Poppies … lest we forget …

Students created beautiful poppies.

We began with a directed drawing lesson where the students drew a large poppy on white paper.  They then traced these with black China markers (a type of grease pencil).  The centre circle was solidly coloured in with green waxed crayons.  Students then painted the petals red. This all happened on Friday. Today, when the paint was dry, students traced over their outlines, cut the poppies out, and glued them onto green construction paper.

The complementary colours (red and green) really pop when put together!

These are on the bulletin board at the back of our classroom.  They look amazing!

Invertebrates Under the Sea …

Look at the awesome mural that the students have made for our look at invertebrates which reside under the ocean waters!

Our grade twos did the painting and all students created an invertebrate creature.  They first drew their creature, then they outlined them with Sharpie markers, and finally, they coloured them with oil pastels.

This mural is on a bulletin board in our classroom.  Check it out if you are in the school.

ePortfolios

Students had their first experience with their personal ePortfolio sites.  Their initial posts were very simple in appearance but were, in actuality, a real learning experience for them.

We had explored the ePortfolio site on Wednesday afternoon during our Computer Lab time but we ran out of time before we could publish the first post.

As the grade two students were more experienced on the computers (from our lessons last year), on Thursday morning they became ‘experts’ on the logging in process for the ePortfolio sites.  Then, throughout the day on our two class computers, they took turns teaching the grade ones how to log in (both onto the class blog and then onto their own site) and how to create a simple post using a header (Hello!) and adding in a simple sentence in the text box (My name is ____.).

This simple post gave students an opportunity to learn to use some of the keyboard functions such as: shift (for the capital letters and the exclamation point), space bar (between the words), the period, and the letters for the words.  These are their first steps in becoming more comfortable with, and more capable of using, the computer as a tool to share their learning experiences.

I hope that the MailPoet app worked and that you got notification of their post.   When you log in to see your child’s post please remember to change the generic password to your own personal one.

Thank you for your continuing support of your child’s learning.

 

Apples Galore …

Thank you to all parents who sent in an apple for our apple explorations.  Students noticed that apples came in all sorts of varieties, colours, sizes, and shapes.

Students spent some time observing their apple and then making a pictorial presentation by colouring a paper apple in as close a copy of their apple as possible.

We have looked at how the apple life cycle works:

We will continue our explorations this week with the apple life cycle and how it correlates to the seasons of the year.

 

Celebrating Terry Fox …

This is an article from the newspaper on the occasion of the 25th anniversary run – 12 years ago.  Below is a photo of a map of Canada with the route that Terry ran highlighted in Sharpie marker.

As a class we discussed who Terry was, what happened in his life, and what he did to seal his place in our hearts forever.  We used these books as a starting off place.

We were fortunate to have Kirsten Fox (Terry’s niece via his older brother, Fred) come to our school the previous week to discuss Terry, how the family remembers him, and how he affected their lives.  In class we talked about the people in our school and families that we know who have dealt with, or are still dealing with, cancer.  Students each decorated a paper shoe which stated who they were running for; these are on the wall in the gym.

Students also decorated a paper t-shirt and wrote about Terry.  These two papers were attached, back to back, onto a green construction paper.  These are hanging in our classroom.

As a school we were very pleased to raise a good amount of money.  I don’t know the exact total but I believe that it is more than $700!!  That is amazing for our small school!  Thank you to all who contributed to this fund.

Who says, “Giraffes Can’t Dance”.

We read the story, “Giraffes Can’t Dance”, by Giles Andreae.  It is a story about Gerald, a giraffe who longs to dance like everyone else but he just can’t seem to get it right because his legs are too long and skinny.

Afterwards we discussed how the cricket gave Gerald the confidence to try his best and to not give up.  Gerald may not dance like everyone else does, but he does dance.

Students then thought of something that they can do if they try their best.  They created talking bubbles with their ideas and put them next to a Gerald head.

We then had a directed drawing lesson on drawing Gerald dancing –  firstly on a practise white paper and then onto yellow construction paper.  Student added the details in black Sharpie, cut them out, and glued them onto blue construction paper.  They are all very unique and individualistic with the facial expressions and the dance moves.  They are on the bulletin board outside of our classroom.

 

 

Welcome to the New School Year!

We have had a very busy first few weeks!  Students, both the returning grade 2’s and the new grade 1’s, are settling nicely into our routines.

I enjoyed meeting with parents last week.  The conversations helped to give me some insight into the individual students.  I hope it gave parents a sense of our classroom environment, expectations, and plans for the upcoming year.

I will be posting regular information on this blog.  Check back regularly …

Sports Day Preparations

We had our first House meeting on Monday where the three colour groups chose their team names and decided who would be on the Banner and Cheer committees (these are for Intermediate students only).  Our second House meeting is on Tuesday, May 9th.  At this meeting the Cheer leaders will be teaching the rest of us (in each House) the cheer that they have created.  Our third – and last House meeting before Sports Day – will be on Thursday, May 18.  The goal of this meeting is to practise the cheer again, and then to do a first run-through of the House relay.  This annual part of Sports Day is the final event towards the point collection to see which House wins – and is a lot of fun for all.

Please ask your child to tell you which House they are in so that you can know what colour t-shirt they should be wearing for Sports Day.

If your child wishes they can be a part of the Bike Parade.  They can decorate their bikes with streamers, etc. and bring them to school that morning.  These are usually stored in either the Music Room or the Gym.  We will let you know closer to the date. Please ensure that they are wearing a helmet.

Also, please note: pizza is delivered to the students in their classrooms shortly before noon and students are dismissed at 12:15 on that day.

I hope you can come and join us on Sports Day.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed for some good weather!

Animal Habitat Dioramas

Firstly, a huge thank you to all the parents who helped their child get ready for this week of building!!

Students spent the week creating their habitat for their chosen animal.  The shoe boxes went from a plain old box to a wonderful home for their plasticene animals.

I hope you agree … here they are …


These are on display on two tables in the hallway outside of our classroom and in the display case on the second floor.  I hope you get a chance to see them when you are in the school.  These pictures don’t really do the work justice, especially the glare from the display case glass 🙂

I hope you enjoy them as much as the kids did making them!