

New Reading Strategy: Inferring

This week we focused on a new reading strategy called Inferring. We we infer, we use what we already know + what is in the book to help us understand what we are reading. We use our background knowledge + clues from the pictures or the text to help us figure out what the author is saying in between the lines.

This week we used the story Stellaluna to introduce us to the concept of inferring. We pair-shared some ideas while reading the story.

Students also wrote a reading response to the following question: What do you infer (think) might happen to Stellaluna if Mother Bat never found her. Students had to come up with their own opinion and explain WHY. When we explain our thinking, we are adding more details. We wrote about it and tweeted about it too. Have a read at our tweets below. Ask your child more about the lovely story Stellaluna!

Two-Digit Addition

Our current Math focus is Addition. Students have been working on various addition problems over the past few weeks. We have worked with adding numbers and thinking of different addition strategies. We are starting to look at adding larger numbers (like two-digit addition). We know that we must add the ones side and then the tens side. We are practicing by becoming familiar with this strategy. Ask your child to explain this strategy to you.

Our new math problem solving checklist.

Students are also working on solving math problems with a focus on two-digits. We are becoming familiar with the math problem solving process as well as the words to use to make an addition statement. We are also beginning to write about what our addition strategy is as well.

We used the problem solving checklist to solve this problem

Students conferencing and sharing their different addition strategies.