Thankful Pie

We are a very thankful class!

The Most Important Rule

We've been trying to come up with a list of rules for the classroom and we have agreed that "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is one of the top ones.

The Golden Rule is one of my favourite books to introduce the concept, and Do Onto Otters is always EVERYONE's favourite!

Each student decided what they thought was THE most important rule.

Problem/Solution

We are working on ways to solve problems. We are starting with personal problems and social problems.
We did some together as a whole group - and then we broke off into our table groups and  then presented what we thought would be the best solution. 
The groups worked very well together and come up with excellent solutions! Great work, Room 15!

A Good Teacher / A Good Student

We brainstormed and came up with a list of what makes a good teacher and what makes a good student.

When we brainstorm like this, sometimes the students do the writing and sometimes I write what they say. But it is ALWAYS in their words.
I would love it if the students always did the writing, but sometimes I help due to :
TIME - it is really hard for everyone else to sit and wait while someone writes a sentence. Multiply that by 21 sentences.  That is a lot of time (likely over an hour). We usually start to lose our audience after the second student writes :) . So we take turns. Because I can write while they talk!

Also -- some students feel shy about written in front of everyone at this point. Some students are not ready to write yet -- I will help to boost their confidence by having them write the first letter (or letters -- whatever sounds they know), then I complete the word.

I often do the writing if we are going to be reading the chart often and independently. But again -- it is in the students words.

The class was more vocal about what makes a good student!

International Dot Day September 15(ish)

"It was like our dots exploded!"

That was one of the comments from a Grade 1 student.

We have been exploring line, and we made our lines extend from our dots. We used colourful lines, skinny lines, thick lines, loop-de-loop lines, zig zag lines, and so many more!

Parents: you will see them all in person on Curriculum night -- this Thursday!

International Dot Day!

Today is International Dot Day!

International Dot Day, a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration, began when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot on September 15, 2009.

  

Stay tuned to see how we "make our mark"! 

Welcome to Room 15!

Welcome to all new students and parents in Room 15!
We will try to keep you updated with our current classroom learning. If there is something that you would like to see on our blog -- please let Ms. Brown know!

You can also keep up to date with our learning by following our twitter account :
@msbrownsroom

Milk bags

Ms. Harris and her group of weavers have been putting our milk bags to good use!

They have completed one mattress which will be sent off to be used in a country that needs them. (We are not sure where it will go yet)

It took over 1000 milk bags to complete this mattress. Our class collected more than half of them!
(note the hands holding up the mattress -- these are Grade 8 students -- this mattress is huge!)

Happy Father's Day!

  Happy Fathers Day to all of the men in our lives -- our dads, daddys, babas, uncles, grandfathers, papous, and great grandfathers!

We painted blocks of wood and attached some very close up photos to them. They looked amazing -- sorry that I can't show the finished products.

We worked with bright acrylic paints and worked on layering and then adding details.

Introduction to equations

We are learning how to balance equations.

We learned that the equal sign ( = ) means "the same as"

To introduce the word "equation" we read this book and made up some funny word equations.
These were from the book : "small + bottle = baby" and "tall + coffee = grown-up" 

We were all familiar with equations such as
2+3=5
but students had difficulty when we switched things around a bit 5 = 2+?
We had been relying on standard equations for too long!

We used an actual balance scale to physically balance cubes to find out what "balanced".

The Grade 2's learned how to balance in a more complicated way.
They tried equations like 5+2 = 4+? 
We learned to solve one side of the equation, and then solve the other side.
Our balance scale mat really helps to remind us how to solve the equations.
 

 

Introduction to Mapping

We made maps of our bedrooms!
We read some books about mapping, and then made maps of our bedrooms.
We discussed birds eye view and then used some real doll house furniture on a grid to represent our furniture.

This really helped with the scale of furniture (and toys) in the rooms.

Life Cycles

The Grade 2's are observing life cycles of butterflies and the life cycles of frogs. Then they will compare them!

We were really lucky to see some butterflies while they were emerging from their chrysalis. It usually happens in the early morning (dawn), but we saw many of them.

We have also been watching our tadpoles grow legs. It is really cool!

 

Composing 2 Dimensional Shapes

We have been learning about 2 Dimensional Shapes.
Our Learning Goals for this Unit are:

 First we learned what a polygon is, and then we learned the properties of different polygons.

 

We added geometry words to our Math Word Wall as we went:

Then we did a warm up -- we had all spent lots of time using pattern blocks, so this wasn't too hard.

Then the problem was introduced.
First we had to talk about how the word "least" has a few different meanings!
And one student asked if the hexagon had to be a "regular" hexagon (excellent question!) No it does not have to be regular!

 

Then we worked in pairs to solve the problem:
We are really learning how to show our work clearly!

One group found a way to create a hexagon with only 3 pattern blocks! AMAZING!

What we learned:

DPA

DPA is "Daily Physical Activity"
It is recommended that each day we have at least 20 minutes of sustained exercise.
On days that we don't have gym or pool, we do some form of exercise in the classroom, in the hallway, downstairs in Room 35, or outside.

I have been reading this book about how exercise helps our brains learn other things better.

One day last week we had a tabata challenge with Mme. LaFlair's class. For 4 minutes we alternated squats with seal jacks.

Here is a fast motion video of us during one of our sets!

Mental Math

We have been learning many mental math strategies for addition (and subtraction).

When adding we can:

• Count all 
• Count on
• Use doubles or near douibles
• Make a ten, then add  - 8+9 is (7+1)+9  which is 7 + (1+9)
• Make a "friendly number" 23+48 is 23+50 then -2 (the friendly number is 50)
• Compensate - manipulatint the numbers to make friendly numbers -- remove from one addend ant then add the same amount to another (48+12 is 50+10)
• Breaking numbers into tens and ones -- then adding the ones, then the tens, and making new tens if necessary

When subtracting we can:

• Count back
• Add to subtract -- 14-7 What do you need to add to 7 to get to 14? then count on.

Let's see if we can put some of these strategies into practice and explain our thinking.

(click on the images to make them larger)

 

We are getting much better at using Mental Math Strategies AND showing our work -- and we can orally explain how we found solutions.!