Masloppy Math, Artifact Sharing and Safety Week!

Reminder

Student Centered Conferences

On Thursday, September 20^th and Friday, September 21^st we will have our first Student Centered Conferences. A reminder to parents that:

·      Thursday, September 20^th is a regular school day for Grades 1 – 3.  9:10am entry, 3:50pm dismissal.

·      There will be no school for Kindergarten students only on Thursday, September 20^th.

·      There will be no school for Kindergarten – Grade 3 on Friday, September 21^st. 

Additionally, the School Conference booking system will close TONIGHT, Tuesday, September 18^th at 11:59pm.

The following instructions will help you find the My CBE/PowerSchool Parent Account link to book conferences:

Booking School Conferences

• On the Calgary Board of Education website, scroll to the middle of the page
• Click on “My CBE/PowerSchool Parent Account” link
• Sign into your PowerSchool Parent Account
• Click on myCBE Apps (left hand side of screen)
• Click on my School Conferences (right hand side of screen)
• Select the conference day/time and submit to book your child’s conference

***NOTE: You will receive an email confirmation only if your booking was successful***

If you have not created a "My CBE/PowerSchool Account", the instructions to do so can be found here Create MyCBE/PowerSchool Parent Account

MATH
Yesterday we read a book called The Masloppy Family:

We then had to try to take inventory of some of the materials in our classroom. We had to think of different ways that we could organize the materials in order to figure out a total. Ask me how I organized my materials?

Today we continued working with organizing but looked at ways we could do so more efficiently. We used ziploc bads, elastic bands and sticky notes to help us organize our materials in order to count them more efficiently and accurately. 



Some people organized by 1's

Some people organized by colour or size

Some people organized by 2's

Some groups organized by groups of 5's, 10's, 14's, or even 20's...

Tomorrow we will share our methods in partners and with the class and then be challenged to see if our way of organizing made counting a total easier and more efficient or not? 

Efficiency=the quickest way to do something without wasting time or energy. 


Artifact Sharing-Thinking Like a Historian


Yesterday 3 people shared their Artifacts. They had to share the story of their artifact. We will be taking pictures of each of these artifacts and sharing them on our Canada and World map. If you know where your artifact originates from please share that information in your explanation so we can add you to our maps.We will have time everyday this week and some of next week to ensure all students get a chance to share their artifact and practice some public speaking. 


Safety Week! 

Yesterday we had our first Fire Drill of the year. We managed to exit the building as a whole school in 94 seconds. We practiced being Silent, Safe and Secure. Ask me how I think that I did during this drill?

Today we practiced a Lockdown. We sat quietly in our lockdown area and waited for Constable Will and Ms. Sparks to come around and tell us how we did! Ask me how we did and what I personally am going to work on improving for our next Lockdown practice?

Tomorrow is our Practice Evacuation to PRATT. We will walk as a school to practice being safe in the event of a real evacuation. 

Terry Fox Run and Reading Programs!

The Terry Fox Run was amazing. Our class ran 84 laps! Ms. Hennick will let us know on Monday our grand total for the school for laps and money raised. 

Hello teachers – please add the following message onto your blogs today, or early next week:

We are a  Calgary Reads School and we are looking for VOLUNTEERS!

Calgary Reads offers several school-based reading and tutoring programs for young children. And we need your help. Each program relies on volunteers to make them successful. Visit www.CalgaryReads.com for more information about how to get involved.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Next week is Student-centered Conferences. This is an opportunity for you to tell me a little bit about your child. Forms will be coming home for you to fill out ahead of time with any concerns, goals, interesting things that you feel I should know about your child. Please use the link below to log in and sign up for a time so we can meet.

https://myconferences.cbe.ab.ca/Booking.aspx

I can't wait to meet everyone!


REMINDER: Tomorrow is the Terry Fox Run. Please remember to wear Royal Oak Blue for the run! 

Terry Fox Run, Artifact Sharing, Reading Strategies and more!

Reminder: Friday is the Terry Fox Run at our School. It will start promptly at 11 pm. If you would like to come and run with your child please meet us on the field around 10:50 pm. 

http://www.terryfox.org/terrys-story/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QOtPDAAeY

Reminder: Book Orders are due Friday September 14th, 2018. 

Yesterday your child brought home this letter. Please read it with them and brainstorm something that they can bring in to share with us next week. If you have any further questions about this please email me at imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca

September 11, 2018

Dear Families,

Our inquiry this year focuses on the question, “How do our stories connect?”. Through this question we will be looking closely at ourselves, our families, our heritage, cultures and traditions, other distinct communities in Canada and the natural world around us.  To begin our investigation, we are exploring families; their culture, heritage and artifacts that they pass from generation to generation. What stories do these artifacts tell?  Why have they been saved.  What is the significance to your families’ stories?  Why is this artifact special?

To explore this topic, I am asking every student to share a special family artifact or a photograph of an artifact with the class. Please support your child in finding something to bring into the class and completing the questions below. Hopefully this will be a wonderful learning opportunity for your child to learn more about your family and what’s special to you. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Today I am sharing something that is special to my family.

I am sharing ____________________________________

This is special to my family because (please include where this artifact is from, who it was handed down to, where it came from, what meaning does it carry for your family and why it was saved) 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you,

Mrs. Lagrana and Ms. Quesnel

Next week, after we have collected all of the artifacts, student's will begin sharing. Today we brainstormed a checklist of specifications for their presentation. This will be your child's first public speaking engagement of grade 2. They can practice at home in order to feel more comfortable and prepared for talking in front of their peers. 

Learning Commons
Today we had Learning Commons orientation. We got to learn about signing out new books and preview all of the different books our Royal Oak Learning Commons has to offer. I will be bringing home 2 new books today. They can be returned anytime next week. We will go weekly to the Learning Commons. 

Literacy

This week we have been reviewing some reading strategies for helping us to sound out tricky words. We have been practicing these strategies as we build our independent reading stamina. 

You can practice these strategies at home with your child when they are reading and come to a word that they are having trouble sounding out. 

Terry Fox Run!

Reminder: Tonight from 4:30-5:30 PM is our Volunteer Orientation Night. It is also our first School Council Fundraising Meeting from 6:30-8:30 pm. We hope to see you there! Also if you are having any problems logging into PowerSchool that can be addressed as well.

Terry Fox Run – Friday, September 14

On Friday, September 14^th, Royal Oak School and William D. Pratt School will be participating in the Terry Fox Run.  Students will gather on the field between the two schools to take part in the annual 30-minute run, which is scheduled to begin at 11:00am.  Students attending morning Kindergarten are welcome to attend, if they are accompanied by a supervising adult.

 On this day please ensure that your child is appropriately dressed for the weather (including running shoes).  If the weather is poor, students will walk inside the school during their PE class time.

 We are asking that each child donate a “Toonie for Terry” for the Terry Fox Foundation. Classroom teachers will be collecting the money all week leading up to the run. 

 All parents/guardians who are interested in joining their child/children in this event are more than welcome.

 We do require a fair number of volunteers for this event to ensure its success.  If you have security clearance and if you are able to volunteer during the run time, kindly contact our school Volunteer Coordinator at 

rosvolunteers@gmail.com.

 Thank you for your support.

Being a Historian

Today we looked at artifacts that have historical and cultural importance to Mrs. Lagrana 

We completed an I See I Think I Wonder journaling organizer in our visual sketch books:

We sketched like a scientist and an artist. We added labels and fine details of what we saw into our drawings. We talked about How to Journal like Leonardo da Vinci. Here are some ideas for how to add more details into our sketches to journal like an expert:

Tomorrow Ms. Quesnel will share her artifact with us and we will practice journaling in more detail.

Math

Today in math we figured out how many letters are in our name and represented this understanding with numerals, tally marks and ten frames. 

We then collected this data for the class using a chart and tally marks to figure out how many people had how many letters in their name.

We then made a classroom graph to highlight this data and to show how we can put data into a bar graph to represent numbers.

Classroom Rules:

Today we finished discussing and finalizing our Classroom Rules. We made a promise to follow these rules to the best of our ability and signed and fingerprinted them for a classroom poster display. This way if we forget or need to remind ourselves they are always on the wall and we can work together to keep our Classroom Promise to each other. 

Week 1 Done!

Yay we made it through a busy, exciting and fun first week of school!

Reminder: Book orders are coming home in your child's Home Communication Folder and they are due back by next Friday September 14th, 2018. Ordering online is the easiest method but you can also still send in orders with cheque. Please DO NOT send in any cash (CHEQUES ONLY) if you are sending in a paper order for me to complete.

Reminder: If you have not done so already please send in any forms that went home this week from our school opening package, milk program, volunteering or bus info.

We have been listening to a story called Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2pCR8YHszM

We talked about all of the feelings that we felt and that Chrysanthemum felt both at the beginning, the middle and the end of the story. Ask me about these feelings and why she was feeling this way.

LITERACY

Today we practiced building our reading STAMINA and reading for 5 minutes. We came up with our classroom rules for when we are reading to ourselves. 

We made a reading graph and filled out for 5 minutes today. Tomorrow we will try 7 minutes. 

Sketching an Artifact

We practiced using our Visual Sketch Books to sketch an Artifact

We had to pay attention to all of the details that we could observe

We had to take our time and not rush

We had to think about one wonder or question that we had about the artifact that we were observing

We looked at a few different techniques for helping us to sketch and add details and depth to our sketches. 

Practicing these sketching techniques will help our Artifacts achieve more depth and appear more realistic. Practice your favourite ones at home!

Can you think of one of these techniques that would help you to sketch these:

Welcome to Grade 2!

REMINDERS: Please ensure you are checking your child's HOME COMMUNICATION FOLDER. If there is nothing to send home it will remain at school. Often there are multiple notices, forms and documents to send home and this protective plastic cover can help things arrive more safely! 

Yesterday was our first day back at school after a long, relaxing summer break. Everyone was full of emotions and excited to begin grade 2.

We read a book called First Day Jitter by Julie Danneberg. 

We did our first writing activity in our writing journals about how we felt about coming to school for the first day. What feelings we were having and why. Ask me what I wrote? 

In math we have been working on a cover page for our Math Books. It is called Math About Me:

We have to think of numbers that mean something to us. We can then show what these numbers mean with pictures as well as being challenged to show a representation of the number. Some of us even began practicing writing equations for our special numbers. Ask me what numbers are important or mean something to me. 

Today we got to practice working with STEM bins to create and explore. 

STEM stands for SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING and MATHEMATICS. 

Throughout the year we will be working with STEM bins to create, explore, invent, and build with a variety of materials. We will be given challenges and  opportunities to reflect, make changes and re-create to see what new ways we can think of.