Our thoughts . . . .

As a wind up to our cultural celebrations study we brainstormed for words and images to show our learning.  We then used an app called Haiku Deck.  We put the words on top of the images.  We hope you enjoy our thinking.

 http://www.haikudeck.com/p/OGLpHlfSsA

Cultural Celebrations!

Yesterday and today the grade ones and twos learned all about how different cultures celebrate their New Year!  We were divided into four groups and did two stations each day.  We learned about four different cultural celebrations - Hanukkah, Chinese New Year, Diwali and Ramadan. We learned that although each culture celebrates in a slightly different way they all have many things in common.  They all eat special food, gather with family and friends to celebrate, have lots of lights, and give special gifts to people.   Mrs. Metz taught us about Ramadan and the intricate art work that people put on their hands and arms.  She even drew some on us!  We got to practice making our own designs on paper. In Mrs. Isles' room we made Chinese lanterns and in Mrs. Drew's room we learned how to play the dreidel game.  In our room we made diyas out of plasticine and put an LED light in them.  Mrs. Betts even turned out all the lights and we could see them glow!  They looked awesome!  Here are some pictures of our creations. 

Take Time to Relax

Last Wednesday  we were so lucky to have Mrs. Metz's daughter teach us yoga in our gym class.  We learned that it takes a lot of focus, patience and practice to do yoga.  You have to listen very carefully, calm your body and relax A LOT.  We are going to practice these skills each day in our class.   Katie is coming again next week!  We can't wait to try some more poses.

Here are some pictures of us doing yoga.  Do you take yoga classes?



 

Art Exhibit

We have been learning about animals and their characteristics and the types of habitats they live in.  Last week we began an art project to showcase some of our learning.  First we did a wash on our paper.  When it was really wet we dropped two different colours onto it.  We then swirled the paint around so that it mixed mixed together. Once the paint was all mixed together we laid a piece of Saran Wrap over top of it and smoothed it down.  Then we let it dry.  While it was drying we chose one or two animals to cut out and glue on our habitat.  Some of us made an ocean habitat, some a desert habitat and some a forest habitat.  Can you guess which habitat is which? 

What Gift Do You Give?

In keeping with the school's spirit of giving our class read two books about people giving gifts that don't cost them anything but time!  The first book we read was called Jeremiah Learns to Read, by Jo Ellen Bogart .   In this story, Jeremiah is an old man who has children and grandchildren, a loving wife and a farm that is very prosperous.  He can do many things but he can't read.  He wants to learn and so goes to school.  He teaches the children how to do many things and in turn they teach him how to read and write.  It is a heartwarming story about love and learning.  The second book we read was called One Smile.  It is written by Cindy McKinley and  illustrated by Mary Gregg Byrne.  "One Smile beautifully illustrates the impact of a simple act of kindness."  It teaches children how powerful their kindness is and how it can change the world. 

After reading both books we talked about the "gifts" we give people everyday.  Some of the ideas we came up with were:

• Kindness                      
• Laughter    
• Friendship   
• Caring about others

Next we made a Christmas decoration to Deck Our Halls.  Our decorations with our gift tags explaining what gifts we give are displayed in the front foyer.   We are very proud of our gifts.  Please take time to look at the display in the front hallway.  You might even want to add your own gift!

Thank you parents for the gifts you give to our school every day!

Math Fun!

During our math time this past week we have worked on math stations doing a variety of activities to show our understanding of what we have learned.  Before we started we practiced how to take pictures and record our voices using the app Screen Chomp and the Draw and Tell app to show our learning.  There were four different stations we had to do.  We worked at our table  groups and each person did a different activity each day.  We had to pull a piece of  paper out of a bag and that was the activity you worked on that day.  The activities were:  patterning, fact families, odd and even numbers, and sorting.

To do the odd and even activity we had to take 2 cards and make a 2 digit number with them.  Then we had to decide if it was odd or even and record it under the right column in our math book.  Some us could even make 3 digit numbers!

Another station was sorting buttons or dinosaurs by two attributes.  We used Screen Chomp to take a picture of our sorting  and then recorded how we sorted our things.

We have also learned about the relationship between addition and subtraction.  To show our understanding we rolled two dice and recorded the numbers in our math book.  Then we added the two numbers together to get the last number in our fact family.  Finally we made 2 addition equations and 2 subtraction equations using those numbers.  Some of us were able to challenge ourselves and make bigger numbers by adding the 2 numbers together and using that as our first number!

The last station was a patterning station.  We had to use Draw and Tell and make 3 different patterns and then describe our pattern in 2 ways.

We had lots of fun working through our stations!  Do you use any of these math strategies in your every day life?