November 28th

Hello all.  It's hard to believe we are down to 4 weeks until Christmas.  Don't forget that there is no school this Friday, December 2nd, as we have a PD day.  Also, there are no new spelling words this week since it is a review week.

We have been moving along great in our studies in 2A.  The students are engaged in their activities and we are working hard to meet our goals. The students are even now practicing for their Christmas Concert performance.  Our Christmas concert will be taking place on Thursday, December 15th.

Math:

We are progressing along very well in Math.  Since the beginning of our patterns unit, we have discussed numerous terms. Our main topic so far is repeating patterns.  A repeating pattern is a pattern that has a section that repeats. The section of the pattern that repeats is called the core.  We are also discussing attributes. An attribute is what is changing in a pattern.  Examples of attributes are colour, shape, direction, or size.  An example of a repeating pattern is up, up, down, up, up, down.  The pattern core is up, up, down, and the pattern attribute that changes is direction. The students have been doing many activities that involve creating, extending, and recreating repeating patterns and recording their patterns in their math journals.


Science:

In science we are well into our hot and cold temperatures unit.  The main thing that the students need to take out of the first few weeks of the unit, is reading a thermometer.  If at any point your child has an opportunity to read a thermometer, please allow them to do so.  Please reiterate with them that any temperature below zero needs to have a minus in front of it.  Some other things that we have been talking about are how changing the temperature of things (melting, freezing, burning, and cooking) changes them.  The students got to brainstorm how different things are affected through these changes in temperature.  Also this week, we are looking at different heat sources (things that produce heat), and how to protect ourselves when handing things that are hot and cold.


Social Studies:

In social, we are looking at the early days of our three communities.  For our study of the early days of Iqaluit, the students got to build their very own marshmallow igloo.  The Inuit people lived in Igluit during the winter when they were following the caribou. This week and next we will be looking at the early days of Meteghan and Saskatoon.


I hope everyone has a great week ahead and beginning of December.

Mr. Aasen

Week of Remembrance Day

I can't believe the weather we are having for these first weeks of November.  Upper double digit temperatures, heavy rains, and lots of sun.  It sounds more like late spring.There are a few reminders for this week.

There is no school this Thursday or Friday, the latter being Remembrance Day, November 11th.  Wednesday is a busy day. We will be having our weekly library class as we do not have school on Thursday. Book orders are due Wednesday for anyone that wants anything from the Scholastic catalogue.  We will also be having our Remembrance Day ceremony at 10:30 in the gym on Wednesday. Any family is welcome to attend. 

We have no new spelling words this week as it is only a 3 day week. 

Language Arts

Writing:

This unit in writing we have continued to look at aspects of narrative and expository/informative writing.  We continue to talk more and more a pout sentences needing to have a subject and a predicate.  We have looked at sorting details into main idea's, useful for expository writing. We have talked about opinions versus facts. Opinions reflect what a person believes and thinks, where as facts represent truthful things that cannot be changed.  This week and next we will be discussing and practicing writing elaborate details in our writing, comparing general details to specific details.

Phonics:

In phonics we have finished working on short vowel sounds and are now working on all the long vowel sounds. The students are doing well to grasp the concepts we are talking about.  It is important for those that have difficulty sounding out new words to remember rules like; When there is an "e" at the end of a word, it makes the middle vowel say its name, (Lake, the "e" is silent and makes the "a" say its name).  When two vowels "go walking" (a vowel digraph is two vowels together), the first one does the talking. (boat says "bōt". The "a" is silent).

Math

In math we are continuing to work on different aspects of number sense. Much of the practice over the previous weeks has been using different strategies to add and subtract.  We have used counting on, a number line, a hundreds chart as well as our fingers.  We have also introduced the concept of adding and subtracting 10. We will be finishing up these concepts this week and beginning our patterns unit next week. 

Science

We have now completed our magnetism unit with our unit test last Friday.  They will be marked and sent home by Wednesday.  We will begin our new unit "Hot and Cold Temperatures" this week and look to finish it up by Christmas break. This unit will look at different aspects of hot and cold temperatures, such as reading thermometers, heat/cooling sources, melting/freezing, and states of matter.

Social

In Social we are looking at the geography (land and water formations) of our three communities we are studying, as well as weather that occurs during the year and comparing them to our own community of Leduc.  The students were truly amazed at the annual average snowfall amount of Iqaluit (236cm).  They also learned that Saskatoon is one of the sunniest cities in all of Canada.

I hope everyone has a very enjoyable week and a great long weekend ahead.

Mr. Aasen