Month: April 2021

We continue to explore the various rapid and slow changes that make an impact on the shaping of our land. As you can see from  our posters above, some things that change the Earth quickly include, an exploding volcano, tornado, tsunami, landslide, wildfire, flood and logging. Some examples that change the Earth slowly primarily include weathering and erosion. The link below provides a crash course in defining the terms of weathering and erosion. Warning, in this video she talks very quickly, so make sure to pause it at various points to break down what she is saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Iak3Wvh9c

Moving forward we will be examining natural events that affect our ecosystem vs. human activities that affect our ecosystem. Together, with your scientist, can you brainstorm natural events and human activities that could impact our ecosystem – what are some examples that you came up with?

Today in P.E. we began our basketball unit where we will be focusing on learning the proper techniques for fundamental movement skills which include ball handling, dribbling, ball control, passing and shooting. Throughout this unit will we strive on developing our movement concepts and strategies. Movement concepts and strategies include a variety of approaches that will support us achieving the goal of maintaining ball control from our opponent, as well as effectively delivering and receiving a pass from a team member and finally to move safely in a shared space with others.

In Math, the Grade 2s continue to learn about data collection and analyzing their results. We started Monday off with some very challenging word problems. Can you and your family try and solve this word question below? If you can, please show your thinking on a separate piece of paper and hand it into Mrs. Ralph!

Charlie saw 19 butterflies on the long weekend. On Friday he saw 8 butterflies, he saw 3 more butterflies on Sunday than on Saturday. How many butterflies did Charlie see on Saturday and Sunday? **hint** remember to look at the total of butterflies that Charlie saw altogether, draw out your thinking in a graph. Good luck!

While the Grade 2s have been up to their elbows swimming in data word problems, the Grade 3s have begun a new unit in their textbooks, FRACTIONS! I love to connect fractions with food. When we share, we can make equal parts. When we split an orange, it can be divided into 2 equal parts, making a half or 1/2. When we cut a pie or a pizza to share between friends, we can cut it into 6 equal slices. If you can, please show your thinking on separate pieces of paper and hand it into Mrs. Ralph to solve the questions below.

Can you cut out a circle and cut it into two equal parts? Now, can you cut out a rectangle and cut that into 3 equal parts? Finally, can you cut out a square and cut that into 4 equal parts? If you can, please bring it in to show Mrs. Ralph! Good luck!

In preparation for Earth Day, which is on Thursday, April 21, 2021 we began to make ‘stained glass globes.’ Today was just our first day preparing them and they already look beautiful. How do you think we made them? It involves a coffee filter, markers and spray bottle! Stay tuned to see the finished product. As a family, can you discuss the importance of taking care of our environment? What are ways that YOU can reduce the size of your carbon footprint? How can YOU make even a small difference in protecting Mother Earth?

In writing we are beginning to explore a new genre of writing, Instructional Writing. What is the purpose of instructional writing? How are instructions used in our every day life? Some ideas that come to my mind include recipes, instructions to build lego or a robot, IKEA furniture assembly instructions etc. Can you think of other ideas that require instructions?

As a challenge, can you please give Mrs.Ralph explicit and clear instructions on how to grow a plant. Here are some instructional key words that you are encouraged to use in your writing: First, Secondly, Next, Then, Finally. By incorporating these transitional words will signal to your reader that they must move onto their next step. Remember to include in the steps the materials or equipment that you will need. 

Although this week was a shorter week, it was still a full, productive week of joy and learning.

In Social Emotional Learning (SEL) we are exploring a variety of emotions. This calming exercise allowed us to identify various emotions we were feeling and to communicate those feelings through colouring. I enjoyed observing the different colours that the students chose to identify their feelings. For example, some felt that brown represented goofy where as others thought goofy was better represented by yellow or pink. The beauty of this activity, is that it is self expressive, there is no right or wrong answer. However, a telling response was that many students were feeling tired and or calm on Monday afternoon after returning from Spring Break.

In Science, we continue to explore the wonders of butterflies! This week we took an in-depth look at labelling the body parts of a butterfly. Ask your scientist if they remember what the purpose of a proboscis is, hint is that it acts like a straw; can they recall what the three body segments are on the butterfly? Next, we worked on distinguishing the differences between a moth and a butterfly? Have your curious scientist explain to you the differences in how to accurately identify a moth from a butterfly and visa versa.

In our Landforms Unit in Social Studies we continue to examine Landforms, but are now taking an in-depth look and analyzing how the land can be changed by environmental factors. On Thursday and Friday we discussed at length how the Earth experiences both rapid and slow changes. We continue to discuss and explore the various environmental factors that can influence a rapid change on Earth’s land, some examples include a volcano, tsunami, wildfire, earthquake and landslide. Can you think of more examples that causes a quick and rapid change to the land? We have just begun to look at the definitions of Weathering and Erosion and trying to distinguish the differences between these two words. Currently we are describing the process of weathering as making a mess. A mess is created from the weathering process because large rocks are broken down into smaller pieces. Erosion follows Weathering, as Erosion cleans up Weathering’s mess. Erosion will take away the broken down pieces of smaller rocks. Stay tuned as we continue to explore these new terms and definitions.

In P.E. we continue to practice our ability to demonstrate safe, fair play, leadership and good sportsmanship in a variety of individual and group games and activities. On Friday we played a variety of physical distant games that incorporated a variety of fundamental movement skills. These games also relied upon our listening skills and stressed the importance of playing cooperatively. Movement Master was a big hit in Division 7 today and I believe it will make a regular occurrence in our rotation of games. Since Movement Master relied upon so many gross motor movements, the students were easily able to monitor their physical exertion levels.

Finally to end our week we splashed a bit of colour on our walls with our chalk pastel tulips to represent that Spring is here as well as exploring the use of shape and line to create our unique and creative Funky Bunnies to line our hallway.