The Week of March 12

NEWS
Thank you to all the parents who attended their child's student led conferences and who supported our Run, Jump and Throw day.  Your participation always makes these events so much more special and meaningful for your children.

Mrs. Wright during guidance has started a series of lessons on what kindness is and the distinction between what is rude, mean and bullying.  We will have more conversations around these terms in the coming weeks.

In writing we completed our healthy choices book using all the craft moves that we have learned.  We went through the checklist to ensure all the elements needed in non-fiction writing were included. This was done independently with the help of their peers and these books will be coming home to you shortly.  I will also send a copy of the original home and it would be great if you had the opportunity to ask your dentist or doctor whether they would be willing to "showcase" the book in their waiting area.  This would be a great way for our young authors to feel like they have an authentic audience that cares about the topic they are writing about.  I have 3/4 dentists and doctors I have spoken to that would love a copy of our students writing for other young patients (and peers) to read while they wait for their appointment).  Next, we will be shifting our writing focus to opinion writing for the next couple of weeks.  More on this to follow soon.

In reading we have focused on using our note taking skills to note down important facts for our healthy choices books.  Our non-fiction reading is now over and after a few assessments we will be shifting to fiction reading again, with a focus on book clubs and having rich conversations about our books.

In math students practised two and three digit addition with and without regrouping using multiple strategies such as using place value disks, base ten blocks, number lines, and decomposing into parts. This week we will focus on subtraction of three digit numbers.

UPCOMING
Tuesday, March 20th is back to Day 2!

Friday 23rd March: Terry Fox run at 8:15

Spring Break is from Saturday 24th March - Sunday 1st April

DINNER QUESTIONS
1 - Which part of the healthy choices do you think you need to work on? Why?

2 - Can you tell some details that you learned from a non-fiction book that you have read?

3 - What is the difference between rude, mean and bullying?

The Week of March 5

NEWS

We had a super week celebrating book week with visiting author, Tad Hills,

visiting singer, Courtney Campbell, book swap and book character dress-up

day. We also had mini academy on Tuesday. Thank you to all the parents

who volunteered to make this a successful event. We are also moving through

our March Madness book bracket by reading and voting on some quality

read-aloud favorites.

As readers and writers we have been busy preparing for their student led conferences.

A lot of time was spent on reflecting on their glow (what they are good at) and grow

(what they want to better at). Students got to do some fun activities for book

week including reading BINGO, bringing in favorite books to share, nonfiction

wonderings and research about germs and some fun partner reading tasks.

As mathematicians we refreshed their memories on place values and base ten blocks.

This week, we also reviewed strategies to add two addends. Then they added 4

addends using transition words strategy such as first I added .....then I added

....after that I added....finally I got.....Students also looked at the most efficient

way to add multiple addends by making 10 and adding doubles. They then learned

to add and subtract multiples of 100.

As scientists we have just started learning about germs and the importance of good hygiene, both dental and personal. We will continue learning about different kinds of germs, and how our body protects itself and what we can do to stay healthy.

UPCOMING

Wednesday 7 and 8 March - No School-Student Led Conferences. Please bring

your child to school at the scheduled time you will have 45 minutes to conference

and the last 15 minutes to visit specialist teachers.

IMPORTANT

Some students (and Mr. Alex) have decided to take part in the Slice of Life challenge. This entails writing something every day for 31 days (basically every day in March). This is something the students are working on at home and the idea is to foster a love of writing by sharing a "slice of our life" or in other words a small personal narrative moment. This is the original site if you would like more information. This is what we have published so far in 2AL - it would be great if you could read a piece and comment (it would mean a lot to the writers and will spur them to keep going for the rest of the month). Mr. Alex's slices of life can be found here.

Dinner Questions

1 - What did you learn about dental hygiene?

2 - What was your favorite thing about book week?

3 - What did you learn from the visiting author or song writer?