Character Traits, Double Digit Subtraction, Acrylic Arctic Landscapes, and Design Thinking!

Reminders: Book orders came home today. If you wish to place an order please do so online or send in your order and cheque by next week Friday March 6th. 

Reminder: Next week Thursday March 5th at 6pm is our CELEBRATION OF LEARNING. This is a chance to share with you some of our learning and big ideas in Grade 2! We really hope that you can come! 


Character Traits

This week in literacy we have been focusing on Character Traits. 

We have been practicing reading books and using the evidence to determine what our Character's physical (outside) traits are and what we think they personalities are like based on their thoughts, actions, words and feelings.


Double Digit Subtraction

This week we were challenged to answer a multi-step word problem. We were encouraged to use CUBES to figure out what the problem was asking us and how to solve:

After solving we self-assessed using red, yellow and green. We noticed that a common problem we had was slowing down and ensuring the we had used CUBES before trying to draw or solve anything!

We also noticed that on question number 2 we needed to slow down and re-read to realize that part of the information that we needed in order to solve we had to go back and get from our answer to question number 1!

We also realized that subtraction is a different process when using our t-charts and base ten blocks.

We will continue to practice subtraction all next week using this strategy. 

We also continue to practise using number bonds/decomposing as another strategy for solving double digit addition equations and as a way to double check our own work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFjHid8Hgek

Practice this strategy at home using dice to come up with your double digit numbers!!

Acrylic Arctic Landscapes

This week we studied a Canadian artist, Jason Carter who does Canadian Landscapes and animals using Canvas and Vivid colours. 

http://www.jasoncarter.ca/paintings

We practiced drawing our Arctic animal and then after thinking about where our animal spends most of the time we drew that kind of a landscape, emulating Jason Carter's style of big simple lines.

Tomorrow we will use acrylic paint and choose 3 or 4 vibrant and complimentary colours to paint our Arctic Landscape. 

We are including no pictures of our work on this blog as we want to surprise you with our beautiful art at our upcoming Celebration of Learning!

Design Thinking 

After reading many articles and stories, watching some videos, having an Environmental Scientist Presentation, and exploring the Arctic we have come up with some important problems facing the Arctic due to Climate Change and shifting weather patterns. 


Today we got into groups about a problem that interested us and brainstormed what this problem actually is and how this problem effects the people and the animals of the arctic. 

We defined the problem and empathized about it. We will continue this tomorrow and create a mini representation of the problem using clay, cardboard, paper, and other small building materials. 

This will also be shared with you at our upcoming Celebration of Learning next week.