Friday, February 19th, 2021

Hi Families, 

This week, we welcome Ms. Nodwell to our classroom! The students are welcoming her with all their heart, and supporting her work towards her final teaching practicum. A little introduction from Ms. Nodwell herself:

Hello everyone!  

My name is Madeleine Nodwell, and I am happy to be joining Ms. Thomas’s class for the next couple of months as a student teacher! I am coming to Lake Bonavista from St. Mary’s University here in Calgary, where I am in my last semester of my Education degree. Some of my favourite things include animals, cooking, and playing bench-ball! I am excited to be working in a classroom full of such eager learners.   

Ms. Nodwell will be a part of classroom until late-April. 

This week, she led students in a liquids explorations, combining art and science. Ask your child about the four different art pieces they created, the different processes, and what they observed. Pictures of the final products coming next week! 

We continued our work on fiction and non-fiction texts, representing our learning through sorting, data collection and list writing. Students increased their understanding of fiction and non-fiction text features. In the upcoming weeks, they will be applying their understanding to create a final task for sharing during Student-Led conferences. 

As we looked back at the last couple of weeks, and the cold temperatures, we used a recent headline as a writing prompt this week:

Students created their own, "How Cold Was It? writing, 

connecting their personal experiences with our record breaking cold.

Upcoming Important Dates:

- Wednesday, February 24th: Pink Shirt Day 
- Thursday, March 11th: Evening Virtual Student-Led Conferences (more information to come)

- Friday, March 12th: Daytime Virtual Student-Led Conferences, no school for students
- Sunday, March 14th: Daylight Savings Time begins

Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend everyone!
Ms. Thomas

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021

Hi Families, 

This week, we marvelled as we checked the weather daily, and found that Calgary was the coldest community out of the three that we monitor, including Halifax and Iqaluit. To quote one student, "The Arctic has come to Calgary!" We stayed warm and cozy during our indoor lunch and afternoon recesses, and kept our fingers crossed that it warms up and we get outside again next week! 

Thank you to the families that were able to attend the School Council meeting this month, where Ms. Bouchard and I presented our classes' collaborative work on perseverance. All School Council meetings are virtual this year, so you can attend them from the comfort of your own home!

In our Sound Study, we continued exploring digraphs with -ng, and the very silly poem "On the Ning, Nang, Nong" (found in our Google Classroom, Literacy --> Poetry Study). We added each vowel to the -ng digraph and started developing word lists for each combination:

Co-generated word lists.
Students were able to identify examples of increasing complexity,
adding digraphs, 2 and 3 letter blends and common endings.
Our favourite are words that use double "ng" like "bringing"!

Our Perfect Cup of Cocoa art and writing is now hanging proudly outside our classroom! We plan to share the writing with you in more depth soon, but for the meantime, please enjoy a short glimpse of the colourful display! 

We have greatly enjoyed learning about our family histories, and plotting each generation's birth place (approximately) on our maps. Thank you to everyone who contributed information!

To wrap up our week, we had a lovely day celebrating friendship during our Valentine's Day activities:

Thumb-print heart art.
Happy Valentines Day from Room 8!

Our buddy valentines with Room 7. 

Some additional, on-going work:

Identifying key vocabulary in word problems that indicate
whether it can be solved with addition or subtraction.

Comparing fiction and non-fiction books on the same subject. 

Noticing that some books may have both fiction and non-fiction features. 

Some upcoming reminders:

- Thursday, February 11th: Teacher's Convention, no school for students

- Friday, February 12th: Teacher's Convention, no school for students

- Monday. February 15th: Family Day Holiday, school closed

Have a warm and cozy weekend everyone!
Ms. Thomas

Friday, February 5th, 2021

 Hi Families, 

Welcome February! As students discovered during our monthly calendar work, February is a short month, but also has lots going on - mostly a 5-day weekend on their part because of Teacher's Convention and Family Day. Lots of excitement for that discovery! 

This week, we looked at Groundhog Day in connection with holidays/celebrations and seasonal changes.

Collecting data for classroom predictions. 

http://groundhogdayroundup.ca/

As weather took a turn mid-week, students were amazed at how accurate Balzac Billy had been! 

We read our last 3 picture books, supporting our understanding of Perseverance. It's been wonderful to hear the students pick out the mini lessons from each book, and summarize them in their own words, often connecting to personal experience, other peer's ideas or other books we've read. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n63tGkSzNrc
Mini-lesson: Failure is just the beginning!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKuXo5cIRtI
Mini-lesson: Be perfectly imperfect!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA0KAR6bOJI
Mini-lesson: Study hard and focus!

Our Perfect Cup of Cocoa art is complete! Students used acrylic paint to create their mug, and then mixed media for their two toppings. Our work is hanging in the hallway, and adds such a beautiful splash of colour! In the upcoming week, we will add our good copy descriptive writing to wrap things up. 

Thank you to all families who have contributed information to our Google Form on Personal and Family Histories. We look forward to mapping where our families have come from, and sharing our name stories next week as well. The Google Form is still open, so if you have not already done so, please feel free to add your child's information using the link sent out in SchoolMessenger. 

Grade 2 families - we started our Independent Spelling Program this week, and Ms. Thomas forgot to teach the students how to Buddy Test today! We will Buddy Test on Monday, and because it is a short week next week, students will wait until February 16th to choose new words for study. 

Some reminders:

- Tuesday, February 9th: Monthly School Council meeting, everyone invited to attend
- Wednesday, February 10th: School-based Valentine's Day celebration
- Thursday, February 11th: Teacher's Convention, no school for students
- Friday, February 12th: Teacher's Convention, no school for students
- Monday, February 15th: Family Day Holiday, school closed

Stay warm this weekend everyone!
Ms. Thomas

Independent Spelling Program

Dear Families, 

This week, grade 2 students will be starting our Independent Spelling Program. 

At the beginning of the week, students will choose 5 words from their individualized spelling lists to practice. They will bring a small list home to keep you informed and facilitate home practice. There will be several opportunities to practice their words in class. At-home practice is optional. 

At the end of the week, students will do testing with a buddy.

Students's spelling lists will be developed from assessments on the high frequency word lists as well as their own work., so the words they are learning are individualized and relevant to their learning. This program is designed to improve accuracy and automaticity for spelling of high frequency words, as well as independence. 

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know. 

Ms. Thomas

School Council Presentation: Mindfulness Techniques and Strategies

*This presentation is intended for an adult audience and will be about 1 hr long. We will also share a recording of the presentation for parents who are unable to attend. 

Amber will be hosting the meeting on Zoom: 

https://zoom.us/j/95663706186?pwd=NzdJc3l2dnExQkZxK05aK0JrdGRsZz09