Hello November

Good afternoon everyone. It's kind of hard to believe it is already November. Halloween has come to an end, and, for some, Christmas is already at the forefront. I like to take a moment to reflect, with Remembrance Day coming up, about all those who have made sacrifices in their lives, for the greater good. 

We have a very short week coming up. November 11th, 12th, and 13th, there is no school. A little 2 day week for all students and staff. Hopefully everyone can find some time to refresh and reset. Early dismissal is November 4th, at 2:15, for our monthly staff meeting.

Last week, a green paper went home, with at least 1 child in each family. This was the order form for Christmas cards. We do an art project in class, then it gets scanned and printed onto cards that you can send to family. The cost is $6.00/pack of 6. You can put any children from East Elementary on 1 order form. 

Here are some learning updates for November. 

Language Arts

In writing, the students are continuing to craft their skills. We are currently engaged in narrative writing, learning to write descriptive segments. We are learning the power of adjectives (describing words), and how they relate to creating an image in the head of a reader, reading their stories. To accurately describe a character or object, we need to use our 5 senses do describe how something looks, smells, feels, sounds, or even tastes. We have been using facts (as opposed to opinions) that paint a picture for the reader. ie: The scarecrow wore a black, leather, pointy hat on top of its head. The words black, leather, and pointy are all adjectives to help describe how the hat looks. We are trying to avoid using opinions, words such as pretty, neat, fun, awesome, as they do not give an accurate physical description of the object/character. 

In phonics, we are into our long vowel sound segment of our spelling and phonics program. There are a few rules to remember for when vowels make the long sound (say their name). When a word has a magic "e" at the end, the voiced vowel will say its name. ie: mat (short a) vs mate (long a). Also, if 2 vowel go "walking", the first one does the "talking"  ie: rain (ai is a long "a" sound). The next spelling lessons, up to unit 11, are all long vowel sounds.

We use these phonics rules and spelling lists to increase our vocabulary and foster our reading skills. Everyday we continue to work on different reading strategies to grow as independent readers.

Math

We have just finished up our first measurement unit. This unit included things like measuring length, comparing length, and relating days of the week to months of the year. We will be finishing up this unit by creating some calendars. We will then be moving into sorting and graphing skills, then an introduction into addition to 100 and learning some skills to help with adding larger numbers.

We have been practicing daily, our doubles and making tens. Knowing your doubles is an important strategy with helping add larger numbers. Once we know our doubles and our tens, we will get into doubles + 1 (6+7 - 6+6 =12, therefor 6+7=13), and almost tens (7+4 - 7+3=10, therefor 7+4=11). 

Science

We have just finished up our Magnetism unit is science. The students did a great job with their home project magnet toys/games. I was really impressed with the quality of their work, and their knowledge of magnets. Our next unit, beginning next week, will be Exploring Liquids. We will be learning about different properties of liquids, what happens when you change the temperature of a liquid, when you mix liquids, and properties such as waterproof, viscosity, and absorption.

Social Studies

In social, we finished up our mapping unit, and we are now going to be looking at the geography of Canada, and what features there are in our 3 communities (Iqaluit, Meteghan, and Saskatoon). We will be looking at what kids of bodies of water are there, what are the landforms like, what the climate is like, and the location of the community in Canada. We will study each community individually, and compare them to the others, as well as to our on community of Leduc. I look forward to this unit in Social, as it gives the students a great idea of how vast and diverse our country of Canada truly is. 

I hope everyone has an amazing November ahead, as well as a great midterm break around Remembrance Day.

October Beginnings

Welcome to October everyone. I can't believe the awesome fall weather we are having. Here are some updates for this week and next. 

Wednesday, October 7th, is early dismissal. The students are dismissed at 2:15. If your child is on a bus, it will be here for them. If you pick up your child, please be here at 2:15, not 3:00pm as usual. This will happen on the first Wednesday of every month. 

Next week, is Thanksgiving. There is no school on October 12th for Thanksgiving, or on October 13, as it is a PD day. We are moving right along in our studies in grade 2. Here are some updates as to what we have been learning about.

Language Arts

In our writing, we have put a strong focus on writing complete sentences and including beginning capital letters as well as ending punctuation (periods, question marks and exclamation marks). We also now know that proper nouns (actual names of people, places, games, stories, etc ) need to be capitalized as well. I introduced to them that every sentence needs a(who/what),and predicate (doing/describing). We looked at some example sentences and understood that words like I, me, we, it, his, and proper names, are all examples of a subject in a sentence.  The subject of a sentence usually comes at the beginning of the sentence. Fido ate my homework. Fido in this sentence is the subject, and ate my homework is the predicate. I will begin to look for subject and predicate in the students journal writing.

Math

Since the beginning of our patterns unit, we have discussed numerous terms. The type of pattern we are studying 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 continue to look at different aspects of magnetism. We have learned that magnets have a North and a South pole, and that opposite ends of a magnet attract, and same ends repel. We learned that the earth is giant magnet (although very weak), and that is what makes a compass work. We will be testing out different magnets to see if magnets have different strengths, and writing a quiz this week on what we have learned so far

Social Studies

We will finish up our mapping unit this week with a small test at the end of this week. The students hopefully remember their mnemonic to help them remember the 4 main cardinal directions on the compass, starting with North at the top, and going clockwise. (Never Eat Soggy Waffles).

Sept 21-25 - Welcome Back

 Welcome Back!!!!

That was certainly an interesting 6 month, since our last day of school in the 2019-2020 school year, on March 13. So much has happened between now and then. I assure you we are doing everything to keep your children safe during the new school year.

This past week was only a 4 day week, but our first "full" week of school. There was lots of review that was happening and some new concepts. Here is a little tidbit about some things we learned about this week.

Language Arts

In language arts, this past week we had our first spelling list. We also worked in our phonics books. The activities in the phonics book generally will align with the concept/idea of the weekly spelling words. This week we worked on beginning and ending consonant sounds. We talked about what letters are vowels, and that consonants are any letters that are not vowels. We will begin our writing program next week, on top a new spelling list and some more phonics activities. I will be introducing concepts related to learning about 2 different genre's of writing, informative writing, and narrative writing (non-fiction and fiction).

Our focus in writing  at the start of the year has been in sentence writing.  The students should know and be able to write a sentence that has an upper case letter at the beginning, as well as a period at the end, signaling the end of their thought or idea.  We have done writing in our journals, sharing our though about the summer and what our weekends look like. 

Math

In math, we started with a review of numbers to 20, and basic single digit addition and subtraction equations. We also looked at the concept of adding and subtracting 0. We will continue with a little bit more practice on this before we move into our first unit, repeating patterns. 

Science

In science, we are beginning with our magnetism unit. So far, the students have learned to use the word attract, to describe how a magnet interacts with certain metals. We have also learned what the 3 metals are that magnets attract, iron, nickel, and cobalt. Over the rest of September and October, we will continue to learn about concepts surrounding magnets, as well as learning about the scientific method, to participate in some experiments.

Social

In social, we are beginning with a quick review of mapping, leaning where in Canada you can find our community of Leduc, and the province of Alberta. We are learning terms like near and far, do describe the relative position of different places on a map. Once we finish with mapping, we will begin to learn about Leduc in the past, and compare it to today. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend and week ahead.

Christmas break coming soon.

Here are some important updates from 2A.  First of all, our Christmas concert is taking place on Tuesday, December 18th. We have a surprise trip for students happening on Thursday, December 20th.  An envelope is going home today regarding the trip.  Please keep it a secret as we will be surprising the students the morning of the trip. Payment as well as permission form can be done online.
Friday, December 21, is the last day of school before Christmas break. We have 2 theme days coming up too. On Friday, December 14th, it is crazy Christmas dress-up.  Wear your favorite Christmas things like Christmas clothes, antlers, Santa hats, bells, ornaments, etc. On Friday, December 21st, it is Christmas PJ day. 

Language Arts

Writing:

In our writing, we have put a strong focus on writing complete sentences and including beginning capital letters as well as ending punctuation (periods, question marks and exclamation marks). We also now know that proper nouns (actual names of people, places, games, stories, etc ) need to be capitalized as well. I introduced to them that every sentence needs a subject (who/what),and predicate (doing/describing). We looked at some example sentences and understood that words like I, me, we, it, his, and proper names, are all examples of a subject in a sentence.  The subject of a sentence  usually comes at the beginning of the sentence. "Fido ate my homework". Fido in this sentence is the subject, and ate my homework is the predicate. I will begin to look for subject and predicate in the students journal 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. 

Phonics:

We have finished up talking about long vowels and rules for sounding out long vowels.  We are starting unit 4, and we began with looking at blends, specifically 'l' and 'r' blends.  We will then look at compound words and syllables in words, and what they are.

Math

We are well into our measurement unit.  The students have been comparing objects using words like longer, taller, shorter, wider, narrower, bigger, and smaller. In grade 2, when measuring an object, we use non-standard units of measurement. A non-standard unit of measurement is something that is not always the same, like an eraser.  We could measure the width of our desk with an eraser. The students would say "my desk is 12 erasers wide. We could also use a paper clip to measure, which would change the width. "My desk is 16 paper clips wide". We don't use standard units (cm, kg, ml) until grade 3. We will be studying the days of the week and the months of the year, and compare masses later on in this unit.

Science

In science we are well into our hot and cold temperatures unit.  We have been looking at how thermometers work.  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. We have talked about heat sources (things that produce heat) and insulating materials. How do insulators work?  We will be testing different insulating materials. Some other things that will talk about later are how changing the temperature of things (melting, freezing, burning, and cooking) changes them.   Also we will look at how to protect ourselves when handing things that are hot and cold.

Social

We have looked 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. We have also looked at the early days of the 3 communities and how they were when settlers first arrived and what they were like even before that.


I hope everyone is having a great lead up to Christmas vacation.

Mr. Aasen 

Halloween Potluck

Good afternoon parents. I just want to send out a reminder that this Wednesday, Halloween, we will be having our first classroom "potluck" lunch.  There will be a fruit platter, a veggie platter, a cheese and cracker platter, a dessert, and juice boxes.  This is meant to be a complement to your child's lunch, not the only thing they are eating.  I ask that you still send in something for snack, as well as a meat/protein/lunch item that they can eat at lunch to go with all the additional tasty items. Thank you to those of you that are bringing something in for this party. Remember that the students can wear their costumes to school too.

Science Magnetism Project

A note went home today regarding the Magnetic Toy project.  If you have any questions do not hesitate to send me a message.  If for some reason one does not arrive home in the Kanga Pouch, I can e-mail you a copy of the pdf to see the assignment.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Just a friendly reminder that parent teacher conferences are scheduled for October 23rd and 24th.  Use the link below to sign up for a slot.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0C44A4A629A6FD0-parent4