Math:
We will be reviewing the following most challenging concepts:
-double-digit subtraction
-multiplication
-basic division
-telling time
-word problems
Language:
-homophones
-soft g and soft c
-contractions
-punctuation
Unit:
Students will be preparing for their final unit assessment for Le Belle Arti. The final unit assessment is entitled "Remake" where students will have to re-think/re-interpret/re-design a famous painting (s) of their choice and interpret it from their own perspective using two of the different types of arts that we have been discussing in class.
Week of May 21st-May 25th
A few things we covered this week are:
- Continuing to learn about measurement in meters and centimeters. We measured our height, length of our arms, legs, hands, fingers, and objects around the school.
- We reviewed time and fractions.
- We worked on writing creatively and responding to different famous art works.
- We started to learn about what researching skills we already have and we will continue to learn about different researching methods and sources.
- Students are researching a chosen artist during their library time.
- We continued to learn about Le Belle Arti by looking at famous paintings, famous artists and the variety of arts that are present in Rome and in our world.
- We watched the play Oliver and also attended the grade 4 dress rehearsal as we learn about playcripts and drama as a type of art!
Week of May 14th -May 18th
Once again, thank you to all parents for attending student-led conferences!
**Please remember the following important dates that are coming up this week**
Dance Festival: Thursday, May 24th at 9:30 a.m.
Mayfair: Saturday, May 26th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
We need parent volunteers to help out at the Mayfair with the Grade 2 Face Painting stall. If you plan to attend and can donate 20-30 minutes of your time, we would greatly appreciate it. Please e-mail me if you are willing! Thank you!
Here are a few pictures from our student-led conferences...
Week 31:
Another short 2-day week! Students presented their Ideal/Dream Community and explained how and why they chose to create their communities as they did.
During the following weeks, please see our Grade 2 blog home page for interesting and fun links connected to our final unit, Le Belle Arti.
We encourage students to express themselves through the activities found at these links and to use their imagination!
Have fun exlporing the arts!!
Week 30:
The highlight from our short 2-day week was working on building our "ideal community" or our "dream community"! Everyone did a really fantastic job and each "ideal community" was unique and reflected each student's learning and personality!
I think I may be an architect one day!
This is the perfect community to live in!
Busy planning and creating the coolest community I can imagine...
Architects really do have a hard job!!
This is the coolest project!!
I think I'll put a bridge right here...
I think I'm done!
Working hard...
I have only two skyscrapers...I think I need more!
I've decided that I want to be an urban planner one day!
What do you think Ms. Cristina?
I'm very proud of my "green" community!
Wow! This is hard work!
Please note: As uploading pictures on our blog takes a very long time, Ms. Cristina will have many more pictures available for parents on student-led conference day! Thank you for your patience!
*Homework: 'Mapping Our Communtiy Booklet' is due after the upcoming break due to the short 2-day week next week*
Unit:
We had an educational and fun time learning about the community around Ambrit. 2CM split-up into 3 groups each led by Ms. Cristina, Ms. Jackie and Ms. Grace.Here are a few photos from our walk:
Recording and checking-off community facilities we noted on our walk. Here we came accross a newspaper stand.
We just found the bank!
Oh we found the toy-shop!
Checking-off another location we came accross: one of the many bars in the neighborhood!
And an ice-cream shop!
Are we in trouble?
- We designed a map of our dream school--2CM did a fantastic job and parents will get a chance to see their child's dream school when they come for student-led conferences! Some items students wanted to see in their dream school were the following: a pool, an ice-cream shop, dance studio, arcade, language classrooms, theatre, and many more interesting and fun things!
- We drew our route from home to Ambrit in the format of a map.
- We continued to identify key elements of maps and made a list of different types of maps.
- During ICT class,we found our addresses on GoogleEarth and students also searched for the following places: Ambrit, The Eiffel Tower, places and countries they had been to, countries they are from where they have a summer house, and many more exotic locations!
On this map of Rome, each student pin-pointed their exact address! We finally found everyone's address!
Math:- We continued to learn about coordinates and different elements of maps.
- We continued to practice our addition and subtraction of double-digit numbers.
- We found different ways to show Today's Number which was 71!
Language:
- We wrote Ambrit biographies where we described different aspects of Ambrit and how Ambrit makes us feel.
- We continued to work on our portfolios and wrote reflections on various pieces.
- We learned about prepositions: under,over,in,near,next to, etc. and wrote sentences that corresponded to pictures we drew. For example, some students drew pictures of themselves at the beach. A sentence that would correspond would be: I am sitting under the umbrella.
Week 28:
We had a very busy week back after our short break...
Language:
- We began to investigate and learn about the prefix 'un'.
- We practiced our dictionary skills by looking up words in the dictionary and identifying the opposite of words we looked up by adding the prefix 'un' to the word. For example, we looked up happy, recorded the definition, and then added the prefix 'un' to make the opposite of happy which is unhappy.
- We wrote reflections on various portfolio pieces we chose for our portfolios.
- We continued to reflect on the targets/goals we set at the beginning of the year by identifying which targets we had achieved. We also began to think about new targets/goals we could work on throughout the rest of the academic year and into the third grade!!
Math:
- We continued to work with addition and subtraction of double-digit numbers, and used addition to check the answers of our subtraction problems.
- We learned about coordinates, how to identify objects and place objects at specific coordinates on a chart.
- We also looked at coordinates on maps and how coordinates can help us locate an exact location or place on a map.
Unit:
- We began our "Mapping Our Community" unit with lots of enthusiasm! The central idea for this unit is "Local communities have many facilities that meet our needs."
- We looked at different types of maps, from maps of small spaces to much larger maps of countries.
- We drew maps of our bedrooms (a small space).
- We then went on a walk of Ambrit using a map of Ambrit to identify and locate various locations at Ambrit.
- Next week we will be going on a community walk and we will be identifying imporant facilities that are present in our community. Please note that our community walk will be as an individual class so each class will be going on a different day!
- We had lots of fun locating our exact addresses on a map of Rome. Each student used their zip code and map coordinates to find their street name. We marked the exact location...stay tuned for some photos next week!
Week 27:
Just a few highlights from our very short week...
We finished recording our observations on our bean plants!
Each student completed their final assessment with flying
colors!
The final assessment was to design your own garden according to specific guidelines.
Each student worked on creating their own garden by creating a "My Garden" booklet. Parents will get a chance to see these when they come on the Student-Led Conference day.
We celebrated the end of our Plant Power unit by watching "Bee Movie"!
When we return on Tuesday, April 10th, we will be starting a new unit entitled "Mapping Our Community".
Hope everyone is enjoying a restful long weekend!
Week 26:
Breaking News:
Congratulations to Teun and Carlos who have been elected our new Student Council representatives for the second half of the school year!
Unit:
We continued to monitor our bean plants and have been recording our observations in our scienfitic method booklets. We were amazed at how fast some plants grew. So far, Christian has the record for the tallest plant! It has grown more than 60 cm and is still growing!
We were also amazed at how some plants grew up to 10 cm in 24 hours!
We have been preparing for our final assessment for next week. Students will be responsible for planning their own "ideal" garden with the knowledge they have gained during this unit.
We learned about the word "compost" and have been discussing how compost is made and what it is used for.
We investigated the importance and relation (to plants) that reducing, re-using and recycling has to the health of our planet. We have also taken steps to reduce what we use in class and recycle papers we use in class!
Language:
We continued to discuss and learn about the 'ck' and 'k' spelling sound.
We wrote silly sentences using as many 'ck' and 'k' spelling sounds we could think of.
An example of a silly sentence was: The snake baked a cake before he went to the lake!
We discussed and wrote about what 'respect looks like' and 'what respect sounds like'.
An example of what respect looks like: holding the door for the person behind you.
An example of what respect sounds like: saying 'please' and 'thank you' (amongst many other things!)
Examples:
Math:
We continued to look at centimeters, meters and kilometers and made charts that listed what you could measure in centimeters, meters and kilometers. Examples:
- you can use centimeters to measure a pencil.
- you can use meters to measure a person.
- you can use kilometers to measure the distance from your house to Ambrit.
We continued to look at even and odd numbers and what happens when you add and subtract them. We looked at patterns and out comes as we worked in pairs.
We looked at what happens when:
even + even
odd + odd
even + odd
even - even
odd - odd
even - odd
Students should keep investigating at home!
We also worked on adding and subtracting two'digit numbers using the column method.
Example:
24
-13
____
Week 25:
Unit:
- We had a fantastic time visiting the Orto Botanico! The trip was a real success and 2CM agreed that the following were the highlights of our trip: seeing the sequoia tree (the tallest tree in the world!), the greenhouse, the bamboo trees and the different types of palm trees!
- We continued to learn about plants and continued planting different types of seeds.
- We have been learning about the scientific method and that every scientist starts the scientific process with a question! We learned that we can investigate just about any question we have when we apply the scientific method to our discovery process.
- These are the steps to the scientific method:
- Ask a question.
- Make a hypothesis (a smart guess!)
- Plan your experiment and do it!
- Make observations and record your data.
- Draw a conclusion (find the answer to your question).
- Share what you learned!
We had 2 special guests this week!
- The first special guest was Ms. Casson (our curriculum coordinator) who taught students about pollination and who showed us the different parts of a flower with a special microscope that magnifies objects 200x their actual size! Students really enjoyed learning about pollination and seeing the different plant parts magnified on the smart board! Thank you Ms. Casson!!
- Our second special guest was: Ms. Cristina’s sister who works in the Forestry department at F.A.O. She taught us about the importance of having (or creating) a vegetable garden and the benefits that come with having your own vegetable garden. We then planted different types of edible plants: tomatoes, zucchini, parsley and onions!
- We read ‘I Can Name 50 Trees Today’ by Dr. Seuss. We read this as a read aloud and students took turns reading to the class!
Language:
- We reviewed the elements of good letter writing and wrote special letters to our parents. Parents will be receiving these letters next week!
- We began looking at the ‘ck’ and ‘k’ spelling sound. We will continue this next week!
- We wrote poems about all kinds of trees. Students chose a type of tree that they have seen or have a special interest in. Some trees students wrote about were: the lemon tree, the palm tree, the coconut tree, the banana tree, the pine tree, the baobab tree, and many more!
Math:
- We continued to learn about fractions and have become experts on fractions!
- We began looking at using centimeters to measure objects. We have been measuring how tall our bean plants are growing. Many of our lima beans have sprouted and are growing fast!
- We learned that there are 100 centimeters in 1 meter.
- We learned that the abbreviation for centimeter is cm—this is easy for 2CM to remember as ‘cm’ is in our class name!!
- We reviewed and practiced our times tables—we are making sure we know our 2, 5 and 10 times tables perfectly!!!
Unit:
- We planted lima beans with Ms. Chiara’s class!
- We made grass heads—we partnered up with Ms. Chiara’s students. Ask your child what a grass head is or take a look at the following links and make another one at home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiySWm_WxPo&feature=player_embedded#!
- We researched different biomes during ICT class-remember a biome is characterized by the climate, plants and animals that live in that area of land. Check out our curriculum links and explore the many fascinating biomes on our planet:
- Everyone did a fantastic job teaching each other something special—some of things students taught each other were how to make a picture frame out of popsicle sticks, how to make a card, how to make a volcano, how to make a Lego man, how to make a necklace out of shells and many more interesting things! Well-done 2CM!
Language:
- We began writing poems about trees after reading about the Baobab tree which only grows in Africa!
- We continued to learn about irregular verbs and are making sure we aware of the many times we use irregular verbs in daily speech.
- We watched an animated film with a reading of The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstein himself!
- Watch it again at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZCP6OqRlE&feature=player_embedded
- We have been focusing on finding new vocabulary in our daily reading and recording our new vocabulary on our personal bookmarks.
Math:
- We continued to learn about fractions through the use of different flags and how they are divided up. Explore different nations’ flags at the following sites and see if you can figure out what fraction of each flag is a particular color:
- Remember that the big number goes on the bottom: that is the total number of parts you have and that...
- The small number goes on top: that is the number of parts you take (or have), color in, etc. out of the total number of parts.
- Remember we are only looking at wholes, halves and quarters!
Week 23
Math:
We began unit 7 of Investigations and started learning about fractions!
· We learned to recognize ¼, ½ and wholes of shapes, objects and numbers. We worked on fractions throughout the week and noticed that fractions can be easy and fun to learn about!
· We were introduced to Mathletics during our ICT lesson and students practiced concepts learned thus far, including fractions.
· We had two ICT lessons that introduced students to Mathletics and allowed students to become familiar with the program. As I mentioned previously, in the future, we will not be using Mathletics during class-time. Students are to use the Mathletics program at home if they wish to. Mathletics will only be allowed during school time when students are given Free Choice time.
Language:
· We moved from adding –ing to the end of words to adding –ed to the end of words.
· We worked in groups to sort and categorize –ed words and irregular words into the correct groups.
· We learned that when we add –ed to the end of words there are similar rules to adding –ing to words.
· We learned that –ed words can be categorized into 3 different groups according to the end sound the make.
· The homework for this week is a thorough review of the –ed rules we learned in class this week!
Unit:
· We are well into our Plant Power unit and everyone is excited and enthusiastic about learning about plants!
· We read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss as a read-aloud and discussed the importance of taking care of our planet, especially the plants and animals that live on our earth. We also discussed the importance of not wasting and re-using materials we have.
· We also read The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstein.
· We discussed what kind of things we are interested in learning about by formulating student questions.
· We continued to take care of our plants in our groups and are carefully monitoring what is happening to our plants.
· We began looking at seeds and learned what the word ‘germination’ means.
· With Ms. Chiara’s help, we dissected flowers and learned about the different parts of a flower.
· We went on a Nature Walk around the school and identified different plants, including trees. We noticed that there are many types of trees that grow on the Ambrit grounds.
· During and after our Nature Walk, we made booklets where we recorded our observations and learned the names of the variety of plants that grow on Ambrit grounds.
Finally, we met our grade 6 buddies and read a book out in the sun with them. Students took turns reading to their buddies and having their buddies read to them. We enjoyed the fresh air and appreciated being able to read a book out in nature|
Check out some pictures below!
Reading chapter books with our buddies!
"I could read all day!"
"I get to have 2 buddies!"
Deep into reading...
Reading is fun!
Some of us couldn't stop reading!!
Math:
We completed Unit 6 and reviewed all of the following concepts:
· Addition and subtraction of 2-digit numbers.
· Gathering, sorting and plotting data.
· How and when to use Venn diagrams.
· Math word problems.
· Taking surveys and interpreting data.
· Place value up to 1000s.
· We will be starting Unit 7 next week which means we’ll be getting into fractions!
Language:
· We learned what it means to “mime” and acted out the best or worst thing that happened on our vacation.
· We wrote about the best and worst thing that happened on our vacation, and about other things that we did on our vacation.
· We began learning about how to add –ing to the end of words.
· We learned 2 rules for adding –ing to words. The first is when there is an ‘e’ at the end of a word, drop the ‘e’ and add ing. The second is when there is a vowel before the last letter of the word, you need to double the last letter (the consonant) and add –ing. For example, the word ‘jog’ has a vowel before the ‘g’ so we double the ‘g’ and add ing!
Unit:
· Congratulations to 2CM students who did a wonderful job on their weather reports!
· The class completed their weather report presentations and then we began watching student reports and critiquing each other. This was a very useful and valuable learning experience!
· Ms. Cristina will be providing weather report videos for parents…stay tuned!
· We began our new unit, Plant Power! We were very busy discussing different types of plants, observing plants, learning about plant parts, and much more!
· Each table (group of 5-6 students) discussed what a plant needs to survive and each group is responsible for taking care of a plant. We will see which group does the best job in making sure their plant grows and stays alive! Some important ingredients students decided plants need are the following: air, sunlight, water, fertilizer and more! We will continue to discuss these important elements throughout the unit.
· We began learning about the different parts of a plant: roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and seeds.
'Plant Power' Central Idea:
"Plants are a life sustaining resource for all living things."
Week 21
Math:
We completed our current unit and revised the following concepts: - Place value, particularly looking and units and tens.
- Addition and subtraction of double digit numbers.
- Carrying and borrowing when adding and subtracting.
- Continued data gathering and organizing.
- Looked at adding numbers that equaled 100.
- Played a new game using the 100 number chart.
Language:
- Began to write our weather reports in order to prepare for our weather report presentations.
- Continued to talk about the importance of editing and revising our own writing.
- Students took the lead in analyzing their writing and extracting words that they felt they needed to learn how to spell.
- Students worked with Ms. Cristina to select words for their personal spelling lists. We looked at high frequency words (words that students should know now to spell by the end of grade 2), words that normally come up in our daily writing, words that are related to our unit, and also words of personal interest.
- Each student has developed a list of 20 personal spelling words to study over the break.
- Spelling test will be on Friday, March 3rd.
Unit:
- We began to wrap up our unit as this was our last week of our Weather Watchers unit.
- We reviewed unit-related questions we had asked at the beginning of our unit by making sure we had answered all student questions.
- We watched weather reports from last year’s grade 2 and watched professional weather reports in order to critique what were the pros and cons of each report.
- We discussed what makes a good weather report. These are some things we concluded: good eye-contact, a strong, clear voice, use of visuals, and more.
- Students wrote their weather reports and are to revise and practice them over the break.
- We want to say a big thank you to Marcia, Carlos’ and Felipe’s mom, for having taken the time to talk to the entire grade 2 about Climate Change. This was a perfect way to end our Weather Watchers unit and to prepare for our upcoming Plant Power unit! Thank you for an informative and very interesting presentation!!
Week 20
Due to the unexpected short week, Ms. Cristina is going to take a different approach and give students and parents some links to try out to practice language, math and to review some unit concepts. Hope everyone stays warm and keeps exercising their brains!!
1. Review what we learned about the water-cycle with the water-cycle song:
(Note: there are a few spelling errors in the video--see if you can find them!)
2. As we have been looking at poetry during our Weather Watchers unit, check-out this cool website by Shel Silverstein. Click on "Lets Have Some Fun" and see if you can send Ms. Cristina an e-card about the weather on Friday, February 10th to cristina.muir@ambrit-rome.com and try out the other activities on the site!
3. Check-out http://www.scholastic.com/home
4. Try some math problems and math games. Once you enter the web-site, click on grade 2. If you want to be challenged, click on grade 3 (it's tricky!).
http://www.aplusclick.com/index.html
4. Try some math problems and math games. Once you enter the web-site, click on grade 2. If you want to be challenged, click on grade 3 (it's tricky!).
http://www.aplusclick.com/index.html
5. Don't forget to check out our 'Curriculum Links' on our Ambrit classroom page, or click on the following:
Week 19
**Ambrit will be closed tomorrow, Monday, February 6th due to the weather forecast and dangerous road conditions.**
Ms. Cristina was a risk-taker and took a walk in the snow! If students can take pictures to share with the class next week, it would be the perfect opportunity to do so!
Ms.Cristina was trying to smile but it was too cold!
Outside Ms. Cristina's home...
Having some fun...
Snow at night...when it really began to snow!
Unit:
- We learned about the 4 most common types of clouds: nimbus, cumulus, stratus and cirrus.
- Students created cloud charts and discussed the different characteristics of the different types of clouds.
- We looked closely at how weather affects the whole world and how it affects our daily lives. As we learned that school was going to be closed on Friday, students were given a homework sheet to monitor a day of weather—Friday and Saturday’s snowfall was the perfect opportunity to do so!
- The second grade watched the movie “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” as our final assessment will be based on the book we read, and the movie we watched. It was a perfect way to end our short week. As we were watching the movie, we received news that school would be closed on Friday. Parents can take a guess as to how the children reacted!!
Math:
- We have begun looking at word problems again. We created and solved word problems and looked out how we can tackle word problems one step at a time.
Language:
- Our spelling focus for this week was on ‘ r’ controlled vowels including er, ir, ur and or.
- We have been looking at different types of poetry throughout the unit. We continued onomatopoeia and looking at rhythm and sounds in poetry.
- We will begin looking at haikus next week. Due to the unexpected short week, we did not quite get to this!
Unit:
- We have continued to look at weather and climate in different parts of the world.
- We discussed places we have visited or lived in and then discussed the weather and climate we noticed in these different countries and continents.
- We learned how we can use our 5 senses to describe and talk about weather. For example,
- What does rain feel like? (touch)
- What does rain sound like? (hear)
- What does rain look like? (see)
- What does rain smell like? (smell)
- What does rain taste like? (taste)
Language:
· We did follow-up language activities from the book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs".
· We learned about compound words, and reviewed nouns and action verbs through "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs".
· We learned the “a” and the “ar” spelling sound.
- We worked on reviewing editing marks and on the importance of the writing process.
- We continued to predict the weather and write our own weather forecasts.
- We have been working on different types of poetry that are related to weather.
Math:
- We continued to look at reverse/opposite operations and learned how to use the information we have to solve problems.
- We continued to look at different ways to gather data (weather data like temperature) and used graphs to plot data and interpret data.
- We had to go back and review place value and the meaning of the word "digit".
- We practiced writing and saying numbers.
- We practiced and reviewed borrowing when subtracting numbers like 52-33 = __. We decided that the easiest way to borrow when subtracting is to re-write our problems in columns. We will continue to work on this throughout the year as it can be confusing!!
Week 17:
What a busy week we had starting and finishing assessing students in language and math! We worked hard to remember what we had learned but we also learned we needed to review some important concepts!
Unit:
- We reviewed unit questions we had asked at the beginning of our unit. We singled out a few questions that we thought would be important to answer first. For example, "Why and how does it rain?"
- We learned the difference between the word climate and weather. Children should now have a very clear understanding that climate is very different to weather!
- We learned about climate in different regions/areas of the world.
- We have been reviewing some key map skills and making sure we know the name of each continent. We then learned about and located the following regions: polar, temperate, tropical and arid/desert.
- We learned about the Water Cycle and learned some key terminology. (See below in the language portion.)
Language:
- We learned the following terminology: climate, weather, precipitation, evaporation, transpiration and condensation.
- We continued to review adjectives, nouns and puncutation.
- We predicted the weather and wrote our own weather forecasts! So now we also know what 'predict' means and what 'forecast' means!
- We began reading "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" and will be doing some interesting and exciting follow-up activities!
Math:
- We had our first challenging math assessment. Students worked very hard to remember everything we have learned so far this year!
- We then had a "mega" math review because our math assessments showed we had forgotten some math concepts!
- We worked a lot on adding more than 2 numbers and on recognizing when we could use multiplication instead of addition.
- We worked on finding difficult patterns in sequencing numbers.
That's it for now!
Week 16:
Welcome back to school! A very Happy New Year to everyone! We are happy to welcome Carlos who has moved to Rome from Chile, and is from Brazil. He has a twin brother, Felipe, in Ms. Moll's class. We had a great time getting to know Carlos this week and are very happy to have him join 2CM! We now have 10 girls and 10 boys in our class!!
Unit:
- We began a new unit called, Weather Watchers.
- The central idea for this unit is: Weather affects the whole world and has an impact on our daily life.
- We have been exploring what we already know about weather and sharing our weather logs from our holiday.
- We are all excited about this new unit as we have many interesting and fun things planned!
Language:
- All second grade teachers have been assessing students in all academic areas as report cards are due very shortly!
- We learned about the 'oi' and 'oy' spelling sound.
- We wrote about what we did during our Winter Holidays.
- We reviewed editing marks and are working hard to ensure we improve our cursive handwriting as we will be required to write in cursive more and more as the year progresses.
Math:
- We began a new math routine called Guess My Rule which is also reviewed in our homework for this week. Try to play Guess My Rule with your child!
- We practiced our mental math skills by playing mental math games using addition, subtraction and multiplication problems.
- We reviewed our time telling skills.
- We reviewed the steps of 'How Many Pockets' and taught our new student, Carlos how to approach and complete 'How Many Pockets'.
That's it for now! Ms. Cristina has to get back to writing report cards!
| Week 15: Mosque Trip: |  | |
| Excitement on the bus |
 |
| A snack on arrival |
 |
| Outside the entrance |
 |
| Listening to Aziz |
 |
| Picnic time |
 |
| Our names in Arabic |
Week 14:
 |
| Mia's mum spoke to us about Jewish traditions and beliefs |
 |
| We had fun making special bags of goodies for homeless men. Mr. Mullane bought socks, hats, toothbrushes, toothpaste and packets of biscuits which we put into Ambrit bags and made tags for. |
Another very busy week filled with many extra unit-related and holiday-related activities!!
Congratulations to all grade 2 students for doing a wonderful job singing at the Winter Recital!!
We worked very hard on finishing our posters!
Language and Unit:
- We continued researching different celebrations and holidays and recorded them on our class calendar.
- We practiced and presented our posters to the class. We will continue and finish presenting next week.
- We discussed and wrote reflections on our guest speaker, Mia’s Mom who spoke about their unique Jewish family traditions.
- All grade 2 students packed bags for the homeless. In each bag we put a toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, a hat and a pack of cookies. These will be delivered next week!!
Math:
- We continued to learn about place value.
- We practiced reading “challenging” numbers and then practiced writing them in word-format.
- We reviewed the types of charts we have learned so far (t-chart and bar chart) and we learned about a plot chart. We took a survey of “How many teeth you lost?” and learned how to record our results on a plot chart.
- We began taking a survey of “What celebration did you chose to present on your poster?” We will gather these results and record them on a plot chart next week.
Week 13:
Grade 2 had a very interesting and informative talk from Alina's dad. He explained to us the rights of children all around the world.
Week 12:
2CM had another very busy week, especially now that we have come to the month of December!
Take a look at some of the things we were involved in this week:
Language:
- We focused on the 'ou' and 'ow' spelling sound.
- We wrote silly stories using 'ou' and 'ow' spelling sound words.
- We discussed how to re-tell stories in our own words and re-told the story of Hannukah using the comic strip format.
- We wrote reflections on what we learned from our guest speaker, Ms. Anu (see below for more information).
Math:
- We learned a new math routine called 'Cover-up'. 'Cover-up' is also a part of this week's homework. Have a go with your child!
- We looked closely at how addition and subtraction are the opposites of one another, and at how multiplication and division are the opposite of each other. We will continue to look at the 'inverse' of each operation throughout the year.
- We learned about doubling and made connections between particular numbers. We also talked about automatically recognizing the double of certain numbers such as 12, 25, 50, etc.
Unit:
- We had a special guest speaker, Ms. Anu from the first grade, who spoke to us about being Hindu. Ms. Anu shared some customs and traditions, she told the story of Rama and Sita and we ended with a wonderful meditation session which the children and teachers really enjoyed!
- We continued to discuss and learn about Diwali, Hannukah, and other celebrations.
- We are working on a special secret project that is related to our unit. We cannot reveal anything else about this secret project at this moment!!
- Students participated in an ICT assessment by demonstrating the imporance of light in words and images on a computer program called KidPix. Students are becoming easily aquainted with using the Macbooks and are becoming increasingly familiar with basic computer functions.
Extra:
- We had special student guests from the middle school who spoke to us about 'bullying'. They presented their presentations and showed videos on different bullying scenarios. Students were given the opportunity to analyze these scenarios and discuss these scenarios as a class. 2CM also learned about the different roles that people take on in bullying scenarios suchs as the bully, the bystanders, etc. 2CM enjoyed learning about what to do if they find they are either being bullied or if they are witnesses to bullying. We were then given the opportunity to reflect and ask questions. This was a very informative and helpful experience for 2CM!
- 2CM had a fun time attending the Holiday Bazaar and buying special gifts for family members!
Week 11:
We met our grade 6 buddies this week! See below for more information about what we did with our buddies!
Language:
- We brainstormed important unit vocabulary and compiled a spelling list from the results of all three grade 2 classes.
- We went on a "poster walk" to learn about what elements make a good poster. This was in preparation for the posters we will make on a selected celebration/festival later in the unit.
- Once we compiled our “poster walk” results by sharing our findings with a partner and by having a class discussion, each student chose one of their favorite recently read books to “advertise”. Students used what they learned from the “poster walk” to make a poster that would convince others to want to read the book they chose. 2CM did a very good job on creating their book poster, and everyone was very engaged and proud of their work!
- We reflected on Thanksgiving and what it means to be thankful and to give thanks. Students wrote about what they were thankful for and shared their thoughts with the class. Some things students found they were thankful for were: family, friends, nature, love, school, and much more!
Math:
- We worked hard at finding different methods to add difficult numbers through trial and error, and we worked at looking for different strategies by recognizing which numbers could easily add together to make an even number. (We did this as we continued to work on number strings.)
- We continued to recognize odd and even numbers through different activities like “Today’s Number” and “How many Pockets?”. We also worked at answering difficult questions relating to our “How Many Pockets” activity.
- We continued to work on fun, difficult, interesting and unique word problems. Students tackled answering challenging word problems, students continued to make-up their own, and we also discussed how we can use anything in our environment to create word problems that are realistic and tangible.
- We reviewed how to create a bar chart from Buddy survey results as we will be compiling our survey answers into a bar chart next week. Creating and interpreting bar charts can be a difficult concept that we will continue to work on throughout the year.
Unit:
- We learned about the First Thanksgiving by watching an educational video and reading a story about the First Thanksgiving. Students who celebrate Thanksgiving shared their traditions and shared their experiences with other students in the class.
- We also enjoyed sharing some special treats and talked about all the different things we are thankful for.
- We finally met our grade 6 buddies this week! 2CM proudly and confidently asked their buddies the survey questions we came up with. These survey questions related to our unit and we discussed the results which we will compile into a bar chart next week. A few examples of our survey questions are: "Do you celebrate Hanukkah?", "Do you celebrate Christmas?" , "What other special festivals do you celebrate?" and so on.
- We also read a Power Point story about the First Thanksgiving as we continued to learn how to use computers. Students have been enjoying their integrated ICT lessons as we use laptops in our weekly learning.
- We had a special guest speaker talk to us about what it means to be Muslim. Our guest speaker was Jasmin's mom from 2M who did a wonderful job sharing the traditions and customs of the Islam religion. Thank you to Jasmin's mom for sharing her religious customs with us!
Week 10!
Math:
- We investigated even and odd numbers in different ways. We learned to identify even and odd numbers, and to identify particular characteristics that are associated with even or odd numbers. For example, you can never make equal teams or pairs of students if you have an odd number, etc.
- We read fun math riddles, solved the riddles and identified whether the answer was even or odd. Students also created their own riddles for classmates to solve! You will see similar math riddles relating to even or odd numbers in the homework this week!
- We continued learning about word problems, identifying key words in word problems in order to tackle word problems intelligently, and we continued writing our own word problems that were related to our unit of inquiry.
- Key words students identified in math word problems are: “how many are left?”, altogether, gave away, lost, found, etc. We will continue to look at word problems throughout the year, and we will continue to become experts at identifying key language that can help us tackle and solve word problems.
Language:
- We learned about the ‘oo’ spelling sound and how it has a long sound and a short sound. The long sound looks like this: tooth, moon, root, etc. The short sound looks like this: book, took, cook, etc.
- We wrote interesting sentences using the ‘oo’spelling sound.
- We discussed different research tools/vehicles that second graders can use to find information about specific topics. The kids came up with a list of places where second graders could find information: books, internet, newspapers, and asking experts for help or information.
For example, if we wanted to find out what a doctor does, we could ask to be invited to visit a doctor in the hospital and follow him around. If we wanted to find out how a Hindu celebrates Diwali, we could invite someone who is Hindu. We could invite Kim Kim’s mom!
- We researched and gathered information on the festival of Diwali. Students worked in groups and then made posters explaining the following: 'What is Diwali', 'When is it celebrated?', 'Who celebrates Diwali?', 'Where is it celebrated? and 'Why is it celebrated?'
We wrote riddles and word problems related to our unit to help us focus on particular key words for language and, at the same time work on our math skills. (Same as the above math activities).
Unit:
We discussed what the word belief means. We had a very long discussion and activity that required students to answer the following:
I believe…
My family believes…
Ambrit believes…
People in Italy believe…
People in the world believe…
And students were also challenged to include what other groups of people might believe.
For example:
If a student is Jewish, Jewish people believe…
If a student is from China, Chinese people believe...
If a student is Irish, in Ireland we believe...
If a student is Jewish, Jewish people believe…
If a student is from China, Chinese people believe...
If a student is Irish, in Ireland we believe...
Our related activity was the following: we had a walk around the school to identify things that might suggest what Ambrit believes. By observing some of the bulletin boards and signs around the school, the students did a great job in coming up with the following:
Ambrit believes in:
- Safety
- Helping the poor
- Friendship
- Being balanced
- Learning and teaching
- Getting clean water for the poor
- Children
- Teachers
- “Different people” (cultures) (they mentioned the many flags hanging in our Atrium)
During our class discussion on beliefs, students shared what they beleived in. One of the beliefs that was shared led to a very "heated" conversation about who believes in Santa Clause and who doesn't!! It is safe to say that Ms. Cristina and most of 2CM believe in Santa Clause!
We discussed what the word ‘legend’ means and how many festivals have a legend associated with it. We discussed how a legend has some elements of truth to it and some are made up. The legend of ‘Rama and Sita’ is associated with Diwali. We will continue to learn about the legend of Rama and Sita next week!
We will also discuss and learn about the various other legends that are associated with other famous festivals and celebrations. Next week we will be discussing Thanksgiving as many Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 24th.
Week 9
2CM had a very busy week back from the holiday break!
Here are some of the things we were learned about...
Language
· We reviewed long vowels vs. short vowels, and made vowel sound chains with our partners.
· We wrote stories about what we did over the break. We had to write 4 true things and one lie (oh no!) about our break and then our partner had to guess which thing was a lie!
· We learned that we have been using a specific “process” as we have been writing various assignments throughout the year.
These are the 5 Steps of the Writing Process that we have been using and implementing in 2CM:
Step One: prewriting = think!
Step Two: drafting = write
Step Three: revising = make it better
Step Four: proofreading = make it correct
Step Five: publishing = share your work
Math:
· We learned about number strings and word problems.
· We have become experts at creating math word problems and solving math word problems so we published some of our work in this week’s homework!
· We also wrote math word problems related to our unit. We will be tackling these next week as we continue to learn about the different celebrations and traditions in this unit.
· We reviewed what a bar chart is so we can put our “buddy survey answers” into a bar chart.
Unit:
We began our new unit entitled, Lets Celebrate!
- We have been researching and investigating the different celebrations that exist in our community and in the world. We brainstormed a bunch of different celebrations and came up with many common and many unique celebrations. For example, Veteran's Day, Eid, Thanksgiving, etc.
- We learned about the difference between a routine and a tradition and made a t-chart on routines vs. traditions. Ask your child what the word tradition means!!
- We had to post-pone meeting our new buddies from the sixth grade (6C) due to a scheduling conflict. Next Friday, we will be asking our buddies questions related to our unit. For example, "Do you celebrate Hanukkah?", "Do you celebrate Christmas?" and so on.
- We began a LARGE “months timeline” where we are identifying and recording in which month each celebration occurs. This means we are becoming experts at recognizing, for example, that Thanksgiving occurs during the month of November, and so on!
Language:
- We learned about the Long U vowel sound and that there are three different spellings for the long U vowel: u_e, ue and ew.
- We wrote reflections on our Family Afternoon experiences.
- We wrote and shared spooky Halloween stories!!
- We reviewed and reflected on our Targets. Ms. Cristina shared what parents offered to do at home to help their child succeed at their goals. Finally, students came up with 3 things that they will do for themselves to help them achieve their targets.
· We continued to learn about lines of symmetry and explored symmetrical and non-symmetrical shapes.
· We began learning about surveys and how to take surveys in preparation for our upcoming unit, Lets Celebrate.
· We learned how to count and categorize the answers to questions asked in our survey.
· We counted how many legs and fingers we have on our bodies and then tried to figure out how many legs and fingers we have in our class!!! We were aiming to find an accurate and quick way to count how many legs and fingers 19 students have!!
Unit:
Thank you to all family members who participated in our Family Afternoon! It was a real pleasure to see and meet family members, and to hear 2CM students so enthusiastic and proud to share their families and family recipes. As you all know, this was a celebration of our work and learning of our first unit, Family Histories. We reflected nicely on our Family Afternoon and continued to discover ‘connections’ between our families, ourselves and the unique cultures that students in our class represent.
Halloween: 2CM students shared their costumes, bought baked goods at the bake sale and enjoyed writing spooky stories! We all had too much candy and halloween treats but we enjoyed the day and ended with a wonderful sing-a-long at our Primary Assembley.
A big congratulations to Christian, Teun and Nell who volunteered to share their Spooky Halloween Story at the assembly! What fantastic risk takers and what great writers! Ms. Cristina was very proud!!
Happy Halloween to everyone!
Have a wonderful week resting, travelling and reading good books!
A few more halloween pictures!
Week Seven:
Language:
-We completed writing our final drafts of our family member biographies which are currently on display outside our classroom.
-We reviewed all long vowels and began learning about the Long O Vowel sound.
-Students were challenged to learn how to spell the words "quadrilateral" and "symmetry".
-Thursday, October 20th: Students wrote stories about their "Crazy Rainy Day" experience. As a class, we shared how we got to school, what challenges we encountered and how long it took us to get to school! We realized we all had very different yet challenging experiences on our journey to school that day. We reflected on what would happen if we went swimming in the flooded areas and puddles around Rome! What an experience for us all!
Math:
-Continued to learn about 2D and 3D shapes through investigations and various classroom activities.
-We learned about symmetry and learned how to identify symmetrical shapes.
-We investigated and searched for symmetrical shapes in the world around us--in nature and architecture in particular.
Extra Homework: Students were asked to look for 3 symmetrical objects in their house and to bring them in to share with the class next week.
Unit:
-We watched an educational cartoon that covered different family histories in history. Some of these included, the Greeks and Romans and Aztecs. We discussed how famous family histories have influenced our world today.
-Students worked very hard to prepare for their presentations for Family Afternoon.
-Students are to identify 3 differences between their family member's childhood to 3 things from their own childhood for their presentations on Monday.
Example: When my mom was a child, she walked to school. Today, I take the bus to school.
To family members: please help your child practice and prepare for their presentation on Monday. Students are to properly introduce their family member and are then required to identify these 3 differences between their family member's childhood and their own. Thank you for your help in preparing 2CM students!
Target Setting Day:
A big thank you to all parents who made it on Friday for Target Setting Day. I was very happy to meet with you all and found the day to be very successful and productive. I will be discussing our 'Agreed Targets' and how parents will be helping at home to achieve these targets with your child. Please continue to discuss these targets with your child throughout the year as they are fundamental to your child's success. Again, thank you to all parents who made it!
Week 6: A unit activity in 2M |  | |
| Cooperating: working as a team |
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| Presenting our ideas |
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| Ordering historical evidence |
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| Discussing possibilities |
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More to come this weekend! More pictures below!! |
- We continued learning about Long vowels and different types of verbs. This week's focus was on the Long I vowel and on using "doing" verbs in our writing and in other language related activities.
- We continuted to write and edit our biographies.
- We learned how to write a proper letter with the correct greeting, closing, etc. Writing letters is an essential tool that we will continue to practice and use throughout the year. Practice with your child and have him/her write to a family member and post the letter!
- We continued to study irregular and regular past tense verbs.
- We continued to discuss, study and look at the Euro currency.
- We began to learn about 3D shapes: what is a face, an edge and a corner of a shape? We compared and contrasted 2D shapes to 3D shapes.
- We also searched and identified items inside and outside of our classroom that were one of the following 3D shapes: a cylinder, a cube, a cuboid, a triangular prism, a square-based pyramid, a sphere and a cone. Ask your child to identify 3D shapes in your house--a great place is to do a little treasure hunt in your kitchen!
- Students ordered pictures of famous Italians from oldest to youngest. Ms. Moll invited 2CM students to work on these little group projects. 2CM had a very fun and educational experience in 2M--Thank you Ms. Moll!!
- Students then presented these posters both in 2M and in 2CM in greater detail! I noticed 2CM participated in a fantastic way and demonstrated excellent group workskills and excellent public speaking skills! Well-done!
- We continued to look at famous biographies, read mini-biographies and continued to write and edit our family member biographies.
- We continued to prepare for our Family Afternoon and have been working hard to be ready on this day!!
Costanza and Alina working hard at counting faces, edges and corners of a cube!
Oh Oh, is that a cube or a cuboid? Darcy and Anna debated with enthusiasm!
An exemplary model of cooperative learning!
Working hard all around!
More shapes! This is getting tricky!
Yes, I believe that's a cylinder!
Excellent observation and recording skills!
Shapes, shapes and more shapes!!
2CM worked very hard at remembering to bring in canned goods for the homeless. Thank you for donating and thank you to the kids for their enthusiasm. Looks like we did a pretty good job! Check-in next week to find out which class donated the most. Fingers crossed!
Language:
-Long E vowel sound: We learned about the Long E sound and the different spellings that make a Long E word.
-We have become experts at using verbs in our writing.
-We continued to review cursive letters and are trying to write in cursive as much as we can!
-We worked at improving our homework questions for our biogrpahy about a family member.
-We reminded ourselves that we must always use "Champion Questions" (these questions begin with Who, What Where, When, Why, How).
-We spoke about how we can better select "just right" reading books for reading at home and how we can take advantage of our wonderful library if we would like to use those for our reading homework.
-We began to create personal spelling lists where students selected words that they normally spell incorrectly so that they can begin to focus on these words and learn to use them correctly in their writing!
-We had our first spelling test! Everyone worked very hard and did very well!
Math:
-2C and 2CM continued to work on our "mega" timeline. It is coming along really nicely as we have been setting up the dates in the century and adding inventions, events, and people to our LONG timeline. Students are beginning to understand the concept of a century and that there are 100 years in a century. -We continuted to investigate Euro coins, (1c,5c,10c,20c,50c, 1 Euro, and 2 Euro coin) by observing and recording our observations. We looked at many different Euro coins, counted Euro coins and even played Euro coin games!
-We practiced adding double digit numbers in different combinations and adding the Euro currency. We learned that the Euro comes before the decimal and the cents come after the decimal. We also learned what a decimal is!!
-Part of the home work for this week is "Pockets at Home" which follows up on our class routine "How Many Pockets?". Lets see what students discover at home!
Unit:
**Please note that there will be a letter for parents next week about an upcoming event called "Family Afternoon" where students must select a family member from an older generation to invite to present to the class on October 24th. Please keep this date in mind. More detailed information to come in the letter next week!! -We made the transition from writing autobiographies to discussing and practicing how to write biographies.
-We looked at old vs. new items and events in order to compare past generations to present generations.
-Students began to think about who they can invite to our Family Afternoon and began preparing for their presentations.
2CM students were invited into Ms. Chiara's class where they learned about the game of "conkers". They had so much fun that they continued to play throughout the week. Ask your child what this game is all about!!
OR check it out at this site:
http://woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/conkers.html
Week Four:
*Please check the "Homework" page of our blog to make sure you are on-board with the homework and to find more information on how you can support your child with their homework.
**Please also check the "Math" page (bottom half) where you can find tips on how to support your child in gaining a better understanding of mathematics and gaining more confidence in mathematics!
Congratulations to Darcy Harris and Nell Pollak who have been voted to be our Student Council Representatives for 2CM!! Each class from the 2nd to 5th grade has elected two class members to be a part of the Student Council this year. We are all happy and proud to have such responsible members of our class representing us! We wish you the very best of luck!
Mathematics:
-We continued to explore learning what a timeline is and how a timeline can be used to show events in a day, week, month, year, century, etc.
-We investigated Euro coins, (1c,5c,10c,20c,50c, 1 Euro, and 2 Euro coin) by observing and recording our observations and touched upon the different countries that use the Euro. We also investigated how a 50c Euro coin looks slightly different depending on what European country it comes from!! We worked hard and long on the Euro currency and will continue to learn more about the Euro currency!
-We began two "Investigations" curriculum routines: "Guess My Number" and "How Many Pockets?" Ask your children what each activity involved!
Language:
-We continued to discuss verbs and have been using them in our writing as much as possible!!
-Continued to review cursive letters and are trying to write in cursive as much as we can!
-Family Journals: students continued to write about themselves and each family member.
-We have begun discussing our coming project where students will have to write a biography about a family member. They will be guided by using the "Champion Questions" we have learned about (these questions begin with Who, What Where, When, Why, How).
-We learned about the Long A sound and the different spellings that make a Long A word.
Unit:
Started on:September 5th
Ends on: October 28th
Family Unit Title: Family Histories
We are exloring the following inquiry points:
-personal family histories
-historical changes over time
-cultural connections
Our central idea is: Family generations shape and influence how our world changes over time.
Our family unit continues to grow through our on-going inquiry-based activities such as our class timeline, reading biographies, writing autobiographies and making different types of connections. We have also begun to look at cultural connections which will help us to understand our central idea better. Please check out our "Units of Inquiry" page where we have excellent suggestions as to how parents can support their child in getting a better understanding of the meaning of our unit!
Week Three:
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| Our Grade 2 Family Connections Trees |
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| A connection between 2 students |
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| Trying to find a connection |
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| Writing our connection together We had a fantastic time making connections with students in the other second grade classes. Students were genuinely interested in learning about each other and I was eager to see true inquiry in action! |
A big thank you to Alina's mother who came in to take pictures of our class. We have a special slide show ready for parents that will be shown at our parent night on Monday, September 26th!
Mathematics:
-We continued to explore learning what a timeline is and how a timeline can be used to show events in a day, week, month, year, century, etc.
-We continued to practice telling time on the hour and now on the half hour.
-Review of addition and subtraction.
-Practiced doubling numbers and how to find quick ways of doubling large numbers. For example, if we can double 15 then we know how to double 150!!
Language:
-We continued to review short vowels.
-We learned about what a verb is. We also learned about verbs in the past and in the present.
-Continued to review cursive letters and writing.
-Family Journals: students continued to write about themselves and each family member.
-Autobiographies: we continued to read autobiographies of various famous people and began writing our own autobiographies. As a class, we made a list of essential elements that are normally found in autobiographies. For example, birth date and place, countries lived in, hobbies, etc.
Unit:
Started on:September 5th
Ends on: October 28th
Family Unit Title: Family Histories
We are exloring the following inquiry points:
-personal family histories
-historical changes over time
-cultural connections
Our central idea is: Family generations shape and influence how our world changes over time.
We began creating a class timeline with Ms. Chiara's class where we are looking at the past century. In order to facilitate this activity, students have been bringing in artifacts to share from the past. Some examples of "old" artifacts student brought in are:
Nicholas: an old newspaper from World War I.
Allison: her grandfather's silver lighter and an old music record.
Oliver: a black and white photograph of his grandfather from when he was a little boy.
Costanza: her mother's old teddy bear.
Nell: her mother's pearls and a picture of herself when she was born.
Tommaso: rifle pellets that are 150 years old!
Katherine: an old pipe that belonged to her grandfather.
Lorenzo: old precious rocks that his father bought him.
and much, much more! Keep bringing in old things to share so we can place them in the correct order on our century timeline!
Week One and Week Two:
Mathematics:
-Learning what a timeline is and how a timeline can be used to show events in a day, week, month, year, century, etc.
-Creating personal timelines.
-Telling time on the hour.
-Bar graphs/charts.
-Review different equation signs: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, equal sign
-Review of addition and subtraction
Language:
-Identifying sentences, questions and exclamation marks and characteristics of each.
-Review short vowels.
-Starting to teach and review cursive letters and writing.
-Family Journals: students have been writing about themselves and each family member.
Unit:
Started on:September 5th
Ends on: October 28th
We have begun our family unit entitled Family Histories where we look at the following inquiry points:
-personal family histories
-historical changes over time
-cultural connections
Our central idea is: Family generations shape and influence how our world changes over time.
Connections: as a "getting-to-know each other" and as a family unit related activity, the class formed a circle and each student shared something about themselves that had to connect to the person before them. We used a ball of wool to show how we are all very similar and very different through the various connections each child made with each other. The kids were very excited to see our end product and worked hard to make sure they didn't let go of the piece they were holding!
Here are some pictures:
The kids said "This is so much fun Ms. Cristina!" I'm glad learning can be fun from time to time!! :-) They enjoyed touching, observing and comparing ideas on the Euro coins!
1.Temperature in degrees Celsius—daily high and low temperature.
2.Wind direction (north, south, east and west).
3.Cloud types (nimbus, cumulus, stratus and cirrus).
