Hello there,
We're off to a great start this year. I'm happy to report that everything is moving along smoothly. Your children are wonderful and we our classroom is a happy beehive of activity. I will be posting more photos as we move along.
We look forward to our trip to Forest Valley tomorrow. Please also remember to come to Curriculum Night this coming Thursday. We will be hosting a bbq between 5-6. There will be halal hot dogs as well as non-halal. All hot dogs and drinks are $1 each, so bring your loonies.
Here's what we're working on this week:
Reading: I am doing my best to power through reading assessments for each child. This is always a long, but important job. I will not be sending home book bags until I have a clear picture of the reading level of each child. This way, your child will be bringing home "just right" reading material. Stay tuned.
In class, we've been working on how to use our schema when reading. Schema refers to prior knowledge. We will continue working on text connections as we move from personal connections to text-to-text connections over the next two weeks.
Writing: We will be starting our autobiographies this week using some of the information collected as part of last week's homework. Talk to your child about special moments or funny family situations that they may have forgotten about.
Math: We are working on rotational geometry and patterning. This past week, we reviewed terminology in patterning. Ask your child to tell you about the pattern core, the different types of patterns (repeating, growing & shrinking), and attributes of a pattern (colour, direction, size & shape).
Social Studies: We have been looking at geographical regions of the world, landforms, climate and mapping directions. We will continue with this in both grades for the month. This links to transformational geometry.
Science: Grade 2s are beginning to learn about animals and Grade 3s have started to learn about plants. Both grades will be sharing some activities and experiments to see how the similarities between plants and animals and how the impact human lives.
Have a great week and I hope to see everyone on Thursday night.
Sincerely,
Erin Hawkins
