The Week of June 4th

NEWS
And just like that we are about to start on the last week of school for this year.  How time flies.  The highlight of this week was our field trip to the bird and butterfly park.  Thank you to all the parents who came along and escorted our students around the various venues.

This coming week will be very busy with end of year activities.  What is also going to be very interesting is how sparse our classrooms will be this week given the big clean-out that happened on Friday in preparation for the movers packing up all our materials to take them to our new Ampang Hilir campus.  Also, the grade 2 team has decided on mixing things up a little with theme days each day next week.  On Monday, students are welcome to bring their pyjama's to school to change into for some cozy reading (but by no means mandatory).  This is what the week will look like:

Monday - Pyjama Day
Tuesday - Game Day
Wednesday - Inventor's Day
Thursday - Spirit Day

Also on Wednesday the grade 1 students will be visiting grade 2 to get some "advice" and later in the morning grade 2 will be going up to see grade 3 students and classrooms.

On Thursday we will be hosting our learning celebration from 10:00 to 10:45ish, which will also include a birthday bash celebration for May, June, and July birthdays.  Right after the learning celebration we will be heading downstairs for the Farewell Assembly.  All classes need to be in the studio and seated by 11:00.

Friday is a short day where we will be signing off on yearbooks, cards, etc. and closing out the year while saying goodbye to the Melawati campus and hello to the Ampang Hilir campus in August.

Finally, Mr. Alex will be absent from the classroom on Monday and Tuesday while I help our literacy committee update some curriculum for the coming school year. 

Happy Weekend.

The Week of May 7th

NEWS

As readers we are continuing our work in the series book clubs, with the focus this week being on sharing the passion we have for our series with others. This involves gathering evidence from our books, forming opinions, and choosing a presentation format.

As writers we are continuing our work on opinion writing, with the focus being how to write stronger opinion pieces by including evidence from the text in the form of quotations and/or dialog. Both our series clubs and opinion writing units will wrap up by next week after which we will be starting poetry.

Our science unit is well underway now learning all about life cycles of different plants and insects, and really honing our skills as observers - paying attention to all the little details. Our field trip on Friday, May 11th will be a great opportunity for us to talk about the life cycle of butterflies and plants "as scientists in real life."

Our new math unit has also started this week and it is all about data and measurement. We will be inquiring into different standard units of measurement, time, different tools and ways to measure and honing our word problems skills around distance.

UPCOMING

On May 11th the Grade 2 classes will take a field trip to visit the Butterfly and Bird Parks as part of our science unit on life cycles.  Thank you to all of those who have turned in their permission forms.

IMPORTANT
No school on Wednesday, May 9th.

DINNER QUESTIONS

What are some ways that you can help take care of the Earth?

What are some of the words the author used in your book to help you create a movie or picture in your mind?

Tell me about the book you’re reading. What is your opinion? What are the important parts?

What are you excited about learning during your life cycles unit?

Week of December 4th and Looking Ahead to the end Semester 1

NEWS
We had a busy week! Christmas Around the World was so much fun! It is always a privilege to see how other people celebrate this festive occasion with commonalities and differences. The concert was a roaring success!  The math learning celebration was well attended and the swim carnival ended the week on a high note! Thank you to all the parents who came to volunteer, support and cheer on your children during all these special events!

UPCOMING
This week will be a short week with lots of cooperative learning opportunities across classes. We are not digging into any new curriculum but tying up loose ends and having a week full of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) perhaps a little baking, and some winter cleaning to get our library ready for the upcoming Non-Fiction units when we return! There will be lots of reading, writing, science and math weaved in during these times.

IMPORTANT
Monday, 11 December - No school. Sultan of Selangor’s Birthday
Wednesday, 13 December - Field Trip (Royal Selangor Pewter Factory)
Friday, 15 December - Last day of the semester
Monday, 8 January - First day of second semester

DINNER QUESTIONS
* What was the best part of your first semester?
* What did you learn during Christmas Around the World?
* What are you most looking forward to in the second semester?

Have a safe and wonderful Holiday and see you all back in 2018!

The week of October 30th

NEWS

This week we celebrated Halloween and Deepavali.

As readers our focus was on fluency, specifically adjusting our voices to match the mood of the characters, "talking" like the characters, and making sure we are reading at a "just right" pace. The big idea behind this is that when read fluently we help our comprehension and this is really the reason that we read books in the first place. Next week our focus will be on identifying and understanding special language author's use to make their writing more interesting, basically similes, idioms, metaphors, and the like.

As writers we have continued writing like scientists to describe our science experiments in a guided fashion. The focus this week was on identifying a question and coming up with a hypothesis. The focus next week will be on analyzing the results and coming up with conclusions. The end goal is that we will be able to put all the pieces together independently in a few weeks (namely coming up with a question, hypothesis, procedure, results and conclusion) with an independent investigation.

In math we are continuing our work on word problems, with the focus this week on "change unknown" problems. This means you start with something (say 10 apples) then Mr. Alex gave you some more (change) and in the end you had 15 apples. How many apples did Mr. Alex give you? We solved problems and created our own focusing on understanding the problem, making a model or picture, writing the equation, and identifying an answer with a unit representing the amount. Next continue this work with "start unknown" problems, as well as starting "take-away" problems which are basically the beginning of subtraction before switching gears to addition and subtraction with regrouping and borrowing double digit numbers in the coming weeks.

In science we are linking closely to our writing unit making links to the different states of matter and how matter can change states through the addition or removal of heat through a series of experiments melting an ice cube (and coming up with hypothesis as to how we can make it melt faster). More experiments coming up next week and we encourage you to support your child's curiosity at home by asking "why" and allowing them to explore and create their own experiments at home. If you are curious this time lapse is "the control" group time-lapse in our classroom. Total time to melt as 1 hour 32 minutes!

UPCOMING

Friday, November 10th is the International Flag Parade day. Your child can come to school wearing their traditional outfit from your country. Parents are welcome to watch the parade from 8:15 - 9:15 a.m.

Saturday, November 11th is International Fest at the Ampang campus.

DINNER QUESTIONS

Can you tell a story/word problem with start/result unknown?

Practice saying “I’m hungry” in 3 different moods, happy, grumpy, sad.

What are some transition words that you can use when you teach someone something?

What wonderings do you have as a scientist?

The Week of October 23rd

NEWS

As readers we have started “amping up our reading power” by paying extra special attention to our fluency and how we are reading our books.  Our lessons focused on being mindful of our fluency as we read with others or in our heads, pay attention to punctuation and word strings to scoop up our reading in larger phrases and pausing at appropriate times, and where dialog is present in our texts reading like the characters.  This fluency work will continue into next week.

As writers we started exploring the way scientists document their work and their thinking by introducing lab reports.  Our main focus for this week was the procedural aspect where the students observed and then wrote “how to make popcorn” including using diagrams with labels, a list of materials needed, and the detailed steps involved in the process.  We will keep building on the this work to include all the different aspects of lab reports like the question, hypothesis, results, and conclusion.

In science we started our investigation into matter and the difference states of it (solid, liquid, gas) through a series of small experiments.  We will unpack how matter can change states and the difference between physical and chemical changes in the coming weeks by conducting further experiments.  It is my hope that all the students see themselves as scientists and that by asking questions and investigating they are open and excited to explore the wonders of the world around them.  

In math we introduced word problems, using base ten models and various strategies like counting on or making models or pictures to solve result unknown problems.  In the coming weeks we will continue to solve word problems with unknowns in all parts of the equation (start and change) and continue working on our computational fact fluency.

UPCOMING

On Monday, October 30th we will have our Mini-Academies.  Thank you to the parents that have signed-up to lead a small group.  Seeing our parents share their skills is always a highlight for our grade 2 students.

On Tuesday, October 31st we will have a Halloween bash.  Students are allowed to come to school wearing costumes however in order to be sensitive to our diverse beliefs and cultures we ask you to be mindful of the following:

• No scary costumes
• No blood
• No masks
• No weapons

On Friday, November 3rd the Melawati campus will be celebrating Deepawali with hallway activities and an Elementary wide assembly at 11:00.  Parents are welcome and encouraged to join us.

IMPORTANT

Party time! This blog post is going out early this weekend to make sure parents are aware of the 2AL potluck/get-together. A big thank you to Ms. Sumiti Tandon for taking the lead on this and making it happen - Ms. Yuka and I are excited to meet all of you in a different setting.

Put a smile on your face and listen to the laughter in our class after some unexpected science demo results.

REMINDERS

Some individual and class pictures have arrived and have been sent home with your child on Friday.  Please check their bags.

Our class photos have been updated. Click here to see the latest pics!

DINNER QUESTIONS

What are the traits of a scientist?

What does it mean to read fluently?

Tell me about how scientists write?

What strategies can you use to solve word problems?