Welcome Back!!!

Happy September!! I am so excited to be back in the classroom, it was a long summer!  This year, my class is a 1/2 split grade.

Over the last two days we have talked about many things: routines, listening, expectations.  Have a look at our 'First Day Feelings' graph.  The excited column was so full we had to extend it over to the left.  We also took the opportunity to discuss the data that was on the graph.  Can you see it (written in red and blue)?

We also talked about what active listening looks like, sounds like and feels like.

In math we learned a new game called Snake.  Ask your child how to play.  All you need is a dice, paper and pencil.

Poetry Writing

We have been busy learning to read and write different kinds of poetry.  Check out our last form of poetry we played around with.  We choose 3 or 4 book titles and put them together to form BOOK SPINE POETRY!  I created a little video to show you our final piece of writing.  Please click on the link below to see our video.

https://goo.gl/photos/3cErJB1tcb8d5yZ88

How to write a haiku poem.

A haiku poem on how to write a haiku. Awesome!

Beebot Talk!

Can you help BeeBot move around our town?  Can you move BeeBot to the right side of Tim Horton's?  We are learning to describe the location of objects and how they move around maps and other places! ... did you know grade 2 was so much fun?

Strong Answers

We have co-created what we think makes a strong answer:
1) our answer needs to have 3 or more sentences
2) explain our answer in complete sentences
3) LOTS of detail and information
4) have a strong question (deep thinking question)
5) use prior knowledge and research
6) make sure it makes sense so other people can read and understand it (we decided to get a friend to read our answer to double check this point)

Changing States of Matter

Here is a look at our changing state of matter experiments we did with crayons.  We had so much fun.  As the final step to our experiment we got to draw with them!!  Please scroll down to the bottom of the post, I couldn't figure out how to arrange them differently.

 

WE HAD A BREAKTHROUGH!!!!!

I am so excited today!!  We have been talking about being good readers and what we do when we read, specifically with asking questions.  We know that good readers ask questions before, during and after we read.  We also know that many of our questions get answered as we read.

We had a great discussion today while reading Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress that not all questions are important.  For example, why was the cat wearing a space helmet?  That question was very simple to answer once we read the book.  But the question 'why was Morris wearing the dress?' was more important.  We knew that the dress reminded him of certain things (his mom's hair, tigers and the sun), but that was the EVIDENCE from the book.  We had to think a little deeper to get a DEEP THINKING ANSWER!  We figured out that Morris was wearing the dress because it made him happy and because it reminded him of all those things that made him happy.

So remember, DEEP THINKING QUESTIONS = DEEP THINKING ANSWERS.  Use evidence from the book to back up your answer.  The questions are not just about what is happening in the book but what is important, what is the author trying to teach us?