Terry Fox Run Update, Insect/Bug Centres and James and the Giant Peach!

IRIS!!

Today (continuing tomorrow) we posted in IRIS. We posted a video of us reading some of a book so that we could listen to our fluency. 

We thought about our Reading and what we need to get better at and what we are doing well and some of us wrote this in our IRIS comment.

Tomorrow we will add:  Understanding myself as a Learner, A Goal, and a Strategy for meeting this goal. 

Please use the Link above (at the top of the blog) to visit IRIS with your child and have them show you what they have added. 

Terry Fox Run Update:

Congratulations Royal Oak students and staff! Together we ran over 1180 km and raised $674 to be donated to the Terry Fox Foundation!!!!! We are awesome!!!!

I would also like to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to our amazing parent volunteers! We appreciate everything that you do to help us run school events like this one. THANK YOU!!

Another HUGE THANK YOU to Royal Oak Sobeys for donating Oranges so that every student could enjoy a healthy snack after their run.

https://hennickpe.blogspot.com

Insect/Bug Centres!

This week we have been practicing doing our best work at our Insect/Bug Centres. When we are at a centre we are practicing working in a group. We are practicing reading and talking about instructions. We are practicing completing our work and trying our best at each and every centre. 

This week we have talked about:

Insect/Bug Body Parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKQfJFAHW8Q

We also talked about Insect Life Cycles and some important scientific words that help us understand how the life cycle works. Some insects have 3 life cycle stages and some have 4. 

We also learned some important scientific vocabulary about bugs/insects:

Exoskeleton

Molt

Life Cycle

Nymph

Larva

Pupa 

Invertebrate

We will be talking more about these words and what they mean as we dig deeper into studying, exploring and learning about all types of small, crawling, and flying creatures! 

James and The Giant Peach

We are now on Chapter 12 of this Novel Study. 

We just met some interesting new Characters. Ask me about them. 

Chapters 1-6:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKOK7ibWAJc


Chapters 7-10:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0QATMBxIc

Literacy Groups, Making Tens, Writing about FALL!

Literacy

This week in Literacy we are working on building our Comprehension when we read. Last week we practiced CHECKING for COMPREHENSION after every page. 

This week we continued to practice this strategy but added a new one for when we are unsure of the Who or the What that we just read we need to BACKUP and REREAD in order to improve our understanding:

You can practice this at home with your child:

Parent Pipeline:

This week HOME Reading begins. If you participate in the Home Reading program it will come home on Thurdsday October 3rd. You have one week to read both books multiple times. Please complete the homework assignment that is accompanying your child's home reading. Even if you don't do the Home Reading program it is still expected that you are reading everday for 20 minutes as your MOST IMPORTANT GRADE 2 HOMEWORK!

MATH

This week we are working on re-organizing our inventory by making packs of ten and loose. We realized that sorting by colour or shape was not helping us to get a total in an EFFICEINT way.

We used the ten frame model to help us visualize numbers and see groups of 5's and 10's more quickly. 

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

After re-organizing our inventory into packs of ten and loose we were able to skip count to find a total.

We will be comparing these totals and sharing how we know all week

When we share our work we do so by having Math Talks:

Ask me what my total was? How did I count it in an efficient way? How did I ensure that my answer was accurate? 

Writing all about FALL!!
Even though our fall has been rudely interupted by winter we are still using our 5 senses to add more adjectives (descriptive words) to our sentences to make them more POWERFUL and JUICY!!

We are brainstorming all of these words to come up with a class word bank that we can then use to write descriptive, detailed sentences that will eventually add up to a descriptive paragraph of writing

Calgary Reads Volunteers Wanted!!

We are looking for VOLUNTEERS for our Wee Reads Program! Volunteers with a current valid police check are invited to a training session on Tuesday October 1st from 2:30 - 3:30pm in the Royal Oak School Learning Commons. Please RSVP to the school resource teacher, Sarah Power, at sapower@cbe.ab.ca 

Orange Shirt Day and Special Book Launching!

Dear Parents,

On Monday, September 30^th Royal Oak School will be acknowledging Orange Shirt Day. 

Orange Shirt Day is as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that everyone around us matters.  It developed out of Phyllis' story of having her shiny new orange shirt taken away on her first day of school at a Residential School, and presents an opportunity for all staff and students to discuss her story.

To learn more about Phyllis’ story, please visit the Orange Shirt Day website at http://www.orangeshirtday.org/phyllis-story.html

We want to ensure that every child matters as we celebrate Orange Shirt Day.  We are encouraging students and staff to wear an orange shirt on September 30^th.

Sincerely,

Royal Oak School

Author Book PROMO

Last year Royal Oak school had author Pamela McDowell in to talk about her engaging books for young readers. She is launching her newest book and as many of our students bought the other books in this popular series last year we are posting to all who are interested to come and help her launch her newest edition "Cougar Frenzy". 

Literacy, Masloppy Math and Entomology and Writing Stretchy Sentences!

Reminder:

Tomorrow we will be participating in the Terry Fox Run. There will be an assembly at 10:00 AM and we will start the run at 11:00 am. Please bring in a toonie for Terry so we can help support finding a cure for cancer research. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BzyHYZgMz8


Literacy

This week we have added 2 new accuracy strategies to help us decode text:

Skippy the Frog:

We practiced reading and using sticky notes to capture any words that we used these strategies to figure out. Here are some ideas for practicing these strategies at home when we are reading:

This week we will also be practicing a COMPREHENSION strategy that is so important to practice to ensure that we are understanding what we are reading:

When we read a page of text we need to STOP and CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING!!

We will be practicing these Reading Strategies all Week.

Masloppy Math

This week in math we read the book The Masloppy Family by Catherine Fosnot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FSJRmbyMj8

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 bags, elastic bands and sticky notes to help us organize our materials in order to count them more efficiently and accurately.

Ask me how I am organizing my materials and how my organizing will help me to efficiently and accuratley figure out a total? 

If I have more than 100 items is sorting by colour an efficient way to add up my total? What would a more effiecient strategy be so that I can count quickly, accuratley and be efficient in my math work? 

Entomology

We continue to look at insects and bugs through the lens of an ENTOMOLOGIST. Today we brainstormed some new questions we had after investigating bugs/insects and made a new list of wonders. We were posed the question: Are Bugs/Insects Important? Why? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-y6PLtY5s

Writing

We worked this week on writing more detailed sentences. We used the 5W's (who, what, where, when and why) to help us enhance our sentences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6g4bxJBjcU

We then practiced doing this ourselved using the 5W's as a guide:

My Napping House, Entomology and Hill Investigations and James and the Giant

Reminder: Tomorrow there is no school due to Conferences. We look forward to seeing you tonight from 4:30 pm-8:30 pm or tomorrow between 8:00 am and 12:00 pm to discuss how your child learns best and learn a little more info about your child.

Reminder: Book orders were due today. If you are still planning on placing an order please do so by tomorrow so that I can submit the current orders over the weekend. 

Math

Today we read The Napping House by Audrey Wood.

We were challenged to figure out how many feet were napping in the story?

We worked together by drawing, labelling, adding numerals and writing an equation to find a final answer for this problem. 

Students were then asked "How many napping feet are their in your house?". They drew, labeled, used numbers, equations and strategies of our choice to figure out our answer. 

Science

What is an Entomologist?

We made predictions about what kind of a job this would be? We sketched our ideas. Then we watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxlLHv9Pbwg

We then added what we had learned about entomologists and what they do to our sketches.

Today we walked to the top of the hill and used bug boxes and magnifying glasses to look for signs of insects. We even caught a few so that we could observe them and then release them back into the wild.

We then came back to the classroom and sketched and labelled what we remembered observing as well as any thinking or wonders we had about the insects:

Next week we are hoping to go to the Wetlands and compare what other kinds of insects we can observe there. 

Novel Study

Today we previewed the Novel that we will begin reading next week. We will be reading James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 

We did a book preview and read the back and inside cover to see if this book sounded interesting and exciting!

Literacy, Writing a Sentence, Safety Week!

Reminder: This upcoming Thursday evening from 4:30 pm - 8:30 pm and Friday from 8:00 am-12:00 pm is our school student conferences. Please make sure to book a time slot if you have not done so already, they are filling up fast! 


Literacy

This week we will be learning two more important reading strategies to help us sound out words more accuratley when we are decoding text. 

Lips the Fish

Chunky Monkey

We practiced using these strategies during reading and marking places where we had done so with sticky notes to share with our peers later. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU_54bA2wmM

Parent Pipeline

Writing Simple Sentences:

This week we are looking at What is a Sentence? How do we know? What parts make up a sentence? We will be identifying parts of a sentence and writing our own.

We then practiced writing our own. We will continue working on identifying and writing complete sentences and soon strething our sentences so that they become more interesting!

Safety Week!

Yesterday we had our first practice Fire Drill of the year. We were out of the building in 1 minute and 50 seconds. We practiced the 3 S's of a Fire Drill: Safe, Silent and Serious.

Today we had a practice lockdown. We praticed where to sit in the room and how to be quiet and patient for the whole time. 

Tomorrow we will practice our Evacuation walk to William D Pratt.

Thursday we will be talking about road safety and pedestrian cross walk procedures. 

It is important to practice these skills so that we are prepared in any situation.