Blog Archives - mrsbarker.ca

Math in October

9/29/2018

In Math, we are beginning a new focus on numbers up to 100 and solving word problems. This unit will focus on deepening your child’s understanding of number relationships, counting, and place value. Below you can find a game and video we've been playing to get this unit off to a fun start!

The learning goals for this unit are to:

Read numbers to 100 in symbols and in words.
Build numbers to 100 with concrete materials.
Estimate the number of objects in groups to 100.
Count forward and backward using different tools, such as objects, a number line, a 100-chart, and coins.
Show numbers to 100 as tens and ones using a variety of materials.
Develop and use mental math strategies to add and subtract two 1-digit numbers, including zero.
Understand and solve word problem.

You can help your child achieve these goals with the following activities at home:

Help your child skip count forward and backward by 2s, 5s, and 10s.
Place a nickel on a table. Ask your child: “How many cents are on the table” Add a dime to the table and ask: “How much money is there altogether?” Continue adding dimes to count until you reach 95 cents.
Share addition and subtraction story problems about things in your home or neighbourhood. For example, “There are 15 houses on our street. 9 of them have a garage. - How many do not have a garage?"
Line up 10 items in a row, such as spoons, forks cups, or plates. Ask your child: “What is third? Fifth? Ninth?”
Gather a collection of about 40 small objects for your child to count, such as toys or buttons.
Ask your child to count the collection by grouping the objects in different ways. Select a number between 50 and 100.
Ask your child to draw a picture for the number, then show you how many groups of 10, and how many that 1s.
Have your child play pretend shopping games with coins at home to accurately pay for imagined items.

Setting Goals for Writing

9/29/2018

The writers of 2B have been goal-setting to hone their skills this week, and every day they've been assessing their daily writing. This week we've been focusing on punctuation, capitalization, and syntax, and soon we will be adding ideas, sentence fluency, and organization to what we're looking at in our writing. We have a rubric to assess our writing, and the students started out assessing their own writing in three areas according to that rubric. At the end of the week we started assessing our peers' writing which the students really enjoyed! It's important that we are respectful and constructive when giving peers feedback, and the students have demonstrated that in these writing conversations. It's neat to see growth in the class' writing already!

Increasing Patterns

9/24/2018

We are wrapping up our focus on increasing patterns in math this week. Increasing patterns are a brand new concept in grade two, and can often prove to be tricky, but the students in 2B have worked hard to describe, reproduce, extend, and create increasing patterns over the past couple of weeks. You can practice increasing patterns by taking the link to the game below!

Cooperative Games in PE

9/22/2018

PE this month has been focused on learning expectations for the gym and building teamwork skills by playing cooperative games! They especially enjoyed getting across the lava-like gym floor as a team using gym equipment, and playing Colours. Next up in PE, we'll be brushing up on our running skills!

Designing Fabric with Repeating Patterns

9/22/2018

Continuing with our work on repeating patterns, this week our class learned about the process of designing fabric, and used our knowledge of repeating patterns to design our very own fabrics and identifying their elements, rules, and cores. The class made some convincing advertisements about why potential customers should purchase their fabric, and did a great job of describing their patterns using mathematical terms. The only downside of some of these fabrics was the seven figure price tag that many of them had!

Writing Poems and Refining Our Conventions

9/18/2018

The students are off to a great start in their writing this year! We began with a focus on ideas and how to come up with ideas and make them clear during writing time. Recently, we have been focusing on refining the conventions in our writing, especially with punctuation, precise use of capital letters, clear spaces, and “grade two” inventive spelling. They’ve really enjoyed editing each other’s work for conventions, and sharing their writing with the class during author’s chair. 2B also worked hard to craft poems that reflected some of their favourite things, which you can see below!

Patterns Around Millgrove

9/14/2018

In our continuing work on repeating patterns, we enjoyed touring the school this week in search of repeating patterns around Millgrove. We found that repeating patterns are truly all over the place, and the students composed collages of some of their favourites. Even Mr. Cherry had an AB pattern when we were searching close to his classroom! It’s neat to see that the concepts we learn about in Math time are visible all around us in real life.

Magnetism

9/14/2018

A big highlight so far this month in 2B has been the start of our unit on magnetism in Science. We've been exploring what materials are attracted to magnets and which are not, and observing the effects of magnets on a variety of items. In this unit, we will be learning:

What objects are attracted to magnets (steel and iron) and which ones are not attracted to magnets.
How to draw the lines of force around a magnet and show you where the two poles are located.
How one magnet will affect another using the words attract and repel.
How to compare and measure the strengths of magnets and how that will affect the materials around them.
Where magnets are used in our world and why they are used.
How to identify the North and South poles of a magnet.
That most materials allow a magnetic field to pass through them.

Later in the unit, students will be asked to construct a toy or game that uses a magnet at home. Stay tuned for more details about that project, and for our further learning about magnets!

Matisse Self-Portraits

9/12/2018

Today we learned about the art of Henri Matisse, a painter who was very important in the style of fauve art where artists painted with wild colours. We watched the videos below about Matisse’s art, and used his style to make our own self-portraits. The students did a wonderful job of imitating Matisse’s style, and their choices of pastel colours were lovely! We now have a very colourful set of class portraits.

Canadian Communities

9/10/2018

We have begun a new unit in Social Studies in 2B about life in three communities in Canada. One purpose of this unit is to help your child appreciate the diversity and vastness of Canada’s land and peoples. The specific communities we will study are:

Iqaluit, Nunavut—an Inuit community in the North
Meteghan, Nova Scotia—an Acadian community on the East Coast
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan—a Ukrainian community on the Prairies

Students will learn about the weather, geography, language, history, daily life, and economy of these three Canadian communities. There will also be opportunities to make connections to Alberta and Spruce Grove.

You are invited to be part of our unit in a variety of ways, for example:

Lending us resources such as books, magazines, or photos you may have on the three communities listed
Coming to class to share personal stories or artifacts from any of the three communities
Helping your child gather information from the library, newspaper, radio, TV, or the Internet
Viewing related displays at museums and art galleries

The students already have a sense of the geographic and weather differences between the communities, and are becoming experts at the communities where Zenia (Saskatoon), Kenojouak (Iqaluit), and Jean-Louis (Meteghan) hail from. We’re looking forward to an exciting unit!