Open House Persuasive Letters

Our current writing unit focuses on Persuasive Writing. We completed persuasive letters to the Once-ler in The Lorax last week. This time we brainstormed and worked to persuade our PARENTS why it is important that they come to our Open House taking place this Thursday May 7th from 4:30-7:00.

Amelie on Educareations:


Freyja on Chatterpix:


 Brandon on Chatterpix:


 Hyabeal on Educreations:
 
Calvin on AudioBoom:

listen to ‘cw open hose’ on audioBoom

Elizabeth on Chatterpix:

 Zachary on Chatterpix:

 Jeremy on Chatterpix:

 Styve on Educreations:

 Winnie on Educreations:

Naisha on AudioBoom:

listen to ‘NN's open house letter to mom’ on audioBoom

Tomi on Educreations:

Alessia on AudioBoom:

listen to ‘AO openhouse letter’ on audioBoom

Narratives

Last week we completed our Narrative stories. Students had the opportunity to write their own Narrative stories and referenced a checklist to help keep them on track. We used the Padlet that we created together with Mme. Erskine's Grade 4 class to recall what Narratives must have.

We participated in the 5 Sentence Challenge for homework where we were challenged to write a narrative paragraph. Students really enjoy this challenge. They get to receive comments from participants from around the world!

For our final Narrative task, we came up with our own story line and tried to be as creative as we could when writing our own stories. We worked with a partner to read and edit our work. We wrote our good copies on our KidBlogs. Our goal was to share the story creatively with our partners on KidBlog so that after we read the stories, we could offer comments. The students love reading one another's blog posts. It is powerful to receive comments from our friends. The comments help us become better writers. They also give us a real life audience!

Please go to our KidBlog accounts to view or read the Narrative stories of our classmates. We always welcome anyone to comment on our blogs!

We used some tools to share our writing in a creative way after writing our good copies. Some students recorded themselves reading. Others used an app to draw  a picture and narrate their story.

Math Centers

In Math we continue to focus on addition and subtraction of 2 and 3 digit numbers. In class, students are getting better adding and subtracting numbers without using their fingers. Our mental math strategies really help us to solve our math problems. Our math minutes help us to review our strategies and improve our scores each day. To review how to add and subtract using strategies we learn in class, please review our previous Blog post with great charts and information.

http://mrsciampaclass.blogspot.ca/2015/04/addition-and-subtraction.html

This week we introduced a few new math games to help us practice our mental math strategies with partners. We used many manipulatives, tools and devices to help us to add and subtract. Working together with their friends students got the opportunity to practice the skills we work on in class and teach and learn from their peers.

We played an adding and subtracting game using a deck of cards, a dice and dominoes. If you have any of these materials at your home, it is easy to play math games with your child! Simply make 2 or 3 digit numbers and play some fun adding or subtracting games using dry erase markers, or pencils! Ask your child how they play these games and try them at home. If you try a game, please share it with us on your KidBlog account!

Students also created their own subtraction posters at the Math Writing Center to teach their friends how to subtract numbers. The posters will be added to our Math Vocabulary Wall. You can comment on their Subtraction Blogs on our KidBlog accounts!




Students are reminded that they can access our DreamBox Math Account from home. Please continue to play fun DreamBox math games for homework to practice some key number sense concepts that are important for your child's success in grade three.

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!

Kindness Week

Kindness Week is a weeklong initiative that ran from February 14-21. The initiative started right here in Ottawa and is promoted on Twitter using the #kindottawa hashtag as well as the Twitter address via @kindottawa. 
At our school, we participated in a number of school and class initiatives to spread kindness to our friends, our family and to our school! Our class got the opportunity to collaborate both at school and online with a few other classrooms.

At school, we posted a wonder on our Twitter Wall together with Mrs. Swan's Grade 3 class. Our wonder...How do you make Assumption School a Kinder Place? We brainstormed together what that looks like in our school. We talked about how we make our school kind as well as what other people (like teachers, the principal or our friends) do to show kindness around us. Our class was so proud to post their tweet on our Twitter Wall. The grade 2's and 3's use this wall to share with the school their ideas and their learning. Excellent ideas everyone. You can visit our Twitter Wall located beside our classroom whenever you are visiting our school!

Our class also got to share our kindness learning online in a number of fun ways. At our literacy centers, we got a chance to add to our Padlet thinking about kindness. Have a read at our kindness brainstorming: http://padlet.com/wall/grade2kindness
We also created a few kindness stories using the Educreations iPad app. Have a read at some of the stories we made during our literacy centers:

WN: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/wn-shares-a-kindness-message/17187539/

AB: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/ab-shares-a-kindness-message/17187361/

FF: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/ff-shows-kindness/17109073/

Finally, we used Twitter to connect with a few classrooms about how we can be kinder. Twitter is a great way for us to share our thinking and to connect with other classrooms. It is another way that we are practicing our writing and communication skills. Have a look at some of our kindness tweets with Ms. Alvarez's JK/SK class, Mrs. Swan's Grade 3 class and Mr. Robinson's Grade 2/3  class!!