Friday December 16th, 2016

Have a wonderful holiday season and break! We will see you back at school on Tuesday January 3rd, 2017.

Today we had a ketchup day:

•  We finished our good copies of our letter to Jan Brett. 
• We learned how to address an envelope so that our letter will get where we want it to
• We finished up our Todd Parr art and Mrs. Lagrana will mail it to him over break
• We finished up our Candy Conundrum problem in Math 
• We used a rubric of "I can statements" to make sure all details were included in our math work

Today we used the mini ipads to upload a picture of our rough copy and I can statements for our Jan Brett letter. We commented on the editing process. Mrs. Lagrana will comment on our reflection and picture over the break so keep checking IRIS. 

Elf Bobby Jolly brought us all a present today! Ask me about the magic elf dust and my bell. 

In math we created a repeating pattern to decorate our Jan Brett gingerbread door.

We helped our Kindergarten buddies to upload a picture of their work into IRIS and we wrote a comment for them. We like helping our buddies to learn technology!

Today we read the book "A Porcupine in a Pine Tree: A Canadian 12 Days of Christmas" by Helaine Becker and Werner Zimmermann. Mrs. Lagrana has a challenge for us over the winter break! If you read this book (you can pick it up from the library or their are many youtube versions of the story) can you figure out how many things his true love game to him if you count each day and put it all together. 

Day 1:

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me 1 porcupine in a pine tree

Day 2: On the second day of christmas my true love gave to me 2 Caribou

Day 3: On the third day of christmas my true love gave to me 3 beaver tails, 2 Caribou and 1 porcupine in a pine tree

Math

Day 1: 1

Day 2: 1+2=3

Day 3: 3+3=

Day 4: 4+6=

Day 5: 5+10=

Day 6: 6+15=

Day 7: 7+21=

Day 8: 8+28=

Day 9: 9+36=

Day 10: 10+45=

Day 11: ???

Day 12???

What is the grand total when you follow the pattern and add it all together? 

What strategies did you use to add it all together?

If the song kept going until the 15th day of Christmas what would the total be?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mnuyk1M168

Wednesday December 14th, 2016

Today we had an assembly where we got to sing Christmas Carols. Ask me what a Boomer is? Today at the assembly one of our Educational Assistants (Mrs. Gibson) played the song "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" on the piano and she sang it. It was beautiful!



In gym we played a basic Dodgeball. We were the first class to play it this week!


We finished our rough copy of our Jan Brett letter. In Mrs. Lagrana's class we did editing. Ask me what I edited for?

Today we worked on our blue and orange cards for our Game of Frank. Ask me what the Orange and Blue cards are about? We are hoping to play our game together on Friday.

Today we did silent reading. Ask me what book I read.

Today we read two Jan Brett books (in Mrs. McDonald's class) Animals' santa and Berlioz the Bear. Ask me what my favorite one was?

In math we used long rolls of cut graph paper to make our own number line. We used different colours for the decades and the extras. Ask me what a decade is. Tell me a number and I will tell you how many decades and how many extras it has?

Tuesday December 13, 2016

Reminder: Report Cards were sent home today. Please send the signed envelopes back to the school so we can be environmentally friendly and reuse the envelopes in June. 

Reminder: Tomorrow morning at 9:00 am we will be having Caroling in the gym. Please feel free to join us for some festive singing until 9:30 am. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
Can you figure out the pattern? What do you notice? What do we call the red numbers? Ask me what rules I learned today in math. 

Today we worked on our game of Frank. We finished our Townspeople/Jobs Cards and began our Resources/Supplies cards. We are so excited to play our game. We also made our game board pieces with modeling clay. Ask me what my symbol is? 

Monday December 12, 2016

Reminder: 4 more days until Winter Break!
Reminder: Wednesday December 14th at 9:00 AM we will be having Christmas Carols in the gym. Parents are welcome to join us for 30 minutes of singing together and listening to our grade 3 Choir. 
Reminder: It is cold outside. Today was our first day back outside at lunch. We need to make sure we are coming to school prepared (snow pants, jackets, hats, mittens, boots) because even if it was a blue day in the morning it may warm up enough for us to have some play time outside by lunch. 

Today we had an assembly for Caroling. Our next caroling assembly will be Wednesday at 9:00 AM

Today we worked on editing our Jan Brett letters and adding our keyhole pictures to our letters. We also read another Jan Brett booked Called "The Wild Christmas Reindeer".

In gym we played a new game called Santa, Mrs. Clause, Grinch and Elf tag game! At least thats what Mrs. Hennick calls it!! Ask me how the game was played!

Today Bobby Jolly came to Mrs. Lagrana's class first and then surprised us by going to Mrs. McDonald's class when we weren't expecting it! He challenged us to do some drawings for Mrs. Green. to say thank you for all that she does for our school.

Today in math we used base ten (ten sticks and ones) to build double digit numbers and add double digit numbers. Ask me which strategy I used for building my numbers or for adding them together.

Today in Mrs. Lagrana's class  we finished our Gingerbread baby art and our Todd Parr art. Some of us started making a repeating pattern for decorating our Gingerbread Door!

Today we finished up our Red Cards for our Frank Board Games. Red means we are thriving in Frank. Ask me what my card says and how many spaces I get to move on the game board if I get it?

Friday December 9, 2016

Today we wrote a letter (rough copy) to Jan Brett. We are going to type it out on GoogleDoc's next week. Here is a link to her website if you want to learn more about her and the books she has written and illustrated.

Today we finished our Neighborhood Holiday cards. We wrote a message and did some stamps. We are excited for our Royal Oak Neighbors to receive them.

In math we practiced building a double digit number and adding two double digit numbers in our head...ask me what my strategy was?

Today Bobby Jolly was in our Recycling bin. He had a mini bottle with a note inside. He challenged us to do something kind for our office staff (Mrs. Braun and Mrs. Jackson). He is a surprising little elf. We never know where he will be next!

http://www.janbrett.com/index.html

Thursday December 8

Reminder: Stephen's Backpacks items will be sorted and put into backpacks this upcoming Monday December 12th after school. Tomorrow and Monday will be the last day to bring stuff in to stuff backpacks!

Reminder: Early Dismissal Tomorrow at 12:48 pm.

Today we got to pick a middle name for our Elf. We named him Bobby Jolly. He gave us a new letter today about doing random acts of kindness for people at our school. Ask me what our first Random Acts of Kindness Challenge was?

Today we read "The Gingerbread Friends" again and we watched a video of Jann Brett drawing the Gingerbread baby. We practiced drawing the baby too!

Today we read "Home for Christmas" by Jann Brett. Ask me what it was about.

Today we made holiday cards that will be delivered to Royal Oak Neighbors. Ask me what I made on my card and how?

Today at gym we did a basketball game. Ask me what the rules were?

In math we used ten sticks and ones to make numbers and to add numbers together. Ask me what my strategy was?

Wednesday December 7th, 2016

Today we started making a game board about Life in Frank! Ask me what my game title is?

Today a new elf came to our classroom. Mrs. McDonald's class names him Bobby. Mrs. Lagrana's class is thinking of a suitable middle name for him because he disappeared during math and showed up in Mrs. Lagrana's class!!! We are very curious and excited about where he will end up tomorrow!! Our elf left us a note that he will be checking if we are naughty or nice and letting Santa know.


Today we had Centre Time in gym. We used the Scooter Boards, Hockey Sticks, Skipping Ropes and Hula Hoops. Ask me which centre was my favorite?

We used Modge Podge to paint our covers for our Pioneer Journals. Mrs. McDonald's class took some thread and after hole punching our buffalo art we practiced sewing by weaving string through our covers to bind our book together.  Mrs. Lagrana's class is excited to try this tomorrow!

Today we did a Venn Diagram comparing the story of Cinderella (Traditional Version) and Cinders: A Cinderella Story by Jann Brett.

We also Read Gingerbread Friends by Jann Brett. Ask me what I liked about the story?

Tuesday December 6th, 2016

Today we went to see "The Slipper" which is a distinctly Calgarian version of Modern Day Cinderella! Ask me what my favorite part and who my favorite character was?

Today we started a new Candy Conundrum Math Problem. Ask me which kind of number line I am going to try first?

Monday December 5th, 2016

Reminder: Tomorrow is the ATP field trip to see "The Slipper". ******A new form came home today to be filled out to give permission for your child to attend the performance. It must be returned by tomorrow morning in order for your child to attend. If you were away please come in to the office in the morning with your parent to sign it in order to attend. 

Reminder: We are giving one more day to student's who wanted to write in about why they would like to be picked to help pack the backpacks for Stephens's backpacks. After tomorrow I will pick one student from the class, based on their reasons for wanting to do it.


Today we finished all of our boat load challenges. We also finished our bar graphs to show our results. We are bringing home our graphs. Ask me which challenge my boat did the best on?

Today we read the traditional versions of Cinderella. We are going to compare it to the Slipper and see what is the same and what is different. All week we will be reading different versions of Cinderella and comparing and contrasting.

Today we watched the story "The Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett. We are going to be reading lots of her books over the next two weeks. We talked about how we could decorate our classroom door to look like the gingerbread house from the book and how we could cooperate to get the job done. We also read "The Hat" by Jan Brett. Ask me what I learned about Jan Brett's illustrations.

Thursday December 1st, 2016

Reminder: NO SCHOOL TOMORROW (FRIDAY DECEMBER 2nd, 2016)!!

Reminder: Field trip to The Slipper will be on Tuesday December 6th. It is important to be on time that day so you don't miss the bus to the Theatre. 

Today we were asked if we had any interest in helping pack backpacks for Stephens's Backpacks. There was so much interest in Room 74 that we decided to do a challenge in order to decide because we can only have 1 student from each grade 2 class. If you are interested in doing this on Monday December 12th, after school and from 3:35-4:45 pm please write a letter to Mrs. Lagrana explaining why you want to do it and why you think Stephen's Backpacks is important.

I will accept the letters on Monday and a form will come home on Tuesday for the one student who is picked based on the letter they write. 

If you want more information about Stephen's Backpacks please visit:
http://www.stephensbackpacks.com/about-us/who-we-are/

Today we continued our boat challenges but we added Cargo to our boat. We wanted to see how many cargo our boat could hold in the wind and in the rain. Ask me about how my boat did and ask me what I learned about my boat. We then completed a bar graph for our results. On Monday we will test in a hurricane and in a rainstorm. Ask me how I think that my boat will do and why?

We did self-editing on our Pioneer Journals today. We are so excited to bring them home next week and share with you all of our writing about Frank, Alberta more than 100 years ago!

Have a great long weekend!!