Mrs. Hamm's Grade 1 & 2 Blog

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Alien In-Line Skating - Monday 8:30-9:25. Please bring your child to the same doors at 8:25am, after picking up the students from Coded Minds I will come open the doors a few minutes early to allow for a couple of extra minutes to get orgnized for gym first thing.  Please remember to send your child with their bike helmet and if they want elbow, knee pads and/or wrist guards (please send in a bag).  If they don't have those items they will be provided for students to wear during skating.  Your child must have socks for in-line skating.  Don't forget it is also ride your bike to school for the next two weeks. It is hard to believe that we are in the final week of May.  We have had a lot going on during this short but busy week.  Here are some of the things we have been up to: We have almost finished our read aloud novel of “Gooney Bird Greene”.  Students have been working on their listening comprehension and have been learning som...

Our week has been full of learning through exploration and observation.  Here are some of the highlights of our week: Our work on the Maratimes continued this week.  We watched a number of videos about the area and students had an opportunity to look at the landscapes, animals, and symbols that represent this part of our country.   We began a new read aloud story this week by Lois Lowry called “Gooney Bird Greene”.  This novel is about a grade two student with a talent for storytelling.  Students have been listening to a chapter each day and have been developing their understanding of character, plot, and dialogue.  We have also been listening to the author’s use of rich vocabulary.   In Science, students have completed the exploration of magnets through the independent stations provided.  Students had to work as a group to read instructions, do the activity, and record their observations and what they learned.  Applying scientific ...

We had had great fun exploring a number of new things this week.  Students really rose to the challenge and are working to demonstrate independence with their learning: Our Social Studies work is now taking us to the Maritime provinces.  Students have learned the names of the provinces and learned about their flags and what their symbols and colours represent.   In Science, we have begun our investigations into the property of magnets.  We have set up a number of stations that students will be working through in small groups in order to learn what materials magnets work with, the strengths of different magnets, and how the magnetic field stretches beyond the physical magnet. Another Science project that we wrapped up this week was our investigation into the life cycle of insects.  We had previously observed mealworms as the larva stage.  We saw them enter their pupa stage and recorded our observations.  This week our creatures emerged from their p...

What a busy and amazing week of learning we have had.  Here are just a few of the highlights from the past five days: With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, we took some time to read some stories about what mothers do and how they take care of us.  Students completed their special gift for their moms and decorated an envelop to hold their art piece.  Their cards are great and I am sure that their artwork and writing will touch their mothers’ hearts. Of course, our highlight of the week was our amazing trip to the coulee.  Students took the time to look closely at nature and to notice the signs of Spring.  It was great to see many different bugs and to see things starting to sprout and grow.  Students had an opportunity to explore math through measuring things in nature using their pencils, their hands, and objects that they found.  We also had our final session working with our artist, Karen.  Students used the concept of journey, pathways, and...

Thank you parents I now have a second volunteer for our coulee trip on Tuesday morning. It is only with your hep that we can have these wonderful experiences learning in nature! In prepration for some upcoming health lessons, please send in your grocery flyers for students to cut up on Thursday this week. The students have had a great week of learning last week and we have been working to apply what we have been learning to new and interesting tasks.  Here are some of the things we have been doing: This week we started continued working on our googlee slides about prairie animals.  Students are working to create a slide for each of the following headings: Attributes, Habitat, Food, Babies, and Interesting Facts. Learning how to use the functions of google slides and how to type on a keyboard are great new skills for everyone. Here is the class created rubric for our finished product: As part of our Science work about insects, we are raising mealworms in the classroom. ...

What an exciting and busy week we have had.  We have been working on the following projects and concepts: Our Math work continues with more strategies for subtraction.  The grade ones are continuing practice for counting back and number line.  This week we also looked at being able to subtract 0, 1 and 2 quickly.  The grade twos have begun a new strategy for two digit subtraction - decomposing numbers.  As this is a new and challenging concept, they have been working with numbers that do not require regrouping. Our Science and Language Arts work on non-fiction research has continued this week.  Students finished with the book exploration and began working on the computers to learn more about their animal.  Appropriate website links, Epic books, and videos are posted in the google classrooms for students.  The researchers are learning to work collaboratively in order to gather information effectively. In Phys Ed. We wrapped up our Curling unit....

First, I would like to apologize... I am sorry that I have dropped our 'blog' ball two weeks in a row. I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter Weekend with family and friends. Please enjoy this catch up blog. April 11 - 14 We have had a short, but busy week.  Here are some of the things that we have been working on: In Language Arts we have been practicing reading non-fiction text and taking notes. Students are learning to just write down the important words to help them remember new information.  They have been working in groups to help find information in a variety of books and are learning how to collaborate in order to effectively find and share important facts.  Everyone has learned how to use a table of contents and an index to help them find the information they were looking for.   As our work on the prairies in the past continues, students have been examining artifacts of prairie life.  They have been learning to look at artifacts from a scientific p...