October 27, 2014 SPOOK-TACULAR WEEK

Greetings on this “Spook-tacular” Day, Parents and Students,

I cannot BELIEVE it is the END of October!  Time flies when we are having fun in Grade 2/3!  We worked on a visual arts/writing project this past week.  We molded our clay bats last Friday and painted our bat creations on Monday.  Each child created a paragraph about his/her Canadian bat (hoary bat, silver haired bat, little brown bat, big brown bat, silver haired bat, eastern long eared bat, eastern red bat, etc.).   They will be taking them home NEXT week, after University of Regina Biology Professor, Dr. Mark Brigham views them. 

Hunter was our incredible Star of the Week and did a fabulous job presenting.  He enjoys his trampoline and downhill skiing.  He has traveled to the ocean, The Grand Canyon, Montana and Lake Diefenbaker.  His family owned Bonburger.  He enjoys spending time with his older sister, parents and cat, Molly.

This week the kids explored reptiles and amphibians.  The word reptile is a Greek word which means “to creep”.   We created jot notes and supported our notes with illustrations.  A few new videos/songs  we enjoyed this week include: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkqKSSea9As  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMHUq9djPA4.

Miss Kezama and Miss Lechler helped us with COMPUTER STATIONS on Tuesday morning.  The focus was raz_kids and abcya.com money bingo.

French fun this week entailed creating Halloween puppets and performing short dialogues in French in pairs using the puppet theatre.  The children LOVED this activity.  They were very motivated and excellent participants, having fun and encouraging each other.  See photos 51 to 61.

Mr. Cross and Miss Saunders, ECS 100 students from Mrs. Pankewich’s Grade 2 class, assisted us on Tuesday afternoon, helping us to create over 200 catnip toys out of recycled socks for the Humane Society!  On Wednesday afternoon, Kristin Folk joined us from the Humane Society, entertaining us with a story (A Friend in Need) about a puppy, needing a home.  Then the children participated in her “Pet suitcase” activity, where they discussed items such as leashes, collars, dishes, pet toothbrushes, nail clippers and more.  Kristin even brought an adorable kitten for us to enjoy and to love.  This was a big hit!  Parents, thank you again for your catnip contributions and socks! 

Photos 72 to 77 include money games we played on Wednesday after our lesson on new vocabulary:  least to greatest and greatest to least. 

We read a silly, spooky story called The Ghost of the One Black Eye to support our reading and writing.  After reading this story, we acted out parts of it, using some of our class finger puppets.  The focus with the puppets was to introduce DIALOGUE and QUOTATION MARKS.  I refer to the quotation marks as “sixes and nines”.  Have your child show you what this means at home.  Write some fun sentences with your child using dialogue and see if he/she can place the quotation marks in the right spots.  When you are reading with your child, look for dialogue in the stories and discuss. 

The boys and girls briefly met my mom at lunch time today.  She made some yummy Greek orange cookies for them to try.  What a wonderful surprise for the kids.  Thanks mama! J

Parents, please send your child to school tomorrow with his/her READING LOG and MINUTES TOTALED for OCTOBER.

HERE IS A BIT OF PREVIEW OF NEXT WEEK: 

  BRODIE is * STAR OF THE WEEK * the week of Nov. 3^rd.

                    

MON., NOV. 3^rd (Day 3)         Austin McCabe, student from Faculty of Education, Gabriel Dumont Institute - SUNTEP Faculty, will be “Job Shadowing” Ms. Selimos in the afternoon.

Tues. 4^th (Day 4)         University of Regina ECS 100 students, Miss Kezama and Miss Lechler will be working with us in our Grade 2/3 classroom, every Tuesday morning until December! J

LIBRARY EXCHANGE

Professor Mark Brigham visits in the a.m.   TOPIC:  BATS J

Wed. 5^th (Day 5)   Welcome: CREATE artist, Joyce Belcher for Visual Arts Session #1 of 3 in p.m.

Spelling Test # 8         Parents sign test page 

         

Thurs. 6^th (Day 1)       See NEW SPELLING LIST in your child’s agenda. 

                                    George Bothwell,  Librarian Marilyn visits in p.m.

Fri. 7^th (Day 2)           Remembrance Day Ceremony in individual classrooms at 10:50 a.m. Parents welcome to join us.

                             SPECIAL SUB LUNCH for those who ordered, today.

SONAKSHI is * STAR OF THE WEEK * the week of Nov. 17^th

On Monday, November 24^th, the Grade 2/3 class will be attending the Western Canadian Agribition.  In preparation for the Agribition, we will be learning about agriculture and farm life through Science, Language Arts, French, Visual Arts and Dance.  We will be leaving the school at approximately 9 a.m. and will return in time for the 3:37 p.m. dismissal.

I will require 5 parent volunteers, so that our students are well supervised. This involves a commitment to supervise 3 to 4 students on the field trip (Pre-schoolers are NOT able to attend). It is important to attend the ON SITE workshop on SUNDAY, November 23rd at 10:30 a.m. The purpose of the workshop is to familiarize you with an appropriate, safe route to take on that day.  Please meet at the Co-operators Centre Foyer at 10:30 a.m. at EVRAZ PLACE.  The workshop will last approximately one and a half hours and is well worth attending.  The Showcase exhibitors will also be on hand to explain their displays and answer any questions.  Remember to dress for barn conditions and to bring a pen/pencil.  Maps will be made available.

____ I am sending $1.50 cash for bus cost.

______ I am paying $1.50 bus cost on PARENT PORTAL. 

______ NO, unfortunately I am UNABLE to assist with this class trip.

October 24, 2014 week

Hello Parents and Students,

We have had another FABULOUS FALL WEEK in the classroom!  On Monday we continued our vertebrate study about FISH and then mid-week, discussed reptiles. Google NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC FOR KIDS, then reptiles and check out some of the reptile videos.  The children really enjoyed the lizards, snakes and turtles videos.  Check out the crocodiles and alligators, as we ran out of time.

Mathematically, this week rods, units and coins were reinforced. The new math vocabulary term was:  unequal or “not the same as”. See photos 19 and 20.  There is an EXCELLENT site your children LOVE, for reinforcing counting of MONEY with coins!  Check out: www.abcya.com/money_bingo.htm

On Tuesday, the Guest Teacher read the book:  CinderHazel to the children.  University of Regina students, Miss Kezama and Miss Lechler, ran a math graphing station and Bingo vocabulary activity based on CinderHazel.

The afternoon trip on Tuesday (Voices of Nature) went smoothly.  The children participated by singing, dancing and watching musicians on stage. The reinforced themes were: recycling, being environmentally friendly, recycling technology and climate change.

On Wednesday, the boys and girls created their own BAT SONGS to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  They presented to their peers and we sang along.

Does your child know his/her phone number?  Does your child know his/her address orally and in writing?  Please practice this at home.  I will retest them in a few months.  Many children were unsure of their addresses.

We began a printing/cursive writing book this week, as well.  The printing samples (photo 17) you will see will be based on poetry, songs, rhyme.  The children were excited and engaged in this lesson.  

For French, we wrote our CLASSROOM OBJECTS QUIZZES which have been added to Power School.  Our focus this week and next week is Halloween vocabulary.  Visit the site: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfmQ5eAQlg  and listen to  C’est l”Halloween.  We have played French Halloween 7-up using my props (photos 21 to 25).  We read a few chants/rhymes, sang songs and began making haunted houses (les maisons hantées) on Friday.

On Thursday we welcomed, Occupational Therapist, Arlene Jachak, who reviewed Self Regulation zones with us and provided us with some Sensory Tools (photos 27 to 29)  for our own toolboxes. 

Our phonics letter of the week is Dd.  We will be doing this lesson after lunch.

It was wonderful to have such a GREAT turnout of families this morning for “Breakfast with Books” for Education Week.  The kids are counting down to this afternoon’s bat clay project activity.  Photos to follow…

REMINDERS:

TUESDAY:  PHOTO RETAKES

 Making Happy Socks for Humane Society cats (p.m.)

Return SPECIAL LUNCH forms (Subway).

WEDNESDAY:      Kristin Folk from the HUMANE SOCIETY visits in p.m.; “Friends for Life” presentation

         

THURSDAY:           HAND IN READING LOGS FOR OCTOBER! 

Grant Road Halloween Family Dance is tonight!

FRIDAY:               DOG BITE PREVENTION PROGRAM with DR. SALLY (vet) in p.m.

Spirit Day:  Wear orange and black

We are nearing the end of our VERTEBRATE study and would like to celebrate on Friday, Oct. 31^st with your child.  Please send your child to school with 6 servings of a food for sharing, which is healthy (no Halloween candy) for his/her vertebrate (bones, skeleton).  We have discussed calcium for bones and teeth, so many of the children are asking if they can bring foods from the dairy group.  Other foods with good sources of calcium include:  broccoli, spinach, kale, turnips and tofu.  We will share our healthy food items and play a few games/watch a video the last hour of school.

Have a great weekend everyone!  GO RIDERS!

Ms. Selimos

Oct. 14 2014 week and EDUCATION WEEK NEWS

HELLO PARENTS AND STUDENTS,

I hope everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving long weekend!  I heard the paper mache turkeys were a huge hit! 

We began Oct. 14^th week with Kichu’s “Star of the Week” presentation.  Kichu is an only child who lived in Waterloo, Ontario, before joining us in the 2/3 class in Regina.  He can speak 4 languages and has traveled to Singapore and Ottawa.  He enjoys water sliding, bowling and spending time with his mom, dad and grandparents.  He enjoyed strawberry picking and sampling berries in Ontario with his dad.  His mom is a math professor at University of Regina. 

We welcomed U of R ECS 100 students, Miss Kezama and Miss Lechler to our classroom on Tuesday morning.  We are excited to have them with us every Tues. p.m. until December!  They enjoyed getting to know my fabulous class and they participated and helped with a PWIM lesson about sorting words.

Happy birthday to Emaan.   We enjoyed the yummy, chocolate cake.

We studied different kinds of bats and predicted their names before researching about them on the internet as a class (photos 29, 30).  We also explored the anatomy of a bat (photo 16).  Check out these GREAT bat videos with your child: 

echolocation song :  www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-Y2Tt8gFE

Bats, bats, bats song:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9y4r-VI_qY

We will be making clay bats on Friday, Oct. 24^th at 2:30 p.m. as part of our science and language arts unit.  Parents, grandparents who have had a recent criminal check are welcome to join us.  Please let me know in your child’s agenda.

For Science this week we studied birds and fish.  We had a blast dancing to the Bird Dance.  We used the following link:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmV5uHWNag

We also broke into small inquiry groups, exploring non-fiction material, becoming “bird” experts in our teams and presenting facts to the class.  Mrs. Pankewich’s U of R students helped with this lesson.

We also read the story:  Miracle for Maggie by Jean Little, as a class and discussed vocabulary, answering comprehension questions orally, making predictions, and more.  We created bird notes as a class, and drew pictures. The story setting of Miracle For Maggie was the Pacific Ocean near Vancouver. Ask your child to tell you about the mallard duck and the oil spill. 

Today, the children will be introduced to “fish” as vertebrate classification.  They will watch the video by artist Charlotte Diamond called “Slippery Fish”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjvjI85xM0Y and Mrs. Pankewich will share some non-fiction books.

Our Writing Traits focus was:  sticking to a specific topic with clear sentences supporting the topic. See photo 15. Have your child write about a topic of his/her interest at home (Remember:  6 sentences for a paragraph in Gr. 2 and 3).  Do they stick to the topic? 

We enjoyed the playground with our Learning Buddies on Wednesday afternoon, playing tag, football, and using the awesome playground equipment (swings, climbing apparatus) on the senior side.

Thank you to Imogen and Corbin for donating cat nip for our upcoming Humane Society project.  If you and your child are interested in donating a bag, please send to school by mid –next week. 

HERE’S A SNAPSHOT OF NEXT WEEK:

Education Week:  THEME:  Supporting & Celebrating Success

Help us celebrate success during Saskatchewan Education Week!  As a school, we will be collecting gently used and washed winter coats, toques, mittens, and scarves to donate to others that are in need within our community.  Please bring your items to school during the week of Oct. 20-24^th.  We will be donating coats that we receive, to Geroy’s Coats 4 KIDS! 

Please take the time to look for any winter coats, toques, headbands, mittens, gloves, or scarves that you can donate to a great cause. Here is the website: www.coats4kids.ca   for a video that you can share with your child.

On Friday October 24^th, 2014 we will be having a school-wide “Breakfast and Books” morning at 8:30.  We invite you to join your child in his or her classroom.  Share a book and a muffin with your child!   

Trip by bus on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. for show:  Voices of Nature Day.  Stay for lunch!

SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS due FRIDAY, 24^TH.  If you would like to surprise your child at any point with the gift of book(s) for an upcoming birthday, Christmas gift, Diwali gift, Hannukah gift, etc., simply write me a note in the book order and I will hold onto the book(s) purchased until you pick them up. 

HUNTER is  * STAR OF THE WEEK * the week of OCT. 27^th.

Education Week 2014

Oct. 15, 2014

Education Week 2014

“Supporting and Celebrating Success”

Help us celebrate success during Saskatchewan Education Week!  As a school, we will be collecting gently used and washed winter coats, toques, mittens, and scarves to donate to others that are in need within our community.  

Please bring your items to school during the week of Oct. 20-24^th.  We will be donating coats that we receive to Geroy’s Coats 4 KIDS! 

Please take the time to look for any winter coats, toques, headbands, mittens, gloves, or scarves that you can donate to a great cause.

On Friday October 24^th, 2014 we will be having a school wide “Breakfast and Books” morning at 8:30.  We invite you to join your child in his or her classroom.  Share a book and a muffin with your child!   

Thank-you for your support!

Grant Road School Team

Happy Thanksgiving Gr. 2/3 and Parents

Hello Parents and Students,

Let the sun shine!  What a beautiful day to end this short school week!

I hope the paper mache turkeys made their ways safely to your homes yesterday after school, in time for this Thanksgiving long weekend! 

Mathematically, our math focus this week continued to be coins:  pennies, nickels, dimes.  This includes recognizing the symbols on each coin and counting money.  We used the Math Makes Sense “story books” to reinforce each coin and did some “shopping” activities.  We charted information about each coin and did math stations using pennies, nickels and dimes.  Pull out some coins at home and have your child count by 1s, 5s and 10s using money.  Do they recognize the value of each coin? As well, ordinal numbers were discussed (first = 1^st, second = 2^nd, ninth = 9^th).  Your child should be able to read ordinal numbers numerically and as a word in Grade 2.

As well, counting forwards and backwards by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s continues to be reinforced.  Print off a 100 chart from my math website and play counting games with your child.  Work on even and odd numbers with your child as well.  Even numbers end in 0, 2, 4, 6, 8.   Odd numbers end in 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. 

Next week’s math focus will be:  estimating of numbers up to 100 using ten frames.  The kids enjoyed today’s estimation lesson using the orange ten frames and buttons.  See photos 34 to 36 (email). 

For French this week, we learned our classroom objects vocabulary through song, games such as Bingo, Memory Game and concentration games.  Listen to the song: Dans Ma Salle de Classe with your child:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=098Xf9d-Ntw

We began our Life Science Unit for both grades this month with the Gr. 3 focus as follows: 

PL3.2

Analyze the interdependence among plants, individuals, society, and the environment. [CP, DM, SI]

and Grade 2 focus of animal growth and change as follows:

AN2.1

Analyze the growth and development of familiar animals, including birds, fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, during their life cycles. [CP, SI]

AN2.2

Compare the growth and development of humans with that of familiar animals. [CP, SI]

AN2.3

Assess the interdependence of humans and animals in natural and constructed environments. [CP, DM]

We discussed life cycles, importance of balance (sun, plants, water), vertebrate classification, warm blooded (endotherm) vs cold blooded and more.  We worked in teams of 3 discovering mammal facts and drawing various mammals in our booklets.  Next week we will focus on birds and fish.  Open the following link and listen to the mammal song with your child:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9SF3WqxM-Q

One of our writing activities this week entailed descriptive writing about our favourite “bread” food. See photo 8 and 9 and ask your child what he/she wrote about. 

School Counsellor, Mrs. Renwick, visited the classroom, teaching a lesson about “Self- Regulation” and relaxation exercises.  The children learned many strategies (See photos 13 to 21; class email).  Have them demonstrate and explain milkshake breathing at home, Lazy 8 breathing, “squeezing a lemon” (hands and arms), lazy cat (arms and shoulders).

Thank you to Sabah and her family for treats yesterday, celebrating her spelling successes!  Congratulations Sabah!  Keep up the great work!

Anika was our VERY FIRST STAR OF THE WEEK!  She did a GREAT job presenting her poster.   Anika loves to play tennis!  She has two dogs, one at each of her homes.  Her mom and dad are both police officers.  She enjoys spending time with her cousins, uncles and aunties and her grandparents.  One of her favourite trips was to Disney World.

Happy birthday to Kichu this week!  Thank you to his family for the yummy, cupcake treats.  We look forward to seeing Kichu’s poster next week and learning more about him and his family, as he is our very first GRADE 2 STAR OF THE WEEK this Grade 2/3 school year.

We welcome University of Regina ECS 100 students, ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Miss Kezama and Miss Lechler, who will be working with us in our Grade 2/3 classroom, every Tuesday morning until December! J

The boys and girls are enjoying Mrs. Beckel, who is with us on Day 3s from 2:30 to 3:30 for Health lessons.  Ask your child about today’s lesson with her re: healthy risks and unhealthy risks.  Her lesson focused on risks on the playground.

As part of our Life Science Unit on Animal Growth and Changes  (AN2. 3 Assessing the interdependence of humans and animals in natural and constructed environments), both Grade 2 and 2/3 classes will be participating in the REGINA HUMANE SOCIETY program called OPERATION HAPPY SOCK at the end of the month.  Your child’s job will be to COLLECT SOCKS at home!  You’ll be amazed how happy people are to clean out their “missing sock drawer,” especially when their unwanted socks will be helping others. Please send a few or more gently used socks (any size) to school with your child immediately for the month end project. 

Thank you to the 6 children who brought socks today!!!!

Please return PICTURE ORDER FORMS & TELEPHONE RELEASE FORMS, SIGNED by Wed. October 15^th.

SEND $1.50 AND PERMISSION SLIP FOR VOICES OF NATURE DAY TRIP ASAP.  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING LONG WEEKEND TO ONE AND ALL!  

Enjoy the paper mache turkeys!

September 29th, 2014 week with Ms Selimos

   Hello Parents and Students of Grade 2/3,

The weather certainly took a turn for autumn this week.  Please remember to send your child to school with a jacket and some mittens, as the temperatures are dropping.  

Congratulations to Ronin who won the Terry Fox shirt in the school draw this week!

The children did an amazing job creating brochures about the RCMP trip!  They wrote about the bus ride, the Haiti video, Mr. Sub lunch, making t-shirts and the canine video. They are on display in the hallway for everyone to see, along with another piece of writing from a lesson mid-week, based on author Chief Jake Swamp’s book called GIVING THANKS. The children were to compose a paragraph consisting of 6 or more sentences based on what they are thankful for.  

The boys and girls will be taking their turkeys home, next Wed. and Thurs., before the Thanksgiving long weekend. On Monday we made TURKEY FORTUNE GAMES with our Gr. 4 Learning Buddies.  The children learned some interesting TURKEY TRIVIA FACTS.

We look forward to seeing Anika’s poster next week and learning more about her and her family, as  she is our very first STAR OF THE WEEK this Grade 2/3 school year.

Mathematically, counting forwards and backwards by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s has been reinforced this week with the Grade 2s.  Print off a 100 chart from my math website and play counting games with your child.  See photos 35 to 37, 54 to 57, 59, 60, 66 to 70 in the weekly email for ideas.  Work on even and odd numbers with your child as well.  Even numbers end in 0, 2, 4, 6, 8.   Odd numbers end in 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.  

French lessons this week reinforced numbers from 1 to 20 and learning your home phone number.  Quel est ton numéro de téléphone?  Mon numéro de téléphone est _______________.  We also used individual clocks to tell time to the hour.  

The phonics letter of the week was Cc.  We brainstormed food beginning with Cc.  They children were able to successfully figure out the 7 sentences with “c” words today. 

School Guidance Counsellor, Mrs. Renwick, joined us on Thursday and we discussed Zones of Regulation. New terminology included:  Big Deal and Little Deal.  We played an on-line game found by googling jeopardylab.com.

The Grant Road October newsletter and EMERGENCY FORM went home on Thursday.  PLEASE SIGN and RETURN the EMERGENCY FORM/MEDIA RELEASE FORM by Monday.  Thanks for your cooperation.

TRIP ALERT:
Thanks to Mrs. Yim, the Arts Ed. Teacher, the Grade 2/3, 3s and 4s will be attending a concert called Voices of Nature Day. The concert is FREE!!! We just need $2 from kids for the bus ride. The $2 fee will be added to Power School so parents can pay online, if they do not wish to send cash.  I will be sending the permission slip home, which will need to be signed and returned to school, in order for your child to ride on the bus. It is a cross curricular activity. The songs will relate to some of our themes in the classroom. We will leave the school at 12:30. The concert starts at 1pm, so please have your child eat lunch at school on this day. The concert is over at 2:15. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hugs,
Ms Selimos