December 14-18

The week started out cold but it has now warmed up! We are once again enjoying outdoor recesses! The kids are super happy and excited to get outside and burn off some energy.

This week has been another great working week. We have been focused during learning time. We are wrapping up our PWIM cycle with our magnet picture. Our magnet paragraphs have been written and illustrated. We are working on addition and subtraction to 18.

We have been busy crafting this week. It is always fun to create art with paint and glitter. Our wonderful creations are a surprise and I am sure you will love them.

Our week ended with a special lunch day. Thank you to the parent volunteers who helped out. On Friday we also got to watch and a fantastic magic show. I am sure that your child has told you all about it!

Don't forget that we will be singing at the Board Office first thing Monday morning. We have been practicing during music this week. The kids sound absolutely amazing!

Tuesday is the last day of school. Dismissal will be at 2:30. Students return to school on Wednesday January 6th, 2010.

Have a safe and happy holiday with your family!

Animals In Winter Presentation Pictures

December 7 -11

What a busy fun filled week we have had!! On Tuesday we had our wonderful Winter Concert. The kids did an amazing job with their poem and song. We have been chosen to go down to the Board Office and sing on December 21st.

On Wednesday we had an Animals In Winter presentation. We learned many new and exciting things about animals and what they do to get ready for winter. This is the kick off to our unit in January which is Winter Weather and the Arctic. We have lots of exciting outdoor activities planned for January. Stay tuned for more details!

We are wrapping up our Magnet centres. Next week we will be doing some magnet crafts to finish up the unit. The kids expressed an interest in doing some Magic Magnet experiments at home over the holidays. I will send home the activities and if you have some time you can try them out.

Our reading and writing are continuing to improve as we work on the Daily 5. We are excited to share our classroom with other teachers who want to come in and see what we do.

In math we are still working on addition and subtraction to 18. Please check out the math home connection link for activities to do at home with your child.

This week the school had candy cane sales and Santa pictures. This combined with indoor recess and a closed gym for the concert made for an interesting week!!

Enjoy the weekend and try to stay warm!!

***Pictures of the Daily 5 and our Animals In Winter presentation will be posted soon!! Mr. Howard bought a new camera for our classroom. Once I figure out how it works, I will post the pictures!***

Pictures From Our Trip!

Monday Nov. 30 - Thursday Dec. 3

This week we went to the Science Centre! We had lots of time to explore and we participated in two workshops. One was all about Magnets. The children got to have fun during different magnet centres. They are already magnet experts and they really impressed Chad, our Science Centre teacher, by answering all of his questions. The other workshop was called Crafty Science. We learned all about snowflakes and created some with six points. Thank you to Sarah's mom and Meika's mom for volunteering to help with this trip.

Daily 5 is running very smoothly in our room. This week the children got to start choosing the activities they wanted to do. Their choices are: Read to Self, Work on Writing, Read to Someone, Listening to Reading, and Word Work. Students are more engaged and empowered when they get to choose what they are doing. I will be posting some pictures of the Daily 5 in action soon! Keep reading at home too!

Finally this week, we have been busy getting ready for the Winter Concert. Please make sure that your child has a toque, mittens, and a scarf for their performance. The kids have done an amazing job learning their songs and poem for the concert. It will be a fantastic performance. See you on Tuesday!

November 23 - November 27, 2009.

Everyone showed their Rider Pride on Friday by wearing green and white. Thank you to Meika and her family for sending Rider gingerbread cheerleader cookies!

This week we started our magnet centres. The kids are having a blast exploring and learning all about magnets.

We started Unit 3 - Addition and Subtraction to 18. See the Math Home Connections for activities to do with your child at home.

The kids have been working on winter writing. It seems strange to be talking about winter when there is no snow yet! They have also been working very hard practicing their song and poem for the Winter Concert. Tickets were sent home on Friday. Please let me know if you did not get yours.

Remember:

Wednesday December 2: Science Centre field trip. We will leave at 10:45 and return at 3:15. We are eating lunch at the Science Centre.

Friday December 4th : No School for students

Sorry for the glare on the pictures. I used my computer to take the pictures and not a camera!

November 16 - November 20

What a busy week in grade 2!!

We made a title page for our magnet book. We have lots of fun experiments to try! Our magnet PWIM picture now has a title and it is "Magnetic Magnets". We are all looking forward to our magnet workshop at the Science Centre.

On Wednesday, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and we had "Move It" outside. We took a beautiful walk around the lake.

On Thursday, we made yummy pumpkin cobbler in the crock pot. It made our classroom smell so delicious. The kids love cooking so we may have to do it more often!

On Friday, we attended the production of Peter Pan at the Globe Theatre. All of the kids seemed to enjoy the show. Report cards were also handed out on Friday so be sure to look for that!

We have finished our math unit called Numbers to 100. Next week will start a unit called Addition and Subtraction to 18. We will learn many different strategies to add and subtract. Please check out the Math Connections link for activities to do at home. I will have them added by next week.

Have a great weekend and GO RIDERS!!!!

November 9 - November 13

I sent home a note today regarding our two upcoming Field Trips. I also sent home a Boston Pizza Special Lunch order form. Please let me know if either of these notes did not make it home!

We had our Remembrance Day assembly on Tuesday. Many wishes for peace were shared as well as many nice songs were sung. I hope everyone took time on Wednesday to remember and share their wishes for peace.

Today was a very busy day in our classroom. Everyone was wearing green and white to show their Rider Pride! We had an Extreme Pita special lunch. Thank you to Sarah's mom and Mira's mom for handing out the lunches and supervising us (we were a bit hyper today!) We had HOPE students come out from the University. They set up 10 stations in the gym for the kids to go through. Everyone looked like they had a ton of fun!! I'm sure your child will tell you all about it!

I try to update our classroom news blog every Friday night. Please make sure to check it out to see what we have been doing.

Please put the word "Banana" in your child's agenda when you have read this.

Our New PWIM Picture

Friday November 6th, 2009.

Hello Grade Two Families,

This week we finished writing our first paragraph about our pumpkin PWIM picture!! I have made copies for the students to bring home on Monday. Our new PWIM picture was also revealed and some of our kids are in it! I will post it here for you to see very soon.

Our reading stamina is now at 23 minutes! Writing and Read to Someone is at 15 minutes. I have started making appointments with each child and we are working towards a specific goal. The goals focus on comprehension, accuracy, fluency, or expanding vocabulary.

In math we worked on counting by 1's, 5's and 10's using coins. Give your child a handful of coins and have them count it for you. We also played a game called Number Neighbours to reinforce counting with ten rods and number cubes.

TCBY treat day was a huge success. The kids were all very excited on Thursday.

On Friday November 20th we will be going to the Globe Theatre to see Peter Pan. Report cards will also be coming home on this day.

We are going to be starting a unit on magnets. I have signed us up for two workshops at the Science Centre on December 2. One is called Magnets and the other one is Crafty Science. We will be heading there after morning recess so that we can tour the Science Centre. We will be taking our lunches there. Our workshops are at 1:00 and 2:00.

Please write the word "Monkey" in your child's agenda so that I know you have read the blog!

Mrs. Shannon Sanchuck

Friday October 30th, 2009.

Thank you to the parents who sent treats to school on Friday!! Thank you to Madison S's mom who sent candy apples and cupcakes. Thank you to Ben's mom for the bones and thank you to Jaden's mom for the cake eyeballs. The kids enjoyed the treats very much. They were all very fantastic and unique!!!

This week was a very short week for me since I was sick for most of it. Being sick isn't fun for anyone and we need to work together to keep our classsroom healthy. Please remind your child to wash his/her hands regularly. Children may bring hand sanitizer to keep in their desks. If your child is bringing a waterbottle to school, please remind them to bring it home so that you can wash it. Germs are everywhere and I am constantly telling the kids to keep their fingers out of their noses and mouths. If your child is sick, please keep them at home. We don't want to be spreading anymore germs. We will be reviewing proper handwashing techniques in the classroom and discussing germs and how they spread to make kids more conscience of their actions.

Next week is November. We are going to be starting a new unit on magnets and our new PWIM picture will be arriving shortly!!! The kids are very excited to see it...you'll see why next week!!!!

I hope that you all had a happy and safe Halloween.

Friday October 23, 2009.

Another week has flown by in the grade 2 room at Jack Mackenzie School!!!

This week we had two guest readers come read to us for Education Week. Jill Morgan from Global TV came to read to us on Monday. Kia Byers, our adopt an athlete, came to read for us on Thursday. It is is such a treat to have guest readers share their love of reading with us.

On Wednesday morning we watched the talent show. We performed Brainwave as part of a movement break in the assembly. The kids did an awesome job!!

We welcomed a new student into our class this week. Ask your child to tell you about him.

Mrs. Friesen came to visit us on Thursday afternoon. She is a teacher at Arcola School. She came to see what we are doing with PWIM and the Daily 5. It was wonderful to have another teacher come and see us! We love showing people what we can do!

We are continuing to build stamina. Our read to self is at 17 minutes. Our writing is at 12 minutes and our read to someone is at 10 minutes. We are all very excited and working hard on our reading!!

Check out the school website for things that are happening next week!!

Our PWIM Picture: Pumpkin Party

Friday October 16, 2009.

It was very nice to meet with you all last week at the Goal Setting Conferences. Together we are going to watch your children grow and bloom this year!!

This week we worked on our blogging again! Thank you to everyone for reading the blogs and commenting. Everyone seems very excited to blog and the kids LOVE reading comments!!

We picked the title for our new PWIM picture and it is called Pumpkin Party. Next week we will create our sentences and start paragraph writing.

Our reading stamina is now at 14 mins! Our writing stamina is at 7 mins and our read to someone is at 6 mins. (I am typing this on Thursday night so this may have changed on Friday.)

In math we worked on ordinal numbers. Everyone seemed to grasp the concept of first, second, third and so on. We will now move on to estimating.

Next week is Education Week. Our class will be performing a Brainwave Dance as a break to get everyone moving in the talent show.

Enjoy the nice weekend!

Why Are We Blogging???

Why did we create a classroom blog and how will we use it?

1. Document our growth across the year

2. Inform families of what we are doing

3. Expand our audience

4. Use another form of writing

5. Learn about writing for an audience

6. Document favorite events of this year

7. Integrate writing with other subjects

8. Write journal entries/book reviews

9. Respond to class assignments

10. Free choice writing

11. Develop keyboard skills

12. Communicate with each other

13. Post pictures of our work

14. To share PWIM with our families

15. To have fun!

Friday October 2, 2009.

Written by Mrs. Sanchuck and the grade 2 class!

This week we picked out new books for our book boxes.

We celebrated Jack Mackenzie's 82 birthday.

Every Friday we have Fun Friday.

We are doing a magazine fundraiser.

We are doing PWIM.

We are on 12 minutes of reading and 5 minutes of writing stamina. We learned a new way to read and that is called Read To Someone. We sit EEKK. That means elbow, elbow, knee, knee.

Have a great weekend!! Ask your kid what their intramural team name is. (Jaguar, Magic, Jays, Majors, Jazz, Matrix, Jets, Mustangs)

September 25

Please check here for updates from our classroom!

This week we have been working on our reading stamina. Our class is now reading for 9 minutes!

We have also been shaking out words from our PWIM picture. We have given our picture a title and we have made sentences to go with the picture. We will start sorting the sentences into paragraphs next week!

In math we are finishing up our pattern unit. On Thursday we collected leaves and made leaf rubbing pattern pictures. Our new math unit is called Numbers to 100.

Our theme this month is "School". We are working on creating a school book and we have finished the first page by making a drawing of the school. We sat on the lawn and made our drawings so that we could look at the school.

We are almost finished reading a novel called Miss. Daisy is Crazy. Ask your child what it is about!

Please right the word "turtle" in your childs agenda when you have read this!