Shining Willow Book #9

Yesterday we read the ninth of the Shining Willow award nominated books:

This was a fun book about a dog who is the King's Taster and a picky king. 

After reading the book, we discussed that being the kings taster was once a real job that someone had when there were kings and queens. We also talked about jobs that there are now in our communities and wrote "Quand je grandis, je veux devenir..." 

Reminders for Jan 30-Feb 3

We will be going to the library tomorrow, please bring in books if you want to exchange them.

Twin day and hot lunch is on Thursday, February 2nd.

We will be having our second dictee on Friday, the words are as follows:
jouer
aujourd'hui
la plante
un sac en plastique
une moustache
le cou
les souliers
huit
les oeufs
deux yeux 
Happy studying!

lundi, le 30 janvier

Another fun day in grade 2! Today we have started two new projects in our class. We now have a Bureau de poste (Post office) where we can write little notes or letters to our friends in our extra time or free time and then put them in their envelopes to brighten their day. This is great practice for writing in a truly authentic way.

We are also participating in a reading challenge that Scholastic is offering. If our class reads 100 books, Scholastic will donate 100 books to children in need through their literacy partners. We are going to do this in English and in French. Once students complete and return a reading response paper, they will add a stamp to the poster to keep track of how many books we have read.

example of completed reading response paper

What a fun day!

We had a great day today! We started by having our first dictee ever in grade 2, then we started a brand new MIMI poster. We talked some more about communities and the places we find in communities, and then started maps to make our own communities. After lunch we worked some more on Pascal's triangle, finding interesting patterns in the numbers. We finished the Fred and Pete inspired art we started yesterday, and read another 2 chapters in our new novel.

I love my white shoes!

A few reminders for tomorrow:
Hot Lunch orders are due tomorrow morning. No late orders are being accepted.
Dictee tomorrow morning - sounds like everyone has been practicing their words, great job!

Today we started our Fred and Pete artwork. Tomorrow we will add the pictures on, can't wait to see how they turn out!

Today at the end of the day I shared a fun book, Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes. We talked a little bit about how sometimes things don't go as we want them to, but that it's our decision on whether we get upset, or sad, or if we just keep walking along singing our song. Here is a video of the story. (The song is already stuck in my head, so catchy!)

Shining Willow #8

Today we read the eighth of the Shining Willow award nominated books:

As a whole class, this one has been our favourite, as you can tell from our Wordle:

www.wordle.net is a neat website where you can put in text, and words that occur the most show up the biggest. We use it for voting in our classroom, evereyone tells their response, and when we create our Wordle, the biggest word/response is the winner.

Here is a video which shows the technique Cynthia Nugent has used to create the illustrations for Fred and Pete at the Beach that we will be trying on Wednesday:

Shining Willow Book #7

On Thursday we read the seventh of the ten Shining Willow Award nominated books:

After reading the book, we worked in our new groups to create murals, like Theo and Poppa did. Here is our work:

It was fun to work with a team to create some beautiful art.

Reminders for this week...

Students had a lot to write in their agendas this morning!

Hot lunch orders due Thursday, Jan 26th 

We are going to be starting dictees this week. There should be a small piece of paper stapled into agendas for this week, these are the words to study. The words all contain combinations of letters we have studied (ex. un chapeau - ch and eau). The dictee will be on Thursday morning.

We read the 8th Shining Willow award nominated book today, and on Wednesday we will be doing an art project using the same technique the author/illustrator used to make the illustrations in the book. For this we will each need 1 or 2 photos that we can cut up and paint on. These can come from magazines, extra family pictures, or anywhere else.  

Finally, there is NO SCHOOL on Friday, January 27th.

Cold Weather!

What a cold week it has been! We have been inside for recess all week, hopefully next week is a bit warmer.
There were some questions about when the busses run and when they do not - if the temperature with windchill is below -45C at 7am, (according to Environment Canada) the busses will not run. If the busses do not run in the morning, they do not run in the afternoon either.
For indoor recess, the temperature with windchill must be below -25C (according to Environment Canada), and this is announced just prior to recess.
Saskatoon Public Schools link to information on severe weather: http://www.spsd.sk.ca/division/severeweather.html

Family Literacy Day event

Today we had an assembly and discussed Family Literacy Day that is coming up (Friday, January 27th). Literacy is more than just reading, but is writing, and viewing and speaking. Literacy is an important part of everyday life. We learned that literacy isn't like a vacation, that it can be hard, but that we need to practice it.
To celebrate Family Literacy Day, there is an event this Saturday at the Frances Morrison Library from 1-4pm. Here is the link for more information: http://www.readsaskatoon.com/events/fld.htm

Shining Willow Award Book #6

Today we read the sixth of ten books:

We discussed how authors sometimes play with the text to make them big and small so we know how to read the book. We also discussed the word 'emphasis'. We played a little game where we had to read words of different sizes.

We also talked about how sometimes the print in books looks different, Geronimo Stilton books for example have lots of funny looking words. We played a little game where we read words in different fonts. 

New video of grade 2's work!

After we read Clever Rachel last week and learned about riddles, we practiced solving riddles in both English and French. Then, we tried our hand at writing riddles. Here is the result of our hard work.

Monday again!

Well, it finally feels like winter. We were inside all day today, too cold with the windchill to be outdoors.
A couple of reminders:
- Scholastic is due tomorrow. Please make cheques payable to Scholastic Canada Ltd.
- Please dress appropriately for the weather. Students are still having to walk to and from the bus and daycare, and the weather can change quickly, so it is impossible to count on their being indoor recesses based on the temperature in the morning.
- There was an informational notice sent home on Friday about head lice. Please continue to check heads at home for this week until we are sure we've got it under control. Thanks once again for your support in this matter.

Head Lice

In your child's sac bleu tonight, please find an informational notice about Head Lice facts, prevention and treatment. As a class, we discussed about not sharing hats, hairbrushes and bunny hugs, and about keeping our things in our own lockers. We also discussed that lice isn't a big deal, we just need to know if it's around so moms and dads can get the special shampoo so they will go away.

 

Thanks for you support at home in this matter.

Shining Willow Award Book #5

Today we read Shining Willow Book #5:

We discussed that the author lives in Quebec and originally wrote this book in French. Below is a video of an excerpt of the French version of the book.

Today we started writing stories that begin and end in the same place. Stay tuned!

Shining Willow Award Book #4

Yesterday we read the fourth Shining Willow Award book:

We looked at some examples of Haida artwork, like we saw in the book, and we also listened to some Haida music. It was different - and we talked about how it wasn't better or worse than what we usually listen to or see, but just different.

Links to music clips:

Jackie Hans singing a Haida song

Michael Nicoll singing a Haida song

I am posting two videos below, the first is a youtube video of the book that is animated (students have not seen this either), and the second is a video of the students own take on Haida art. They did a great job!

Shining Willow Award Book #3

This afternoon we read the third of the Shining Willow Award Nominated books:

We learned that the French word for riddle is 'devinette' and clue is 'indice'. We also learned that clever or smart people are 'intelligent' or 'habile'. 

After reading this book, we tried our hand at solving riddles. Below are pictures of the riddles we worked on. There are still many that we are stuck on, maybe you can help us?

Shining Willow Award Book #2

On Friday we read the next Shining Willow Award book:

We discussed rumours and gossip, as well as kindness and ways to show kindness.  Each student thought of a way that they could or do show kindness and illustrated it. Below is a short video of their work. I am very proud of what a kind and thoughtful group of students I have.

Shining Willow Awards

Today we started reading the Shining Willow books so that we can vote for our favourites once we have read them all.

We started with Giraffe and Bird, by Rebecca Bender, a story about a giraffe and a bird who say they can't stand each other, but when they aren't together they are lonely. We discussed that there are people in our lives that drive us crazy, but we would be really lonely without them.

New Year's Resolutions

Today we discussed New Year's Resolutions and how the beginning of a new year is a good time to set goals. We wrote our resolutions in our journals. Some great ideas were brought up, such as reading more books this year, being better organized, keeping rooms clean, doing more chores to help moms and dads, being responsible by taking care of pets, and even learning to tell time.

Happy New Year!

A few announcements for these first few weeks of January:
Hot lunch orders were sent home today and are due back on Monday, January 9th
The hot lunch will be on January 12th, which is also a spirit day with a Time Travel theme. Dress as if you're from a different era, or even the future.

Home reading books will be going home again starting on Monday, January 9th.

I will be away on Tuesday, January 10th for Professional Development.