Jan 10 - Jan 14

We are so thrilled to be able to welcome students back in person this week.  Everyone was happy to be with their friends again and to do some great new learning.  Here are some of our highlights:

We continued our social studies work on learning about life in the north through exploration of artifacts from traditional inuit activities and ways of life.  We explored one of the artifacts as a class and then students chose a different artifact to work with independently.  They reflected on what they could see, what they thought about the artifact, and what they wondered.  They then shared their ideas with the class and learned a little more about what the artifact was made from and how it was used.  Ask your child to look at the pictures below and tell you what they remember about the artifacts.

In Language Arts, we enjoyed journaling about our winter break and sharing our writing with our friends.  Students have developed a greater confidence and fluency in communicating their ideas in print.  To put these developing skills to work, we have begun to do some story writing.  We read the Jan Brett story, “The Mitten” and decided to create our own versions of the story using arctic animals.  We reviewed some of the animals that we learned about before Christmas and watched some videos about a few others.  Students then chose the animals that they wanted to use in their own stories and created a story plan.  We have just begun writing our stories and will be continuing this work for the next few weeks.

In Math this week, began our number operations unit starting with addition.  We did an initial assessment (a 10 minute quiz) in order to see where each student was at and what strategies and skills they need in order to become proficient in adding and subtracting.  Grade one students worked on an activity called “Math Train” which allows them to find all of the possible addition combinations for a given number.  For example - 0+4=4, 1+3=4, 2+2=4, 3+1=4, 4+0=4.  Grade Two students played a game called “Shut the Box” that allowed them to practice adding and subtracting two dice in order to make all of the numbers from 1 to 10.  They also practiced using a number line to add two digit by one and two digit numbers and to begin adding by 10 from any number.

On Friday we also began to explore chess, under Ms. Batchelor's guidence. Students played pawn storm and learned about how this piece moves in the game.

We were super excited to begin working with Mr. J from Sound Kreations in the gym.  He will be working with us for three weeks to learn some Hip Hop dancing.  Students learned the “Hip Hop Ready Position” and 3 important moves, the bounce, the rock, and the arm wave.  They also learned two types of steps, the two step, and the heal toe.  Ask your child if he/she remember some of these moves.  

Upcoming Events

Monday Jan 17 -Home Reading exchange

Wednesday Jan 19 - Library Exchange

Thursday Jan 20 - Home Reading exchange