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

Many Events/Reminders

Good afternoon parents,

There are many reminders coming up for the next couple of weeks. First of all, this Friday, March 16th, we are dressing up green for St. Patrick's Day.  Feel free to wear fun St. Patrick's Day related clothes and accessories, like clover necklaces, headbands, wristbands, etc. Also there is no school next Friday, March 23rd, as it is a PD day. That is the beginning of spring break.  There is no school from March 23rd to April 2nd.  School resumes Tuesday, April 3rd. Last but not least, a friendly reminder to sign the swimming permission form online, as well as make a payment via credit card or in school. 


Grade 2 is a very busy year for students.  They work very hard on many aspects of their academics, particularly on reading, writing, and math. We are at a point in the year where I should be seeing great improvements in these areas.  Next Wednesday, March 21st, is our annual student led conferences.  This is an opportunity for your child to take you on a tour of the classroom, while showing you different activities and skills they perform in the classroom on a weekly basis.  It is your opportunity to get a glimpse of how they function in the classroom and observe their skill set on relevant activities, such as reading, writing, basic math facts, and math games.  This is a great evening where your child can showcase their abilities, as well as we can discuss their positives and their concerns.


Math:

Our measurement unit in math is moving right along. The students are now able to compare two items using terms like longer, taller, lighter, wider, and smaller.  Last week we talked extensively about time, but not telling time with clocks, telling time with a calendar.  We focused on days of the week and months of the year.  The students need to know the days of the week, starting with the first day, Sunday, and their proper order. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  They need to understand that there are 7 days in a week.  They must also be able to recognize the months of the year (12), the correct order, and what comes first/last, etc.  They should be able to answer a question like "What month comes 3 months after July?"  The answer being October.  They should also be able to find days on a calendar.  For example, If I asked, what day of the week is February 27th, 2017, they should be able to answer Monday.  This is assuming a calendar is in front of them. We will continue this week to work on days of the week, months of the year, and reading calendars.  I encourage all of your children to talk about days of the week, when appointments are, how many months until school ends, at home as much as possible.


Science:

In science, we have began our Buoyancy and Boats unit.  In this unit we look at how material and design/shape of a boat can affect its buoyancy.  We now know that buoyancy is the ability of an object to float. How buoyant something is has many factors.  We even made plasticine float by changing the shape of a plasticine ball. The students will also have to create a boat that propels itself through water.


Social:

In social we finished up looking at the cultures of the people in our 3 communities.  We discussed traditions of the Inuit of Iqaluit, the Acadian's of Meteghan, as well as the Ukranian's of Saskatoon. The next unit we study will look at the work that people do in the 3 communities.  How do they make a living?  What types of natural resources contribute to the local economy? 


I hope everyone has had a great first couple months of 2018.  I know I am looking forward to the snow melting and green grass starting to grow.

Mr. Aasen

Winter Wonderland

Well, it looks like the winter weather has officially arrived and is here to stay. This is a welcome sight for some people.  I am one of those people that enjoys this time of year. That also means we are into the thick of the school year and working on some really fun things in different subjects.

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 about sentences needing to have a subject and a predicate. The students already know that a sentences needs a beginning capital letter and ending punctuation.  I introduced to them that every sentence needs a subject (who/what), and a 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 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 that make one sound), 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 and making 10 to help our addition and subtraction.  We are also well into our patterning unit. 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. This week we are beginning to explore increasing patterns.  This is a pattern that gets bigger.  The most basic increasing pattern is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...  We start at 1 and increase by 1 each time.

Science

We are doing really well in our Hot and Cold unit.  We recently did an experiment to show what takes up more space, snow or water.  The students had fun collecting snow and recording the temperature before letting it melt to see what happened.    Some of the students are still having a hard time reading thermometers though and could use extra practice at home.  We look at weather every morning during our morning routine, recording the temperature, but more practice is always an asset. Once our insulating containers are tested, we will be writing our Hot and Cold Unit test.

Social Studies

In social we have completed our mapping unit. We have also 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 will now continue with studying the early years of our 3 communities, Meteghan, Iqaluit, and Saskatoon.  We continue to compare and contrast the 3 communities together with our community of Leduc.


I hope everyone can make the best of this weather if they do not enjoy it. 

Mr. Aasen

September

Good afternoon parents.  I hope everyone has had a great first few weeks of the 2017-2018 school year at East Elementary.  There are a few updates I would like to remind everyone of as well as talk about where we are headed and what we have been studying at the start of the year.



Odds and Ends

• A reminder that every Tuesday is our Library day.  Encourage your children to keep their library books until they come to school on Tuesday.  

• This Friday, Sept 29th, is the Terry Fox Run.  The weather is supposed to be fantastic, over 20 degrees and sunny.  Please have your children wear comfortable clothes that day as we will be outside for the whole afternoon.

• Hot lunch orders for October are due this Friday.

• This October at some point, I will be away for the birth of my wife and I's twins.  I will be gone as soon as I get a phone call, which could be in the middle of the school day. There will be plans in place for where the students go the rest of that day.  Sub plans will be ready to go for the following day(s) and the students know this.  I just want to give you the heads up so you don't hear a different story from your children about why I had to leave with little/no notice.

Language Arts

Spelling:

 

All of the spelling words come home with the students every Monday.  If they are absent or do not remember to bring them home, they are all posted on the blog by lesson in the Spelling Words tab. 

Phonics:

In phonics, the students are practicing identifying beginning and ending sounds in mainly short vowel words.  It is very important that your child is able to identify the letter sounds and know which 5(6) letters are vowels, (A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y (gym).  By now, the students should be able to hear a sound and identify the letter that makes that sound.

Writing:

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, signalling the end of their thought or idea.  We have also talked about never starting a sentence with the word "and".  If you see your children writing at home and using the word "and" as the first word, correct them and have them erase it.  This is an example of a frequent use of the word "and".  "Today I went shopping. and I ate toast."  Two completely unrelated ideas connected with the word and, after a period has been used.  Once you finish a thought, use a period.  Start the next thought fresh without using and at the start.

Math

In math we are currently working on our basic math facts and reviewing addition to 20.  Most of the students in the class would benefit from practicing their basic math facts at home, whether it be with flash cards, writing single digit equations on a white board/piece of paper, rolling dice and adding the values, or flipping two cards and adding the values (no face cards). Weekly, in class, the students will play math games that encourage the growth of their basic math fact knowledge.  Maybe they could teach you a game or two.  

Science

In science we began the school year with the Hot and Cold Temperatures unit.  So far the students have learned different types of weather that can bring hot or cold temperatures, or types of weather that can occur when it is hot or cold.  We have learned what the definition of heat is and that everything on earth has some amount of heat in it.  We have studied what a heat source is and that different buildings are heated in different ways (a furnace vs a boiler). We looked at different ways we can heat up or cool down a house.  In later weeks we will learn how to read a thermometer and properly add the red line for certain temperatures.  We will also look at insulators and insulating materials, and then build an insulating container.

Social Studies

In social we are currently doing a review unit of mapping.  We have talked about what makes a map a map (top down view, a legend, a compass rose). We have looked at city maps, world maps, floor plans, and how they are similar and different.  We are currently talking about symbols and how they are used on maps and in our every day life.  We will also be discussing where to find Canada, Alberta, and Leduc on the map, as well as the 3 communities we will be studying this year.  By the end of this review unit, the students should be able to find things on a map, label a compass rose with the four cardinal directions (N, S, E, W), as well as navigate with directions.

June is approaching!

Good afternoon everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, enjoying the great weather. I have a few important announcements regarding the notes that went home today.  One is a permission form for our Fort Edmonton field trip.  This trip will take place on June 15th.  The permission form is due back next Thursday, June 8th, along with $13.25 to cover the cost of bus transportation and the programs/fees for Fort Edmonton. The second of the two forms is just information stating that next year, all permission forms will be online. We will not send paper copies home.


Language Arts

We are just finishing up reading and studying Charlotte's Web.  The students have really taken to the characters in the book, especially Charlotte, the very wonderful spider.  Once we are done our novel study, we will be looking at the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The students will be ordering events of the story, as well as retelling the story, using their own, made up characters. For example, a student from last year, their story was called Goldilocks and the Three Alligators.  The characters and the critical objects in the story are adapted to related to Alligators.  Each students will make up their own characters.


Math

We have finished our addition and subtraction to 100 unit.  We have begun learning about 2D shapes and 3D objects.  The students need to be able to name different shapes (square, triangle, circle, rectangle) and sort them based on different attributes (number of sides/vertices, straight sides, curved sides). When we get into 3D objects, students must be able to do the same but now with objects such as spheres, prisms, cylinders, and pyramids. They need to know what vertices, faces, sides, and edges are, and what they belong to.  (Shapes have sides and vertices, objects have faces, edges, and vertices).

Science

Our last science unit is Small Crawling and Flying Animals.  Our field trip to Miquelon Lake was a great introduction to learning about different small animals, such as insects and other invertebrates. We have learned that insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen). We will be looking at different characteristics of insects and then choosing an insect to write a research report on, focusing on habitat, diet, and characteristics.  The students typically enjoy researching a bug they are interested in.


I hope everyone has a great week ahead.  Enjoy this beautiful weather.

Mr. Aasen.

Short Week

Here are a few reminders for this week. Thursday we are travelling to Miquelon Lake for the whole day.  We will travel rain or shine.  Please dress accordingly. That also may mean, bring bug spray, sun screen, a hat, a rain coat, rubber boots, etc.  We will of course be walking around and near water, so rubber boots may be a great idea. Also, the students do not need to bring their agendas that day.  Just bring your lunch kits in your backpacks.

(If you have not returned permission forms or payment, please do so ASAP, preferably before Thursday.)

Friday there is no school for PD, as well no school next Monday, for Victoria Day.

We do not have new spelling words this week.

May Flowers

Hi everyone.  It's hard to believe that we are already into May.  This week especially is an Exciting week at East Elementary.

First things first, today a permission from went home regarding our field trip to Miquelon Lake.  The permission form with $12.50 is due back by May 12th, although the sooner the better. Wednesday, May 3rd, is "Hats On for Mental Health" Day.  The students can wear their favorite  or craziest hats to school all day.  It is also early dismissal.  Students are dismissed at 2:15 for staff meeting.  The talent show also takes place from 1:00pm until 2:15pm.  Feel free to come, watch, and enjoy the talent.

Class pictures for grade 2A will take place Wednesday, May 10th.


Language Arts

The grade 2's continue to work hard on their writing.  Some students still need practice and reminders to include beginning capital letters, as well as ending punctuation.  It's never a bad idea to practice writing sentences at home.
As for our structured writing, the students are learning to write introduction and conclusion paragraphs for an informative piece of writing.  This will lead up to writing a full informative piece of writing based on an animal of their choosing in our small crawling and flying animals science unit.


Math

The grade 2's continue to practice addition and subtraction to 100.  For the most part, the students are doing a great job, just a reminder to remember the strategies when doing either addition or subtraction.  In addition, when adding the ones, and there are more than 9, don't forget the carry the bonus 10 to the top of the tens side. When adding the tens, remember to add the one they carried to that side.  When subtracting, and there are not enough ones to subtract, they have to steal a 10 from the tens side to give them enough to subtract the ones. We will be finishing this unit soon and moving on to 2D shapes and 3D objects.


Science

We have been studying the effects of buoyancy on different objects.  How objects float, and different characteristics of boats that allow them to float, and float well.  The students brought home elastic propelled rafts over the weekend. They have had a great time building different boats and experimenting with different objects that float or do not float.  We will be finishing up buoyancy and boats very soon, then moving on to our final unit, small crawling and flying animals.


I hope everyone has a great week ahead.  We are finally getting some great spring weather.  Thank you to you all for doing a great job sending swimming suits and towels every Monday.  I have made the fewest phone calls ever this year so far for students that have forgotten their swimming stuff.  Keep it up awesome parents.

No Spelling this week.

A few reminders for this week.  There are no new spelling words for the students to study.  We will have a new set next week.  Reminders to return any permission forms (swimming and Musical) if your child has not brought them back yet.  Swimming has a $28.20 fee and the musical has a $5 fee.

This Friday is St. Paddy's day.  Come to school dressed in green, Next Tuesday, March 21st, is crazy sock day, for Down Syndrome Awareness.  Come wearing your craziest, mismatched, socks.

I will remind everyone closer to the date, but I just wanted to begin the reminders today in the hopes that everyone will remember.  The first day of swimming lessons is the first day back from spring break, April 3rd.  Since I will not be able to put an agenda message the day before, I'm hoping constant reminders will make sure the students come with their swimming gear (swim suit and towel).


Mr. Aasen

Winter Returns

I would like to welcome back winter to Leduc.  With the temperatures dipping down near -30 degrees, please remember to send snow pants, winter jackets, winter boots, toques. and mittens to school every day.

Today I sent a permission form to see a musical called There and Back Again: A Hobbit Musical.  The cost for the ticket is $5.  Please send back the permission forms as soon as possible.

The swimming forms also need to be returned.  If you are unsure as to what level your child last completed, we recorded what level they should be enrolled in after their grade 1 swimming lessons.  So unless they took more lessons over the summer, we will know what level to enroll them in.

Short Week Again (Feb 27 - March 3rd)

Here are a few reminders.  Swimming forms are due 2 weeks from tomorrow, Wednesday, March 15th. Payment for swimming lessons is $28.20.  Tomorrow is early dismissal.  Students are dismissed at 2:15. This week, there is no school on Friday, March 3rd.  The teachers have a PD day.  Enjoy your long weekend.

Short Week

Hello everyone.  I hope you all had a great "unplugged" Family Day.  There are a few reminders for this week.  Tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb 22nd, is bullying awareness day.  We are dressing up in pink to stand up against bullying.  If your child has pink, ask them to come to school wearing pink.

Friday, Feb 24th, is PJ and pancake day.  We will be cooking a pancake breakfast for all students and staff.  The school doors will be open to students at 8:00am, with pancakes being served shortly there after.  Wear your PJ's to school as well.  I will allow 1 stuffie to be brought to class as well if your child chooses. 

Language Arts

Writing:

I have seen some great journal writing the past few weeks.  The students are really showing off their writing abilities.  The writing attributes we still focus on from day to day are writing complete sentences, including beginning capital letters and ending punctuation.  Week by week, the students sentences are improving. We will be leaning some new writing techniques over the next few weeks to add suspense to our writing as well as how to choose words that add very descriptive detail. They will be building on the story beginning and story ending techniques that we have learned to create captivating stories.

Math

Our measurement unit in math is moving right along. The students are now able to compare two items using terms like longer, taller, lighter, wider, and smaller.  Last week we talked extensively about time, but not telling time with clocks, telling time with a calendar.  We focused on days of the week and months of the year.  The students need to know the days of the week, starting with the first day, Sunday, and their proper order. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  They need to understand that there are 7 days in a week.  They must also be able to recognize the months of the year (12), the correct order, and what comes first/last, etc.  They should be able to answer a question like "What month comes 3 months after July?"  The answer being October.  They should also be able to find days on a calendar.  For example, If I asked, what day of the week is February 27th, 2017, they should be able to answer Monday.  This is assuming a calendar is in front of them. We will continue this week to work on days of the week, months of the year, and reading calendars.  I encourage all of your children to talk about days of the week, when appointments are, how many months until school ends, at home as much as possible.

In Science, we continue to study our unit "Exploring Liquids".  In Social Studies, we continue to study "Looking at People" and different traditions throughout the 3 communities.

I hope everyone has a great last week or so of February.

Mr. Aasen

February

As the students are plugging away in Grade 2A, there are some important updates coming up.  A reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday, February 1st, is early dismissal at 2:15. Next week, there is no school on February 9th or 10th, as all the teachers will be attending teachers convention.  Report cards were distributed last Friday and we want to collect the envelopes so they can be re-used in June when the year end report cards get handed out.  If you could return the envelope, that would be greatly appreciated.

Language Arts

Phonics:

In our phonics workbooks, we have had a focus on specific sounds.  The students should now be able to differentiate between soft and hard "g" (giant - soft or game - hard) as well has soft and hard "c" (cent - soft or card - hard).  Usually a "g" or a "c" will make a soft sound if it is followed by an e, i, or y.  Does it follow the rule every time? No.  But for the most part it does. We also have looked at consonant blends, particularly blends with "r" and "l" (trip, block).  A blend is when 2 consonants go together but still make two letter sounds. We will also be studying consonant digraphs. A consonant digraph is when two consonants go together but make one letter sound.  (ch, sh, th, wh, ck). Our spelling words this week deal with "th" and "sh" digraphs.

Writing:

We continue to focus on writing complete sentences, making sure each sentence has a subject (who/what) and a predicate (doing/describing). Conventions are also very important, making sure to start each sentence with a capital letter and end with some form of punctuation; a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark. The students also recently learned how to write and extended narrative story ending.  Some strategies for writing a great ending include using a memory about what happened in the story, expressing feelings about what happened, a hope or a wish as to what will happen next, or a decision based on the previous events and story problem. We will continue learning strategies to write detailed and complete stories over the coming weeks.  One of these strategies is showing feelings as opposed to telling feelings.  Students will learn that body language and facial expressions are indicators of how a person is feeling.  Authors will use language to SHOW rather than simply TELL about how a story character is felling.


Math

In math we have recently finished up our patterns unit.  We are now into our measurement unit.  The students are currently studying different measurements, such as length (height and width are forms of length), and mass.  We discussed how mass and weight are the same on earth but they have a different meaning.  We can use them interchangeably and the students are correct if they use one or the other to describe how heavy something is.  The students are also comparing lengths using words like longer/shorter, taller/shorter, and wider/narrower when comparing two objects.  We are also using non-standard units to measure length.  In grade two, we do not use standard units of measurement, such as centimeters and meters to measure, however we do talk about them so the students know that they are available and will always remain the same. We will continue to study measurement over the coming weeks.


Social Studies

I our first main unit in social studies, we learned about the land in the communities of Iqaluit, Meteghan, and Saskatoon.  In the next unit, titled Looking at People, we will focus on the people in the three communities, the Inuit, the Acadians, and the Ukranians. We will learn cultural characteristics that the members of each community will share, and learn different ways that traditions are passed on, such as through language, music, or art.


Science

We are into our third science unit, Exploring Liquids.  The students have had the opportunity do explore various liquids through their senses of touch, sight and smell.  We have looked at whether the liquids froze, evaporated, as well as their viscosity (resistance to flow). We have some very viscous liquids such as molasses and syrup, and some low viscosity liquids like water and vinegar. We will be looking at how water interacts with other liquids as well as how some solids react when being mixed with water (dissolving).  We will continue this unit through February before wrapping it up. The students have done some experiments as well dealing with surface tension (cohesion) of water and they are really enjoying it so far.



Don't hesitate to ask what your child is learning throughout the day.  We talk about how to explain what we are learning on a daily basis and to talk at home about what we are learning.  I hope everyone has a great week ahead.

Mr. Aasen

Christmas Activities Update

Good afternoon parents,


I have a few friendly reminders for this week.

The Christmas concert for our class is taking place this Thursday, Dec 15th at 6:30pm.  The doors open at 6:00pm.  Unfortunately due to a medical appointment in Calgary I am not able to attend the evening concert.  Ms. Kruse along with Nurse McLeod will be wrangling up class 2A and getting them lined up and ready for the concert.  The dress for this years performance is a sweater, scarf, and tuque. Any kind of pants as good.

This Friday we will be watching The Polar Express in the morning and then taking in the other class' performance of the Christmas Concert in the afternoon.  We will still have our spelling test as well.  New words are up on the spelling words page.

Finally, please remember to return the envelopes with the payment for the field trip next week as soon as possible.

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