Artist in Residence, Writing about an Insect using Action Ant Verbs and Juicy June Bug Adjectives, Math Problems Solving and Triangle Math (Number Bond) Addition!

Reminder:

There is no school tomorrow Friday November 1st as it is a system wide professional development day.

Artist in Residence

We are so lucky to have completed our first three Artist in Residene sessions.

First we learned about some helpful and harmful prairie insects and how one can be a pest and one acts as helpful by eating those pests!

We made backgrounds using paint and a paint knife (cardboard) to add texture to our backgrounds.

Our background represents either a Canola Field, A Potato Crop, or a Cereal Crop.


Ask me which background I chose?

Second we got to look at picture of the insect that would live in our backgrounds and decide if we wanted to draw the parasitic one or the helpful one!


We then practiced drawing only the big parts of our insect like the Head, Thorax, Abdomen and Wings. We picked a paint colour that would contrast with our background trying to make our insect POP!

Next we got to add interesting colours and designs to our insects. We got to draw their details such as legs, antennae, and wings. We used differnt colours for these parts. 

Our last session with the Artist is on Tuesday November 5th from 9:30 am until 10:30 am. If you are able to volunteer please email me at imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca. 


Literacy

This week in literacy we have been working on Making Connections when we read. This week we focused on Text-Self connections:

Please practice this strategy at home with your Home Reading books. We will continue to work on making connections next week.

Writing

This week we have been working on writing descriptive double scoop sentences about an insect.

First we filled out a bubble mind map with all of the juicy, powerful adjectives that describe our insect:

Next we used sentence starters and our brainstormed words to come up with powerful sentences:

Today we made a bubble map for Verbs. We had to imagine how our insect moves? 

We will then write Action sentences for our insects:

Next week we will put all of these sentences together to create a descriptive paragraph. We will then edit our work using the COPS strategies from last week in order to create a good copy of writing. 


Math

In math we have been working on solving a word problem using CUBES as a step by step guide:

We are working in groups to solve the Candy Conundrum!!

We are also learning a new math strategy for adding double digits together. It is the number bond strategy or Traingle Math!!

We practiced this strategy yesterday and today as a way to combine numbers more efficiently after exploding them! 

Ask me to share this strategy with you at home!! 

Editing our Writing, Math Bar Graphs and Picture Graphs, and Prairie Art!

Reminder:

Halloween Reminders

Dear Parents, We would like to take this opportunity to remind families about Halloween festivities on Thursday, October 31. Students should arrive at school dressed in their costumes, as there will not be an opportunity for them to get dressed at school.  Please do not send your children in costumes that include masks, weapons, accessories or blood and gore.  Also, students need to be able to independently manage their costumes, for things like bathroom breaks, going outside for recess, lunch, etc.  A Halloween parade will take place at 9:30 am on Thursday, October 31 and parents are invited to watch. Please arrive a few minutes early so you can get a seat in the gym! As students are learning about healthy eating, we ask that parents do not send any special treats or snacks to share with other students. PM Kindergarten students are asked to arrive at school dressed in their costumes.  Again, please do not send your children in costumes that include masks, weapons, accessories or blood and gore. Happy Halloween, Royal Oak School

Writing a Good Copy

We have been starting to learn about some important editing tips. Writers always have a rough copy (sometimes many rough copies). They edit there work AFTER they get their ideas out.

We started practicing this week using our Fall writing and editing using COPS as a guide:

Last week we practiced underlining in red everywhere that we did use a capital letter correctly. We looked for places where we had forgotten or maybe used upper case letters where we should not have. If we edited to add a proper captial where we had forgotten we then got to underline in red to show we had done this. 

We also checked for proper finger spaces and if we had forgoten used a small line to show where we should put one next time. 

We will continue practicing this and adding in editing for Punctuation and Spelling next week. 


Math Graphing

In math we have been looking at bar graphs and picture graphs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYXmY5axC2I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWoya4T37PU


We have been practicing becoming familiar with reading a graph in order to answer important questions that the graph is telling us.

We have been practicing looking at data and then putting it into a graph.

This website as many bar graphs and picture graphs with questions about the data collected. You can practce reading and interpreting graphs here:

https://www.2nd-grade-math-salamanders.com/bar-graphs-2nd-grade.html

ART
We continued working on our Prairie Art. Last week we worked on mixing paint to create the perfect blue sky of the Praires. We looked at picutres and talked about colour mixing. We also practiced drawing a horizon line to show where the land and the sky meet.

This week we added wheat fields to our picture. We used a cardboard stamp to layer the yellow paint onto our brown dirt background. 

This week we will add another detail from the prairies. These landscapes are prairie art from the past. 

We are also very excited to start working with the Artist in Residence this week! 

Ask me how that experience was today? 

Reminders, In-Class Field Trip and Guided Insect Walk, Prepping for Insect Research!

Reminders:

Ms. Bennett will be putting together a Remembrance Day slideshow and is inviting school families to send her photographs of family members who are veterans or current members of the Canadian Arm Forces. Please send in all photographs by the deadline of Friday November 1st. With the photographs please include the Canadian Arm Forces veteran or current member’s name, the war or peace keeping mission they participated in, if possible, where the photo was taken, and their relationship to you (for example great grandfather, aunt, uncle, etc.). Ms. Bennett’s email address is mebennett@cbe.ab.ca

Thank you, 

Learning Environment Committee

Reminders: Tomorrow my Raz-Kids information will come home in my home communication folder. Raz-Kids is an excellent way to get more reading practice in different way than our home reading books. Please follow the attached letter and use your username and password information to get started. Please keep the attached username and password somwhere safe as it will remain the same all year long. 

https://www.raz-kids.com/main/ViewPage/name/login

Reminders:

We would like to create our own calm down bottles and are requesting if you have any 500 ml water bottles that are empty and clean could you please send them into class. We are hoping to have a enough that the whole class can participate in this activity by this Thursday October 24th. 

Literacy

This week we have continued to practice retelling as a reading comprehesnion strategy. Being able to retell the important parts about what we have read is an important indication that we are understanding what we are reading. 

If we are unable to retell these parts we need to slow down, back-up and re-read until we can. 

Using the 5-finger model as a guide to retell can help us to remember the story sequence.

This week we have added in a few more details to our 5-finger Retell:

Insect Experts and Guided Wetland Walk

Today we were lucky to have two Environmental Sceintists into our classroom to talk about local insects. We spent the first 45 minutes putting together some familiar insects and reviewing important body parts, adaptations and life cycle.

They then led us on a guided walk of our wetlands and we got to explore sights, sounds and clues that insects are nearby:

Insect Research

Today we explored a website called insects of Alberta:
http://www.insectsofalberta.com/main.htm

We had to do a mind map of an insect that we would like to research using websites, books, articles, photographs and magazines. We will begin this research by using graphic organizers to record our initial findings. Next week we will learn how to create a GoogleSlides presentation so that we can create a final presentation to share with our class and with you about our insect of choice.