Week 20!

You may have heard some stories about the moose that was on the loose over the last few weeks.  As a class, the 2H students took the opportunity to create a moose story.   Here is the story the students created.

On Monday the students celebrated Groundhog Day.

 They read lots of Groundhog Day stories.

Then they identified the beginning, middle and end of story.

 The students then presented their work to their classmates.

They did a little groundhog research.

 On Tuesday we worked on making clay lighthouses with the Clay Works program.  Dara brought her dad to help out.

 Cameron brought his mom to help out.

 McKenna brought her Nana to help out.

 Kalysta brought her mom to help out.

 We are very grateful to all our parent volunteers!

You are going to have to wait to see our finished products when they come back from being fired in the kiln.  

After we built our lighthouses we did a little research on lighthouses.  We visited Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society to discover more about lighthouses in Canada. We learned about the most famous Canadian lighthouse in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia.

We read a lovely this story.  Ask you child how the cats were the heroes of the story.

Wednesday was Backwards Day!

 It was also Reward Day so I had to think of creative ways to grow our brains so that we didn't do any "work".

 We used the Chromebooks for the first time this year.  Normally we use the laptops so this was a very exciting adventure for us.

  The students got to visit a website that helps them practice their math basic facts called Mathmagician.   Here is the link so you can access it at home Mathmagician.  Any certificates earned can be brought to school and the students to share and celebrate.

 Speed stacking was the next adventure for Reward Day.  

 The students loved the challenge!

 Speed Stacking is great for coordination.

 Speed Stacking is also great for right and left brain activation. 

 If you'd like to learn more about the benefits of this activity you can click here Speed Stacks.

As Reward Day drew to a close the students got to decide how they wanted to grow their brains for the last 25 minutes of the day.  It was very interesting to see their choices.  

Some students made Minecraft people,

 trees,

cars and

many other creations.

 Some decided to explore the continents of the World.

Other students decided to create by building objects and communities with a variety of shapes.

 Others decided to work on puzzles of opposite words (antonyms).

A group of students chose to try Speed Stacking on their own.

Some students found other ways to build and create with the Speed Stacker cups.

As interesting as their choices for Reward Day, were their choices for what they want to learn more about.  We discovered that most students in our class want to learn more about dogs but nobody wants to learn about maps and globes.  

This week we did not earn our chocolate scoop, however I am confident we'll earn it on Monday if we keep practicing those basic facts! 

A few reminders:

-Random Acts of Kindness starts on Monday

-clean, dry, plastic 4L milk jugs are being accepted for our igloo project

-Friend O'Gram starts on Monday so please remind the students to bring $0.25 for their donation to The Stollery

-report cards will be sent home on Wednesday

-a class list was emailed to everyone for Valentines Day celebrations on Friday

Week 19!

Please remember to check the Pope John School website for our February calendar.

Is it really February?  This month signals the half way point in the school year.  The students have grown physically and academically in these past five months.  I am sure you will agree that it is amazing to see the changes.  Once again, thank you so much for all you do to support their hard work at school whether it is listening to your child read, overseeing spelling practice or helping with math facts.  You are an essential part of your child’s education!

This week we celebrated Kalysta as our star student!

Surprisingly we discovered that no one in 2H likes to sleep late or play outside on the weekend.  Watching a movie was definitely the most popular activity by far!

In math we worked on making doubles as a strategy for addition.

We also started working on an addition strategy lap book.

We earned our strawberry scoop this week.

In science we explored magnets.

We added Acadian flags to our bulletin board.

Chloe brought a Show and Tell to share.   A carving from the Yukon similar to what you might find in Iqaluit.

Here are our finished dioramas.  

Please start to collect 4L milk jugs for an exciting new project we are starting this February.  Due to lack of storage space we are asking that milk jugs are not brought to the school until February 10th.  We will continue to take donations anytime after that.  Please ensure all milk jugs are thoroughly washed, dried and have their lids.  Encourage your friends and family to collect too as we need almost 500 jugs!

The reason for all this milk jug collecting is that the grade 2H and 2AD class will be building an igloo similar to the one shown here.