Monday October 31st

Today in inquiry we talked about First Nations. We were using our I see, I think and I imagine graphic organizer strategy and looking at different pictures of First Nations life from the past. We read a book called Hidden Buffalo.

In gym we started our dance unit with Sound Kreations. We were learning about Hip Hop. It is a type of dance that comes from New York.

Today was Pumpkinella. Ask me which pumpkin was my favorite and which one(s) I sketched? We ate in our class today due to Pumpkinella.

In writing we started our Explorer Journals. We are writing from the perspective of our Job/Role in Frank, Alberta. Ask me what I wrote about.

Today we did a hypothesis about whether a tiny pumpkin would float or sink. Ask me what my hypothesis was? Ask me what I observed?

Reminder: Monday is PUMPKINELLA. Please bring in your carved Jack-O-Lantern on Sunday between 2pm-4pm or Monday morning. We are so excited to count up the socks we get for In from the Cold and to sketch and take pictures of the Jack-o-Lanterns!

Today we put a reading sample on IRIS. Please watch it with me and ask me about my reading goal and strategy for achieving that goal. We also put our Boats an Buoyancy reflection/picture on IRIS.

Today we learned about First Nations (Blackfoot Tribe) from the past. Ask me something that I learned about them. Ask me what Nomadic means.

In math we talked about hops, skips and jumps. Ask me what they mean. Ask me to make you a number and act it out for you.

Reminders:

Tonight is Literacy Night from 6:30-8pm. Please come regardless of if you brought in your forms or not. This night is all about supporting your parents with ideas and strategies for how to help you learn to read and build your comprehension.

Today in Science we started working on the Scientific Method. We learned about following some steps when we do an experiment.

1.     We wonder about something: come up with a question we want to figure out

2.     We make a hypothesis (what we think will happen and why)

3.     We Observe (see) what happens in the experiment

4.     We discover something from what we observed happen

5.     We now know something and can make a conclusion

Ask me what experiment we did to practice this method.

We also watched some videos about Scientific thinking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMlXU97E-uQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sKX20WhKS4

Today in gym we played pin handball. Ask me how to play? We also talked about Team Work. We also did bull eye assessments. Ask me about it? 

Today in music we played the xylophone. Ask me what my favorite part was? 

Reminder: Picture orders came home today. You can order online or send your orders into your child's teacher. 
Reminder: Halloween dance tickets came home today. If you still want tickets you just need to bring the form and money to the door as no more tickets will be issued. 


Heritage park was fun! Today we got to see a blacksmith shop. Ask me what I remember about it?

We got to see the big work horses at Heritage park. One is named Mac and one is named Todd. We saw the livery stable and we got to see the horseshoes and the nails that they used more than 100 years ago to shoe the horses. Ask me why they used horseshoes for the horses?

We saw a one room school house.

We went into a dirt house made of grass. It is called a Sod house. It is a house made of dirt, grass and stuff from the ground.

Today we got to explore the Wainright Hotel ask me what it reminded me of from Frank, Alberta?

We got to explore main street and we saw a general store.

Some of us got to dress up as First Nations, Northwest Mounted Police, Farmers, Ranchers, and different Settlers.

We got to look at the Cottage Hospital and we talked about different jobs from the past and we looked at how a hospital would have looked 100 years ago.

REMINDER: Tomorrow is our Field Trip to Heritage Park. Please don't be late. Please dress appropriately. Please wear comfortable shoes as we will be walking quite a bit. Please bring a liter free lunch. We are challenging ourselves to create no garbage tomorrow as we walk through Heritage Park as one way of imagining bringing a lunch to school more than 100 years ago would have been.

Today we worked on Magic Egg Math, Egg Carton ten frames math and Triangle Math. Ask me which math group I am in and what I did.

We did read to someone and read to self and read to the teacher. Ask me which one I did today?

Today in writing we finished our stuffy writing or our pumpkin writing. We also added a picture of us and our stuffy into our writing book.

Today in gym we played handball.

In music we had to do some writing about the music. We wrote about how the music made us feel?

Reminder: Mrs. Lagrana's and Mrs. McDonald's classes will be going to Heritage Park on Wednesday October 26th. If you have not paid for this field trip can you please make sure to either pay online or send in a cheque for $13.64
Please dress appropriately for Heritage Park. A hoodie is not a substitute for a coat. Please were socks, appropriate footwear for walking, an empty backpack (except for your liter less lunch), mitts, hats etc. 

Pumpkinella & Socktober - Will take place on October 31, 2016. Reminder that you can drop off new socks of any size and your jack-o-lantern on Oct.30, 2016 from 2 - 4 pm or on Oct. 31, 2016 from 7am - 8:48am. Did you know that counting the seeds of your pumpkin is a great math activity for your child? Have them estimate how many seeds they think are inside first and then count by 2s, 5s, or 10s to see how many it really had. Talking about their counting strategy and which counting method was most effective in counting all the seeds is a great way to engage your child in mathematical conversation! Happy carving!

Today in writing we made mini books of our Halloween writing (Mrs. McDonald's class) In Mrs. Lagrana's class we worked on our descriptive stuffy writing or our pumpkin writing if we forgot our stuffy. 

In math we used magic eggs, triangle math and ten frames. Ask me what I did? 
strategy is for meeting that goal. 

Today in gym we played handball.

This afternoon we looked at some pictures and did I see, I think and I imagine about why the things in the pictures would make us want to come and live in Frank, AB.

Today we wrote goals for our reading. Soon we will put them on IRIS. Ask me what my reading goal is and what my strategy is to meet it. 

Reminder: Please bring in your favorite stuffy so that we can do a writing activity with it on Monday.
Reminder: Today RAZ-KIDS letters and passwords came home. Please keep them f
Today we had a special presentation about boats and buoyancy. We made submarines out of paper clips, straws and and tape. Ask me how we did it? We made play dough float by changing its shape and making it lighter.

Today we did read to someone and read to self. Ask me what book I read? Ask me what my favorite part was?

Today in math we used the iPads to take a video of our learning and posted it on IRIS. Some of us got this job done and some still need to do it next week. We were building magic numbers and explaining how many groups we had and what kinds of groups were the most efficient and helped us count faster. We also practiced making math sentences once we had created our number.

Happy Weekend everyone!  Your Fundraising Society really appreciates all the work, effort and orders that have come through so far!  Remember to take advantage of this extra weekend to reach out to friends and families to share our awesome fundraiser with them!  Parents are loving the chocolates, the wrapping paper and some of the fun kitchen gadgets!  There is still time to register your child for online sales, and easily share your shopping link through email, facebook, twitter and more!  You can also help friends and neighbours browse through the catalogues and fill out the order forms to pay by cash or cheque (payable to ROS Fundraising Society)!  

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to direct them toROSFundraisingsociety@gmail.com, or visit our Facebook page!  Thank you again for all your support in making our great school even better!  

PS. Watch for upcoming news on sweet deals for Calgary Flames tickets!!! 

Sobey's Pumpkin Challenge - The students in Grades 1 - 3 were challenged by Royal Oak Sobey's to creatively design a pumpkin to display in their store as part of their Halloween Challenge. Each class took up this collaborative task with their students based on interests, student designs, or things they are learning about in the classroom. Parents and the community are encouraged to see the pumpkins at the store starting Friday Oct. 21, 2016. Hopefully they will last until Monday Oct. 31, 2016! Sobey's will select a class with the best design to win a class prize. The winning class will be announced during Pumpkinella on Oct. 31, 2016. 

Reminder: Today we are bringing home a notice about the Halloween Dance and about Family Literacy night.

Today we finished writing sensory descriptive words from our class generated word bank about pumpkins on our Sobey’s contest pumpkin. We decided that since we have been working so much on our fall senses and our fall poem that we would carve leaves into our pumpkin as well. It will be picked up tomorrow October 21^st and displayed at the Royal Oak Sobey’s until Halloween,

Today we continued to work on building descriptive sentences about a pumpkin. Ask me what the pumpkin looked like. What shape was it? What colour? How did it feel when I touched it? What did I notice about the surface of the pumpkin? What did I imagine or wonder about the pumpkin?

Below is a list of activities to do at home with a pumpkin! Many of these activities are rich with learning opportunities. Have Fun!

Science/Social Studies

http://kidworldcitizen.org/2013/10/07/using-pumpkins-learning-every-subject/

http://jess-thecreativeclassroom.blogspot.ca/2010/06/geography.html

http://earlycorelearning.com/the-best-pumpkin-videos-for-your-classroom/

Math

http://ourjourneywestward.com/pumpkin-school/

http://www.prekinders.com/mini-pumpkin-math/

http://mathgeekmama.com/pumpkin-seed-estimation-and-counting/

http://mathgeekmama.com/pumpkin-seed-estimation-and-counting/

Today we read Chapter 3 of Book Three: Keeley and The Mountain.  Ask me what happened in Frank Alberta.  Ask me what I’m worried about from the book?

Today we watched a video about sinking and floating. We talked about some important scientific words like hypothesis, test, observe and experiment.  Ask me what these words mean? We are excited to begin learning about Boats and Buoyancy in science.  Please watch the video below with me all about how to do an experiment about floating and sinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_449837&feature=iv&src_vid=cECicd09J34&v=UjQ4OwolarI

Reminder: Today is the first day of wetland club.

Today in gym we played a new game called "keep the chicken away". Ask me about some of the rules and what my favorite part was?

Today was the last day to finish our google docs poem. Mrs. Lagrana will print them out and we will get to put them on our display outside the classroom. We will also be able to take a picture and post them on IRIS.

We voted for what we want to do for filling our marble jar. We talked about proper voting and how we have to choose our one favorite and only vote once. We will recount tomorrow as some people were away and decide for sure. Ask me what my vote is for?

Today we came up with descriptive double scoop words about our classroom pumpkin. Ask me what words I came up with?

Today in social inquiry we wrote about our job from the past. The Journal of ___________ is how we started it. Ask me what I wrote about? My job is from over 100 years ago and a job that would have been needed/important in Frank, Alberta.

Today in math we used power of ten cards and we filled out a sheet about groups of ten, groups of five and ones (loose or leftovers). We also cleaned out our inventory bins. Ask me what I learned?

Reminder: Please make sure you have brought in your completed field trip forms for Heritage Park. We are going next week Wednesday October 26th and if they are not in your child will not be able to come that day. Also on an ongoing basis if you could please let me know on the forms if you are paying online (it just makes it so much easier to keep track of things).

Info from ROS Fundraising Society:

The ROS Fundraising society would like to thank all families who have already submitted orders for the DFS Fundraiser currently in progress.  Please note, due to a number of issues we have extended the fundraiser due date to MONDAY, OCTOBER 24TH at 9:00AM (1PM for afternoon kindergarten students).  Any late orders may incur extra shipping fees, and will therefore not be accepted without prior arrangements directly with the Fundraising Society. 

Please remember to share with friends and family who can order online once you have registered your child, and they can choose to have orders delivered to their home or the school.  The link you will share with them will look like this... https://orderentry.fundtrackersql.com/shopdfscanada/Home/ShopNow?SellerId=XXXXXwith your child's seller ID in place of the XXXXX.  When you register your child for online orders according to the instructions in your fundraising package, please note that the Student ID requested is the 7 digit ID Number on their Order form, NOT their CBE number!

There are lots of great prize incentives with DFS, so be sure to choose the prizes you are eligible for when you order!  If you have any questions or concerns, please email me us atROSFundraisingSociety@gmail.com. 

Today in math we checked our totals and our groups of ten and started looking at the relationship between groups of ten, ones (loose or leftovers) and the total number.

We used Google Docs again to finish typing our Fall poems. We also talked about using periods and capital letters where appropriate in our writing. Ask me to try and login to google docs from home.

Today in social studies inquiry we looked at the different jobs from the past that we had discussed from our Keeley and the Mountain book. We made a list and decided which job we want to learn about in more detail and write about. Ask me which job I chose?

We read Keeley and The Mountain chapter 2. Ask me about any new characters or jobs that we added to our visual sketch book?

Reminder: Please talk about some ideas for carving our classroom pumpkin for the SOBEY'S contest. We will be carving something we are learning about in grade 2. Please come tomorrow with some ideas.

Reminder: Remember to read the notice that went home about Pumpkinella. Your pumpkin must be here either on Sunday October 30th (between 2pm-4pm) or on the Monday October 31st in the morning. Please bring a donation of socks (as many as you like) that we can then donate to In From the Cold. We are working on showing generosity and belonging.

Today we started re-filling our marble jar. Please talk at home about some ideas for what we should do in class as a reward for filling it up the first time. We will take reasonable ideas like extra game time, computer time etc. We will then compile a list on Wednesday of all student's ideas and have a vote about it.

Today we used google docs for the first time. We started to write our Fall poem. Ask me to share it with you. Tomorrow we will finish and use spell check and an editing tool.

Today in gym we played a game called "clean your yard". We were playing for fun but also practicing our overhand throw. Ask me what the rules were?

Teachers will choose from the applications that came back today (for wetland club) and let student's know on Monday. Please be prepared if you are chosen to stay after school on Wednesday October 19th.

Today we talked about where we would build a perfect community. We looked at our landscape posters with different RESOURCES and had to think if it would be a good or bad place to stay and why? Ask me what I think about it?

Today we uploaded three things to IRIS. We also wrote comments about them. Ask me to share and explain my work.

Today we did Read to Someone or Read to Self. Ask me which one I did and what book I read?

Today we filled up our Marble jar! On Monday we will come up with some ideas for what our reward should be!

Reminder: It is picture day tomorrow in the morning. Bring your most beautiful smiles!
***An application form is coming home tomorrow for some students who had expressed an interest in being a part of the Wetlands Club. If your child brings one home please read through the application form with them and have them write a few sentences about why they should be accepted as a member. Teachers will review the application's on Friday October 14th and make a final decision. At this time we can only take one student per grade 2 class.

Today in writing we finished our fall poems and continued to work on adding in double scoop descriptive words to our writing. We also worked on finishing up our sidewalk writing and some of us did a free write activity where we described a halloween character using juicy and descriptive words.

We finished reading book one of Keeley and began book three called "Keeley and the Mountain". We looked at photographs of different landscapes today in groups and had to decide if we would build a community there or not. We will continue looking at this tomorrow. Ask me why I think my picture would make a good community or not?

Reminder: Field Trip Forms for Heritage park came home today. Please fill out and return ASAP.  If you are interested in volunteering please email Mrs. Lagrana: imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca. I can only take 3 volunteers for this trip.
Reminder: Picture day is this Thursday in the morning.
Reminder: Now that there is snow on the ground and our Fall seems to have been cut unreasonably short, it is important to dress appropriately for the weather. Please bring jackets, hats, mitts, boots and snow pants. We go outside and play unless it is (-20) and we need to be able to use the playground equipment and play with the snow without our hands freezing!


Today some of us finished our Underneath the Sidewalk writing. Ask me what my double scoop descriptive words were?

We had gym and music today. In gym we played a game called Knockout and we had to knock down stuff like bowling pins and baskets to win. In music we kept the beat on a sheet of paper.

Today in math we went to our Project Space and worked on putting our inventory into groups of 10 and leftovers. Ask me if I finished and how many leftovers I had?

We are almost finished the book The Girl from Turtle Mountain. We have one chapter left!

In writing we also worked on finishing our Fall Poem. We worked on making sure each sentence has double scoop descriptive words to make our writing more juicy and interesting!

Ask me what I did/read during Literacy Groups today?

There is NO SCHOOL tomorrow or Monday October 10th. Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Today we went to the project space to do math. Ask me what I did and what I like about the project space?

Today we had an assembly about Fundraising. Ask me what I learned? Some people won prizes.

In writing we kept writing our Underneath the Sidewalk stories. Ask me about my Then I listened closely and heard ___________ sentence?

In math we worked on creating a two digit number of our choice (less than 40) and building it using power of ten cards. Ask me what I did to build my number?

We read chapter 8 and chapter 9 of Keeley: The Girl from Turtle Mountain. Ask me what I drew about?

We have an upcoming field trip to Heritage Park on October 26th. Field trip forms will come home next week. If you are interested in volunteering please email: imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca

Home reading came home this week. Please remember to return your books on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Today we read chapter 8 of Keeley. We also watched a slideshow about life in Frank. Ask me what some of the pictures were. Ask me how I know if they were pictures from the past or present.
We also talked about School Rules from 1915. Ask me about them!?

We went to Mrs. McDonald's class to do math. We practiced making numbers like 17 and 26 and 68 using power of ten cards and breaking the big numbers into smaller numbers. We practiced showing how we know we have made a particular number by documenting our math thinking in our math journals. Ask me what my strategy was for making 17.

We continued writing about our Underneath the Sidewalk  stories today. Ask me how my story finished? We also read a book called "Underneath the Sidewalk". Ask me what my favorite part was?

In gym we did centers again practicing our underhand throws with beanbags. We also did some recording today. Ask me what I recorded in gym.

Some of us finished our fall art today in Mrs. McDonald's class and some of us started our fall descriptive poems in Mrs. Lagrana's room. Ask me which one I did?

Today in music we got to use the drums. Ask me how to play?

In inquiry we read chapter 7 of Keeley: The Girl from Turtle Mountain. In our visual sketchbooks we created categories like: Townspeople/Buildings&Places/Interesting Words and Jobs.

Today in gym it was our second day of Stations.  Ask me what my favorite station was today?

Today in math we glued ten frames into our books and continued making numbers and showing how we knew what the number was by colouring in the ten frames with pencil and writing the different numbers we saw down. Ask me what groups I saw and counted by?

Today we started adding writing to our picture to create our own Underneath the Sidewalk story. Ask me what my First, Then, Next and Last in my story are?