Greetings Parents and Students,
>
> It was an absolute PLEASURE to meet so many of you at the OPEN HOUSE tonight!
>
> Here's a flashback of this past week:
>
> Last Friday we created our turkeys with our Grade 4 Learning
Buddies. We painted our turkeys on Tuesday and are looking forward to
Friday and decorating them with our Gr. 4 Learning Buddies. They will
be on display for everyone to enjoy, in front of the school's main
display case. They will be sent home in time for Thanksgiving long
weekend.
>
> On Wednesday and Thursday we "wrapped up" UNIT 1 of Math Makes
Sense and patterning. The math word of the week was "Increasing
Patterns". A few of the boys and girls had difficulty with "extending
of patterns," so we reviewed the concept. We also had fun acting out
one of the lessons. QUESTION: How many drumsticks would 10 drummers
have? See photo 28.
>
> This week's PWIM lesson focused on syllables and sorting PWIM words
based on this concept. See photos 8 and 9 in the email sent Thurs. Pictures 10, 11 and 12 are
work samples of the ZONES OF REGULATION. As well, your child wrote
some details for Writing Traits about his/her favourite shoe. This can
be shared at November conference (located in spelling/writing
traits/phonics binder).
>
> I introduced the MATH CARPET to the boys and girls and we began to
explore numbers to 100 and various patterns. They are looking forward
to using the carpet with me in our next math unit (Place Value to 100).
> We had our very first Core French lesson with Mme Selimos. Ask
your child to share about the family shield he/she created. We sang a
"Bingo" song with the dog puppet, reinforcing letters in French and
played a cool concentration game using my alphabet/number chart. They
loved the challenge of playing an SOS game with me using French number
words. The class "beat" the teacher. They were thrilled. Haha!!!
>
> The weather was perfect for PICTURE DAY on Wednesday. 20 of 24 were present. What a cute bunch!
>
> Academically, I have officially completed ORR (Oral Reading Record
Testing) and F & P (Fountas and Pinnell) with your child to see what
their present reading level is. The ORR is based on fluency, word
attack skills and comprehension. I have almost completed DNA
(Diagnostic Numeracy Assessment) math testing as well. What a busy time!
>
> Tuesday entailed an afternoon of language arts/social studies
dedicated to Canadian hero, Terry Fox. We explored Wikipedia on the
data projector/computer and discussed Terry Fox. We listened to a song
Elton John has dedicated to him and watched some real life videos of his
life. The children worked on a simple worksheet about Terry, which I
hope they shared with you at home. At the end of the day on Wednesday,
we went on a school wide walk around the Grant Road bowl and
neighbourhood to remember him...
>
> On Friday we will begin a new math unit on NUMBERS TO 100. The
first few lessons will be challenging for some of the students. In this
unit the children will be expected to be able to SKIP COUNT by 1s, 2s,
5s and 10s FORWARD and BACKWARD. Examples as follows: Count backward
by 10s from 90 to 30. ANSWER: 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30. Count
backward by 5s from 60 to 35. Count forward by 2s from 82 to 94. PLEASE
RETURN THE MATH BINDER WITH UNIT ONE INSIDE IT, on MONDAY.
>
> Out trip to the RCMP on Thursday afternoon was fantastic! We
enjoyed a fabulous lunch, watched a program about Haiti's earthquake
disaster and the support our RCMP provided. The children had the
opportunity to create their own "peace t-shirts" and finally, we ended
the afternoon with a "canine video" in the theatre room. The children
were well-behaved and represented Grant Road School with pride. Much
thanks to the RCMP, Scotia Bank, and Mr. Sub for making the trip
possible.
>
> On Friday, my little "turkeys" will be working on completing their paper mache turkeys. What a great way to end the week!
>
> Look for Oct. class calendar in your child's agenda pocket Monday.
>
> Reading Logs due on Tues. Sept. 30
>
> Cheers,
> Ms Selimos :)
Friday, September 26, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
September 15, 2014 week in the classroom
Bonjour Grade 2/3 Parents and Students,
We certainly enjoyed the “summer-like” weather this week! Much better than last week!
As you are aware, some classroom changes occurred this week, affecting Grade 2 to Grade 6 classrooms. I remain a 2/3 split, with fewer numbers. There are now 15 Grade 2s registered and 9 Grade 3s. Welcome to Keithan and Ramiha, who joined our 2/3 class this week.
Effective next week, I will begin teaching our class Core French 3 times over the Day 1 to Day 5 cycle and on Day 3s, we welcome new Grant Road Staff Member, Mrs. Beckel, who will be teaching the children lessons from the Health Curriculum. Teacher-Librarian, Mrs. Lindstrom, will be working with the children for half an hour in the library every Day 4 in the morning.
Grade 3 teachers, Mrs. LeMieux and Mrs. Ewert-Molesky will be teaching Math to my 9 Grade 3s on a daily basis.
Academically, I have completed ORR (Oral Reading Record Testing for Gr. 2) and Fountas and Pinnell (Reading Testing for Gr. 3) with your child to see what his/her present reading level is. The ORR and F& P are based on fluency, word attack skills and comprehension. I have almost completed Grade 3 DNA (Diagnostic Numeracy Assessment) math testing and am busy working on DNA testing Part 2, with the Grade 2s. What a busy time!
On Monday, we studied phonics letter Bb. We read a poem, explored rhyming words, created a list of Bb words as a team, played a cloze procedure sentence game in the form of a GAME SHOW and a BEAT THE CLOCK GAME.
On Tuesday, the Grades 2/3s attended a special assembly promoting the Grant Road School Magazine Fundraiser. You received a package on Tuesday in your child’s agenda. Please send packages back to school.
Enjoy the math photos of this week’s learning. There are some of increasing patterns (Grade 3 samples). The Gr. 2 children were given a specific number of coloured cubes and with them they had to create a pattern using them. It was interesting to show the boys and girls the number of possible solutions…
We began our study of adding DETAILS to our writing this afternoon (6-Trait Writing). “Details in writing” will be our new focus over the next week or so.
On Thursday at 2:30, we constructed our paper mache turkeys with our Grade 4 Learning Buddies, in preparation for today’s fun paper mache extravaganza. The boys and girls are super excited for this afternoon’s messy fun! Thank you to the grandmas and moms helping us later on with this project.
REMINDERS:
1. For those Grade 3s participating in the CROSS COUNTRY CLUB, there will be practice next Tuesday and Thursday in the “bowl.”
2. SPELLING TEST is Monday. Next WEDNESDAY is PICTURE DAY and the TERRY FOX WALK.
3. I hope to see you at the Open House and BBQ next Thursday evening. If you are unable to attend, I will place the Open House handout I have compiled, in your child’s agenda pocket.
4. We will be DECORATING our paper mache turkeys on FRIDAY, Sept. 26th. Begin gathering fabric scraps, buttons, feathers, etc. at home to decorate paper mache turkeys. Dollar Store is a good place to purchase a bag of feathers.
TRIP NEXT WEEK (This is the note to look for in your child's agenda on Monday):
As part of the Social Studies and Health curriculum, the Grade 2s (Mrs. Pankewich) and Grade 2/3 (Ms. Selimos) have been provided with the opportunity to visit the RCMP Heritage Center next Thursday, September 25th to celebrate INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE with a “peace” and “peace keeping” focus, for free. We will be taking the bus.
Thank you to RCMP Heritage Center and Scotia Bank Sponsor for taking care of all costs.
We will be leaving the school at 11:55 SHARP and returning at approximately 3:15. For those children who go HOME for lunch, please stay at school on this day.
____ YES, my child may attend the trip to the RCMP Heritage Center on Sept. 25th by bus.
____ YES, I would like to volunteer as a parent/guardian and have had a recent criminal record check.
_____ No, unfortunately I am unable to assist at this time.
____________________________
parent’s signature
We certainly enjoyed the “summer-like” weather this week! Much better than last week!
As you are aware, some classroom changes occurred this week, affecting Grade 2 to Grade 6 classrooms. I remain a 2/3 split, with fewer numbers. There are now 15 Grade 2s registered and 9 Grade 3s. Welcome to Keithan and Ramiha, who joined our 2/3 class this week.
Effective next week, I will begin teaching our class Core French 3 times over the Day 1 to Day 5 cycle and on Day 3s, we welcome new Grant Road Staff Member, Mrs. Beckel, who will be teaching the children lessons from the Health Curriculum. Teacher-Librarian, Mrs. Lindstrom, will be working with the children for half an hour in the library every Day 4 in the morning.
Grade 3 teachers, Mrs. LeMieux and Mrs. Ewert-Molesky will be teaching Math to my 9 Grade 3s on a daily basis.
Academically, I have completed ORR (Oral Reading Record Testing for Gr. 2) and Fountas and Pinnell (Reading Testing for Gr. 3) with your child to see what his/her present reading level is. The ORR and F& P are based on fluency, word attack skills and comprehension. I have almost completed Grade 3 DNA (Diagnostic Numeracy Assessment) math testing and am busy working on DNA testing Part 2, with the Grade 2s. What a busy time!
On Monday, we studied phonics letter Bb. We read a poem, explored rhyming words, created a list of Bb words as a team, played a cloze procedure sentence game in the form of a GAME SHOW and a BEAT THE CLOCK GAME.
On Tuesday, the Grades 2/3s attended a special assembly promoting the Grant Road School Magazine Fundraiser. You received a package on Tuesday in your child’s agenda. Please send packages back to school.
Enjoy the math photos of this week’s learning. There are some of increasing patterns (Grade 3 samples). The Gr. 2 children were given a specific number of coloured cubes and with them they had to create a pattern using them. It was interesting to show the boys and girls the number of possible solutions…
We began our study of adding DETAILS to our writing this afternoon (6-Trait Writing). “Details in writing” will be our new focus over the next week or so.
On Thursday at 2:30, we constructed our paper mache turkeys with our Grade 4 Learning Buddies, in preparation for today’s fun paper mache extravaganza. The boys and girls are super excited for this afternoon’s messy fun! Thank you to the grandmas and moms helping us later on with this project.
REMINDERS:
1. For those Grade 3s participating in the CROSS COUNTRY CLUB, there will be practice next Tuesday and Thursday in the “bowl.”
2. SPELLING TEST is Monday. Next WEDNESDAY is PICTURE DAY and the TERRY FOX WALK.
3. I hope to see you at the Open House and BBQ next Thursday evening. If you are unable to attend, I will place the Open House handout I have compiled, in your child’s agenda pocket.
4. We will be DECORATING our paper mache turkeys on FRIDAY, Sept. 26th. Begin gathering fabric scraps, buttons, feathers, etc. at home to decorate paper mache turkeys. Dollar Store is a good place to purchase a bag of feathers.
TRIP NEXT WEEK (This is the note to look for in your child's agenda on Monday):
As part of the Social Studies and Health curriculum, the Grade 2s (Mrs. Pankewich) and Grade 2/3 (Ms. Selimos) have been provided with the opportunity to visit the RCMP Heritage Center next Thursday, September 25th to celebrate INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE with a “peace” and “peace keeping” focus, for free. We will be taking the bus.
Thank you to RCMP Heritage Center and Scotia Bank Sponsor for taking care of all costs.
We will be leaving the school at 11:55 SHARP and returning at approximately 3:15. For those children who go HOME for lunch, please stay at school on this day.
____ YES, my child may attend the trip to the RCMP Heritage Center on Sept. 25th by bus.
____ YES, I would like to volunteer as a parent/guardian and have had a recent criminal record check.
_____ No, unfortunately I am unable to assist at this time.
____________________________
parent’s signature
Saturday, September 13, 2014
September 8th Week with Grades 2/3
Hello Parents and Students,
Our second week has been awesome!!! We continue to get into a school routine, as a Grade 2/3 classroom. Please remember to send your child to school with his/her agenda on a daily basis. Today, there are 3 notes to review: Open House/BBQ (date has been changed to Sept. 25th), green monthly SCHOOL newsletter and PICTURE DAY brochure. Thank you for your Terry Fox donations, this week, as well. Feel free to send a donation next week, if you would like to and have not already done so. Friendly reminder, to pay for your child’s agenda, on-line, if you prefer, rather than cash or cheque. The on-line payment is accessible through Power School.
This week’s photos feature a writing / drawing activity with the focus on getting to know each other better.
The math word of the week for the Grade 2s was ATTRIBUTE. Ask your child to explain different attributes of patterning (colour, shape, size, direction). We explored attributes this week using pattern blocks. The children created patterns using 2 attributes AT ONCE. Example: size and colour. . . big red square, little black square. . . The Grade 3 focus was increasing patterns. Example: Start a pattern using the same starting point, but increase it in different ways. The children had to explain their pattern rule for each increasing pattern.
We also began our very first PWIM POSTER. PWIM = Picture Word Inductive Model. For Social Studies we continued to brainstorm about BELONGING. How do we belong in the classroom? How can I help others feel like they belong? How can my teacher help me to feel like I belong? Our Writing Traits focus was about “topics.” How do we make a topic clear and interesting?
On Tuesday we began our first SPELLING LESSON, focusing on the “ar” pattern for Gr. 2 and the “a – e” pattern for Gr. 3. The first test will be on Monday, 15th.
On Thursday afternoon, we met our Grade 4 Learning Buddies (Mrs. Pritchard’s class), who read books with us. Next Friday, we will be making paper mache turkeys with them.
PLEASE send Leader Post NEWSPAPERS you would normally recycle to school ASAP for this paper mache project. NO FLYERS PLEASE!!
Ask your children to explain the SHIP GAME, SITTING GAME and LOG ROLL activity we played during gym class mid-week. There were many smiling faces.
Many of you have explored raz_kids.com with your children. It is an excellent reading program and I hope you are able to spend some time reading the books on-line with your children. They will also be expected to exchange their daily reading books (in ziplockbags) for new classroom books. RECORD their minutes in the RED DUO-TANGS. I will be collecting the RED DUO-TANGS on Tuesday, September 30th. It is a HUGE help when you TOTAL the minutes read, for me. We had the opportunity to use a class set of computers mid-week, and each child explored raz_kids.
Finally, the Grade 3s involved with CROSS COUNTRY will practice in “the bowl” at 8:30 on Tuesday. We will be taking a bus with kids from Gr. 3 to Gr. 8 (70 are participating in the meet at Douglas Park) on Wed. 17th. Come out and cheer Grant Road School! We will leave with the participants, by bus, at around 4:15 from the school and will be back by 5:45 or so.
Have a GREAT weekend everyone!
Ms Selimos
Our second week has been awesome!!! We continue to get into a school routine, as a Grade 2/3 classroom. Please remember to send your child to school with his/her agenda on a daily basis. Today, there are 3 notes to review: Open House/BBQ (date has been changed to Sept. 25th), green monthly SCHOOL newsletter and PICTURE DAY brochure. Thank you for your Terry Fox donations, this week, as well. Feel free to send a donation next week, if you would like to and have not already done so. Friendly reminder, to pay for your child’s agenda, on-line, if you prefer, rather than cash or cheque. The on-line payment is accessible through Power School.
This week’s photos feature a writing / drawing activity with the focus on getting to know each other better.
The math word of the week for the Grade 2s was ATTRIBUTE. Ask your child to explain different attributes of patterning (colour, shape, size, direction). We explored attributes this week using pattern blocks. The children created patterns using 2 attributes AT ONCE. Example: size and colour. . . big red square, little black square. . . The Grade 3 focus was increasing patterns. Example: Start a pattern using the same starting point, but increase it in different ways. The children had to explain their pattern rule for each increasing pattern.
We also began our very first PWIM POSTER. PWIM = Picture Word Inductive Model. For Social Studies we continued to brainstorm about BELONGING. How do we belong in the classroom? How can I help others feel like they belong? How can my teacher help me to feel like I belong? Our Writing Traits focus was about “topics.” How do we make a topic clear and interesting?
On Tuesday we began our first SPELLING LESSON, focusing on the “ar” pattern for Gr. 2 and the “a – e” pattern for Gr. 3. The first test will be on Monday, 15th.
On Thursday afternoon, we met our Grade 4 Learning Buddies (Mrs. Pritchard’s class), who read books with us. Next Friday, we will be making paper mache turkeys with them.
PLEASE send Leader Post NEWSPAPERS you would normally recycle to school ASAP for this paper mache project. NO FLYERS PLEASE!!
Ask your children to explain the SHIP GAME, SITTING GAME and LOG ROLL activity we played during gym class mid-week. There were many smiling faces.
Many of you have explored raz_kids.com with your children. It is an excellent reading program and I hope you are able to spend some time reading the books on-line with your children. They will also be expected to exchange their daily reading books (in ziplockbags) for new classroom books. RECORD their minutes in the RED DUO-TANGS. I will be collecting the RED DUO-TANGS on Tuesday, September 30th. It is a HUGE help when you TOTAL the minutes read, for me. We had the opportunity to use a class set of computers mid-week, and each child explored raz_kids.
Finally, the Grade 3s involved with CROSS COUNTRY will practice in “the bowl” at 8:30 on Tuesday. We will be taking a bus with kids from Gr. 3 to Gr. 8 (70 are participating in the meet at Douglas Park) on Wed. 17th. Come out and cheer Grant Road School! We will leave with the participants, by bus, at around 4:15 from the school and will be back by 5:45 or so.
Have a GREAT weekend everyone!
Ms Selimos
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