We have been having several class discussions, over the past two months, on feelings and how we want to feel while we are at school.  We did a huge brainstorm and came up with a long list of feelings that are important to us.  We then whittled that list down to four categories, leaving in the original feelings.

The next step was to discuss what we all need to do, and how we all need to behave, so that we can all feel these ways.

These are the students’ words.  I was very impressed with what they came up with.  They are very insightful!

Our next step will be to look at what we do (what happens) when someone doesn’t follow our Charter.

This Charter process is part of the RULER program out of Yale University.  All of Rosser (each class) is working through this process.  We are all at different stages.

As a part of RULER we are also looking at feelings and learning how to plot ourselves on the Mood Meter, a chart in the classroom.  Initially we have been charting the main characters from the Harry Potter series as we read each day.  We will be working towards charting ourselves in the next few weeks.  I will post more about the Mood Meter in a day or so.

This vocabulary may help you with your child as you discuss how their day was at school.

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.

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 …

Mrs. Anstee has had to change the days that she is at Rosser in our Library.  As a result our Library day will be moved from Tuesdays to Thursdays – beginning next week.

Please ensure that students return their books by Thursday mornings each week.

Thank you for your continuing support.