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.