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.
Monday, 6 March 2017
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
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.
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
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
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
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
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
Monday, 12 December 2016
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.
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.
Monday, 28 November 2016
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
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
Monday, 7 November 2016
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
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