ROS Disciplinary Literacy Night, Math, Reading a Photograph and more!

Important Update: Fall Fair

Subject: Fall Fair CANCELLED

Dear Royal Oak Families,

After careful consideration, the Fall Fair has been cancelled for Thursday, October 4^th.  With the continuing accumulation of snow and low temperatures we felt the experience would not be what we had planned.  We would like to thank Caitlin Wood for her organization of this event and look forward to a potential date later in the year.  We have made the decision to cancel all Grade 2 Field Trips to Heritage Park this week in consultation with the teaching staff and park staff.   Stay warm and safe out there!

Sincerely,

Royal Oak School

Math

This week we will be continuing to organize our inventory in a more efficient way. We have started making packs of ten and loose to figure out a total quickly. 

We the practiced recording our packs or ten, loose and totals into a chart. We had to then count by tens to figure out our final total. We had to double check our accuracy by counting more then once to see if we got the same total each time.

Today we had to share our math thinking with the class. We did a gallery walk where we praactised giving constructive feedback to our peers about their math thinking. 

We filled out our classroom chart of totals and started to notice a pattern. Ask me what I noticed about the packs of ten and loose and how I put them together to make a total? 

Practice skip counting by tens:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/fill-missing.php?g=10s300&name=Skip%20Counting%20by%2010s%20to%

Reading Like a Historian

Since the start of school we have been practicing and learning about reading and thinking like a Historian. Historians use clues to figure out important information about people and places in the past. We began by learning how to read artifacts and started out by reading our own personal artifacts. 

This week we have been looking at photographs. Historians use photographs as text to figure out important information about the past. 

How does a Historian Read a Photograph?

We practiced observing, making some hypothesis's and then asking questions about the photos.

Today we continued to deepen our observations, thinks and wonders by asking more specific questions and looking for more specific details:

Reminders: Scholastic Book orders for October came home today. Orders are due by Friday October 12th. 

HOME READING

Zentangles, Math and Leaves of Belonging

Reminders: I am only missing 2 student's field trip forms. Please send them in ASAP. Please make sure to pay the field trip fees online or send in EXACT cash or a cheque. 

 I am asking parents if you are able to send in one pair of earbuds that can be used to plug into the iPads or computers at our school. Please send in a labelled ziploc with your child's name. This will be their headphone set to use all year when we are doing projects with technology. It helps to focus and when we are recording to not have all the background noise that happens without headphones. Soon we will be recording ourselves reading and the headphones/earbuds make a big difference to how we sound. 


This week we practiced making Zentangles. What are Zentangles? Good Question! 

The Zentangle Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. All you need is paper and some different sized sharpies. 
By Zentangling one can:

• relax
• explore creatively
• focus
• expand imagination
• practice lines, shading and patterns
• HAVE FUN!

Here are just a few examples of Zentangle creations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8PpYI3cPbE

Taking what we have learned about sketching and shading techniques really helped us to come up with a structured pattern. We practiced and then we created a good copy to use as a cover page for our Visual Sketchbooks. 

Leaves of Belonging
Today we celebrated Orange Shirt Day. We created multi-coloured leaves to decorate our hallways explaining what Belonging means to us. As a class we talked about how important our differences are and that we should celebrate our differences instead of all trying to be the same. Ask me what Belonging means to me? 

We also read the sequel to the book Shi-shi-etko. It is called Shin-chi's Canoe

Field Trip Forms and Volunteers

Reminder: If you have not sent back yet your field trip consent forms for our quickly approaching field trip next week to Heritage Park can you please do so ASAP. 

Also currently I have 3 volunteers confirmed but could use one more. If you are interested and have a valid CBE security clearance please email me at imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca

Volunteering in the Classroom

I am looking for a parent to come in for a few hours one morning mainly to put up bulletin board strings and start prepping the student scrapbooks. If you are able to give me a few hours tomorrow, Friday or early next week please email me. 

Reading to Someone, Stretching out a Sentence, Math and Orange Shirt Day!

Reminder: Please bring back field trip forms for our upcoming Heritage Park Field Trip. If you would like to volunteer for the trip and have a valid CBE security clearance please email me at imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca


Literacy
Today we switched from practicing Reading to Self to Reading to Someone. We made a class chart of expectations for when we are doing this special job. It is fun to read with someone but also harder to stay on track and not get distracted. I have to look for good partners and people to read with who help me read better! 

When I read to Someone I need to sit in the EEKK position:

This helps us both to see and to be able to share our books. Today we practiced for 5 minutes. Tomorrow we will practice for 8. Ask me how I feel that I did?

We are practicing the Accuracy Strategy of Blending Sounds and Stretching out the Sounds to make sure we can hear all the sounds in order to be more successful in sounding out tricky words. You can practice this strategy at home when you read too:

Math

In math we have been looking at ten frames and looking for groups of 5 or 10 within them. Yesterday we looked at some different ten frames and had to see what number we saw using a 5 or a 10 to help us:

 5: a ten-frame with 5 dots

 10: a ten-frame with 10 dots

 9: a ten-frame with 9 dots

 11: a ten-frame with 10 dots and a ten-frame with 1 dot

6: a ten-frame with 6 dots (5 + 1)

Here is a link to practice becoming familiar with using ten-frames:

https://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Illuminations/Interactives/Ten-Frame/

Writing

In writing we have been looking at the conventions of a simple sentence and writing our own.

 We looked at how we can stretch out our sentences by adding the who, what, when, where and why. 

We also looked at Star Sentence Sam as a reminder to use appropriate capital letters, punctuation, and finger spaces so that others can understand what we are writing. 

We will be practicing this all next week and we will be looking at expanding our sentences and adding more descriptive detail. 

Orange Shirt Day

Royal Oak Students are invited to wear an orange shirt on Friday, September 28th in recognition of Orange Shirt Day.  

“Orange Shirt Day is also an opportunity for First Nations,local governments, schools and communities to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.”

Orange Shirt Day Website

To learn more about why we are wearing an orange shirt, we have provided a link that explains Phyllis’ story below:

Phyllis’ Story

We also read the story Shi-shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell.

Shi-shi-etko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha6vMDGmzYo

We also read Stolen Words by Melanie Florence. We have been discussing all week what happened in the past with Residential Schools in Canada. Orange Shirt Day is about Reconciliation and Belonging. We will be creating leaves to display all around the school showing how we can show belonging and what belonging means to us. 

Scientific Method, Beakerhead Assembly and The Scientific Method

Reminder: There is NO SCHOOL tomorrow due to Student-Centered Conferences. 


Terry Fox Run UPDATE:

Congratulations to Royal Oak students on a successful Terry Fox run! As a school we raised $729 and ran 1029 kms!!! We would also like to send out a MASSIVE THANK YOU to Royal Oak Sobeys for their generous donation of bananas. Our students were able to enjoy a healthy snack after their run.

You can also add a link to my PE blog if you would like. There are a few pictures of the run. Thanks!

https://hennickpe.blogspot.com/

LITERACY

Comprehension Strategies 

After reviewing many of the familiar sounding out strategies we have been looking at the importance of having comprehension strategies

This is just as important as sounding out the words because if I can't understand, talk about, or answer questions about my reading I am not really reading. 

Today we practiced 2 comprehension strategies that can help us to make sure we understand and are remembering what we have read:

We practiced our reading stamina today by reading to self for 18 minutes! Tomorrow we will practice for 20 minutes and use our Check for Understanding Bookmarks to help us practice this comprehension strategy. You can also practice this at home with your child when you are reading.

The Scientific Method

Today we started learning about the scientific method. We watched a video and made a mind map in our visual sketchbooks in order to help us remember the different parts of the Scientific Method.

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

We will be practicing using the scientific method next week as we begin to investigate and participate in scientific questioning. 

Beakerhead

Today we were so lucky to have an assembly at our school offered to us by Beakerhead. We got to learn about force, optical illusions and the science of juggling!

Beakerhead starts in Calgary today and runs until September 23rd. It is a spectacular display of science, technology, art and engineering. All around the city you can view amazing installations and interactive hands on displays. 

To learn more about it and about events around the city please visit:

https://beakerhead.com/attend/how-to-beakerhead

Our class will be participating in the Beakerhead School Ingenuity Program in November and we can't wait to put our Science, Technology, Engineering and Art hats on and build some creations!!

Ingenuity Challenge

Receiving a secret package in the mail with a classroom challenge is a great way to get students thinking as a team! The materials and theme remain a secret until the package arrives. This design thinking challenge will have your students engaged and collaborating with their peers. You will receive the packages mid-November to start your challenge!