In late November, the students all wrote letters to Santa, and today we got our letter back from him! He sent us a lovely note, and gifted us with some special sunflower seeds. It’s always special when the students can use their growing writing skills to connect with a meaningful audience, and there are very few audiences more exciting than Santa!
0 Comments
We had the privilege of watching the musical The Lion King performed by Spruce Grove Composite High School this week! The play had music, lots of comedy from Timon and Pumbaa, and some amazing costumes. One of our class' favourite moments of the play was the song "The Circle of Life," and we got to high-five all the performers and crew at the end of the show. The class wrote reviews of the play when we got back to school, and The Lion King garnered high praise from 2B! You can see your child's review on Seesaw.
In Language Arts, we've begun working on reading and writing non-fiction books. The students are using their expertise on a variety of topics (such as hockey, baking, and Christmas) to write teaching books with true facts. In reading, we're learning how to read non-fiction thoughtfully by paying attention to details, linking concepts together, and asking questions. We've learned so much from our books and each other! The students in 2B have been paying extra attention to the author's choices in the books we read this month, and have been focusing on how author's plan and are thoughtful about the details in their writing. We planned and wrote a story as a class, which you can read below, and the students are working on their own stories now. There are so many creative story planners in our class!
We’ve been reading and writing poetry this month in Language Arts, and wrote a variety of different types of poetry this past week. The students worked hard to make interesting word choices and tried to paint pictures in their readers’ minds. They are very proud of their variety of poems, and you can see more of your child's poetry on Seesaw! Our most special guest for Read In Week was Spruce Grove's Mayor Stuart Houston! He read us two Thanksgiving books, and answered our questions about what responsibilities he has as our city's mayor. It was especially helpful given our recent learning about elections, and the mayor was a very entertaining and informative guest reader.
We've been working hard in 2B over the last couple of weeks on our reading and writing! Grade two is a big year of growth for students as readers and writers, and we've been practicing building our stamina in both of those areas.
In Reading Workshop, we've been talking about how grade two readers take charge of their readers by choosing how to read, taking a sneak peak of their book, reading a lot, reading in longer phrases, and keeping tabs on their comprehension. Students have especially enjoyed practicing their partner reading skills and keeping track of how much they're reading in their reading log. Our Writing Workshop this year is starting with a focus on narrative writing. Our class has been hard at work discovering small moments to write about, writing with detail, crafting powerful endings, and rereading our writing like detectives. It's a big job getting back into the swing of writing after the summer, but students are starting to get into more of a groove getting their ideas onto paper and having stamina during writing time. The students love getting to hear their peers' writing during our sharing time! You can see photos below of how we closely examined the details in seashells to inspire use to include details in our own writing topics. Some wonderful drama students from Concordia University performed "The Child Who Cried Wolf" for the grade one and two classes today! There were plenty of laughs and scares, and it was really neat to see actors performing a play they had created all on their own. The students favourite parts were the wolf coming out to terrify the villagers and watching the very silly sheep. The actor who played the main character actually went to Millgrove when she was in elementary school, so it was wonderful for the students to see how far their education can take them!
Our fantastic school librarian Mrs. Smith helped us become published authors this week as week as we took some good copies of our writing and published them in Millgrove's library! Each piece has its own unique barcode and the students are all officially catalogued in the library now as authors. It was delightful to see the students taking out each other's writing, and for them to know that their peers around the school can take their writing home and read it!
You may have heard of March Madness, but 2B took part in a book tournament called March Book Madness over the past month. There was a bracket of 16 entertaining and interesting picture books, and we have enjoyed reading the selections. We voted at each of the rounds of book face-offs and the big winner this week was the Canadian book "Finding Winnie!" Our class' favourite was "Not Quite Narwhal" by Jessie Sima, which you can listen to below. It's always a treat to be exposed to new literature, and we loved seeing what readers around the world liked reading the most! We’ve been learning about fairy tales and fractured fairy tales in 2B for the past month. Fractured fairy tales are based on classic fairy tales, but the setting, characters, problem, solution, or some other element of the story are changed. The students had great fun reading a variety of fractured fairy tales, and wrote their own fractured fairy tale books. Check out a couple of the fractured fairy tales below and how we planned them using a graphic organizer. You can even practice writing your own fractured fairy tale using the game linked below! We had the privilege of watching the play Aladdin performed by Stony Plain Central School this week! The play had music, lots of comedy from the genie, and some amazing costumes. One of our class' favourite moments of the play was the confetti that came down on us part way through the performance, and we got to ask the actors and director questions after the play. One of our students even got to join in a dance scene during the play. The class wrote reviews of the play when we got back to school, and Aladdin garnered high praise from 2B!
As we've been learning about Ukrainian, Acadian, and Inuit traditions, we read folk tales from these cultures in in Social Studies. Many of the stories were pourquoi-style stories that explained why something became the way it is today (such as why moles avoid light like in the story below). The students wrote their own traditional origin stories, and showed great reflection in using the traits of the folk tales we had read. You can read some of the students' folk tales in the slideshows posted in this post! 2B had been working hard the past couple of weeks of school on Christmas stories for their families. We focused on crafting interesting plots and making our ideas clear to our audience (who were the students’ families). They made the wrapping paper, cards, and everything, and were very proud of their creations. We hope you enjoyed their lovingly authored Christmas stories!
The students of 2B have been busy elves the past few weeks as they've been preparing their Christmas presents! They're all wrapped up now, and the class can't wait to give their gifts to their families at Christmas. Their love and care for their families was very evident in all the effort they put into this (top secret) project!
The students in 2B have been paying extra attention to the author's choices in the books we read this month, and have been focusing on how author's plan and are thoughtful about the details in their writing. We planned and wrote a story as a class, which you can read below, and the students are working on their own stories now. There are so many creative story planners in our class!
The staff and parents at Millgrove's Remembrance Day Ceremony yesterday were so proud of the students' respectful behaviour. They truly brought pride to Millgrove School! We were privileged to have many special guests at our school yesterday, and the students learned a lot and reflected thoughtfully on the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers and veterans, and the value of peace. We read books about veterans and peace in class this week, and the students wrote their own pieces of writing about peace which you can see below and on Seesaw!
We’ve been reading and writing poetry this month in Language Arts, and wrote a variety of different types of poetry this past week. The students worked hard to make interesting word choices and tried to paint pictures in their readers’ minds. They are very proud of their variety of poems, and you can see more of your child's poetry on Seesaw!
We learned more about adjectives today as we prepare to write Halloween poetry this week! The students especially enjoyed describing themselves (mostly accurately) with adjectives to create an adjective frame for their own face, and watching the "Paint the Way" video below. We've certainly got a colourful group of students! 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!
|
Mrs. BarkerMrs. Barker is a grade three and literacy teacher at Millgrove School. She loves science and reading, and lives in a little brick house with Mr. Barker and her kids Jack and Ellie. Archive
June 2024
Categories
All
|