Learning adventures in a Grade 2 French Immersion classroom
Division 10 students worked well as a group in completing this door decoration.
They designed it themselves and completed parts individually. It all came together in only two days!
We’re participating in a school-wide door decorating contest this week – as part of Literacy Week.
Division 10 has been practicing to read well with a partner. After the holiday break, we’ve needed to review basic rules such as sitting next each other or choosing one book to read together.
During these sessions, students practice important life skills like turn-taking, listening, making compromises, encouraging others, and even teaching.
Students practiced some metacognition today. We discussed the various core competencies that we use at school every day: communication, thinking (creative and critical), personal and social responsibility.
From the Ministry of Education website:
The Core Competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need in order to engage in deep, lifelong learning.
Students worked in groups, studying photos taken since September. In making our learning visible, we realized just how much we do at school!
We started playing a new game in PE this week. Students aim to win the biggest number of points by throwing beanbags into the hoop.
Yellow beanbags are worth 1 point each. Red beanbags are worth 10 points each.
This simple game has students practice a number of skills.
Students practice spatial reasoning in assessing how hard or soft to throw a bean bag for it to land on target.
They practice personal and social responsibility in participating in the game and encouraging their classmates.
Finally, they practice creative and critical thinking in counting beanbags to figure out final scores.
We’ve been practicing to keep our cloakroom tidy. In doing so, we practice personal and social responsibility. It’s a work in progress!
Slowly but surely, we’re increasing our endurance outside. This is especially important as we move into the rainy season.
With repeated exposure, children develop bonds to our local plants and animals.
On this day, some students hugged the tree in front of our classroom. One student wanted to say ‘Thank you for oxygen’. The other student said ‘Trees need hugs.’
Students have been learning to identify feelings through a game this week.
We’ve been learning just how much we communicate through non-verbal clues – through facial expression or body language.
In this game, a student secretly chooses an emotion and then tries to represent it physically. Classmates have to guess what feeling their peer is acting out.
In playing this game, we’ve also been learning new French vocabulary such as “susceptible” (sensitive), “gêné” (embrassed), “coupable” (guilty), “fier” (proud), or “déçu” (disappointed).
We practice to read social clues to improve our emotional intelligence. When calmer and happier, learning comes easier!
A new school year brings a new batch of Grade 2 students.
Bienvenue aux élèves de Division 10!
On today’s sortie nature, some students used field guides to try to identify spring flowers near our school. We noted similarities and differences between local wildflowers. We found it easiest to compare petal and leaf shapes.
With a little extra help from the Seek app, we found la jacinthe espagnole (Spanish Bluebell), le lamier jaune (Yellow Archangel), la pâquerette (Common Daisy), and le laurier-cerise (Cherry Laurel).
Students were asked to create a forest ‘perfume’. We discovered that le cèdre was the most fragrant. Other plants were used, such as clover, lichen, or fir needles. Some even threw in pinecones and dead leaves for an especially earthy smell!
As always, we only collected plants from the forest floor. We’re aiming to not harm living plants. We’re also aiming to not disturb our local ecosystem.