November 30th

Hi Parents,

This week we started new literacy centers. We still have a listening center where we get to listen to stories and discuss our favorite part, but we now have space to draw and write about what we like or don't like about the story. We are also practicing our words of the week through sight word bingo on abcya.com and sight word hunt, where we go on a hunt for the words of the week that are posted all around the hallway. We are also working on our word families through our new magnetic letter center, where we pick a card with a word family on it and then we  create as many different words in that family that we can using magnetic letters on a baking sheet. We then write the words in our word work books. Our last new center is a stamping center, where we make words with the stamps and draw pictures to match our words. We are really enjoying our new literacy centers.

In math this week we continued our math centers and did some problem solving. Our problem this week was "Sam has 10 muffins. He wants to eat some for breakfast and some for lunch. How many can he eat for each meal". This was still tricky for some of us, but we are getting so much better at continuing to try even if it's hard. We also shared some of the strategies we used to solve the problem with each other after we were done.

We learned about the letter "S" sound and when it is used at the end of words. We also learned about the "ing" sound  and practiced writing words that had these as their ending sounds.

Our words of the week this week were: go, him, like, my
Our words of the week next week will be: come, look, me, what

We read "Wemberly Worried" by Kevin Henkes and discussed things that make us feel worried. We also talked about  how it is okay to feel worried sometimes and what strategies we can use to help us feel better. We then wrote about the thing that make us feel worried and how we can try to make ourselves feel better.

In social studies, we learned about the bigger communities we are a part of. We learned that Alberta is our province and Canada is our country. We had the chance to look at maps of Alberta, Canada and the World. We also got to look at Ms. Hill's globe and find different places we have been. We were very interested in the maps and all that they show us. On our own blank map of Canada we coloured in and labelled the province of Alberta. We also labelled our city of Calgary.

In gym this week we had our special guest teachers in and we learned to dance Hip Hop. Our dance was to the song Ghostbusters  and we loved it!! Everyone did an amazing job at our dance showcase today!

In music we have been practicing our songs for the Christmas Concert.

We had our first lock down drill this week and the students did an amazing job. They knew exactly what to do and were to go. They are stayed extremely quiet during the drill! Well done Room 80!

We will once again be participating in the Christmas Gift Bag initiative to support less fortunate students in other CBE schools. Students received a blue sheet of paper on Monday with a list of requested items and details. This is a voluntary activity that you and your child can participate in. Once you have purchased the items you would like to contribute please just send them in a ziplock bag with your child to school. If you are participating please take your child shopping with you, we really would like them to be involved in the process.  The gift bag items are due Monday December 10th.  If you have any questions please let me know.

Reminders: 

We will once again be participating in the Christmas Gift Bag initiative to support less fortunate students in 3

CBE schools. Students received a blue, green or pink sheet of paper on Monday, November 26

th

with a list of

req

uested items and details. This is a voluntary

activity

that you and your child can participate in

We will once again be participating in the Christmas Gift Bag initiative to support less fortunate students in 3

CBE schools. Students received a blue, green or pink sheet of paper on Monday, November 26

th

with a list of

req

uested items and details. This is a voluntary

activity

that you and your child can participate in

We will once again be participating in the Christmas Gift Bag initiative to support less fortunate students in 3

CBE schools. Students received a blue, green or pink sheet of paper on Monday, November 26

th

with a list of

req

uested items and details. This is a voluntary

activity

that you and your child can participate

Friday December 7th is a PD Day. No School

Monday December 10th is Christmas Sweater Day. Students are invited to wear their Christmas sweaters to school

Wednesday December 12th is our Christmas Concert at 6:30 pm. Please have your child here by 6:15pm. Door will not be open prior to 6:15. Each family will receive 2 tickets, if you are not attending please let the office know.
If you are unable to attend the evening performance or have more then two people who would like to come, you are welcome to come to the Full Dress Rehearsal on the same day at 1:00pm.

Wednesday December 19th Report Cards will be going home.

Thursday December 20th is another day put on by our leadership students. It is Movie/PJ Day. Students are invited to wear their PJ's to school and we will be watching a movie altogether in the gym that day.

Friday December 21st is the last day of school before Winter Break. It is also our last Club Friday for this rotation. Students will receive a new club in the new year.

November 22nd

Hi Parents,

This week week in math we started our math centers. We are practicing our subitizing and building our number sense through games and activities. We are doing roll and build, go fish. greatest number with ten frame cards, number bingo and show me where we have to show Ms. Hill 4 different ways to represent a number, for example tally marks or ten frames.
We also were given a math problem to solve this week. The problem was that Sam saw 9 bunnies. Some were white and some were brown. How many bunnies of each colour could Sam have seen?

We continued to work on our sight words, letter recognition and reading through literacy centers. Next week we will be starting some new literacy centers that focus on words of the week, sight words, reading, making words and word families.

Since we have been talking a lot about how we help our communities and how we solve problem with our friends, we read the story " How do Dinosaurs Stay Friends" and then wrote about how we stay friends with our friends. We wrote about how we can show kindness to them and how we can solve problems in peaceful way.
We also had a chance to do a free write this week, where we are able to write about whatever we would like.

This week we also had a chance to look at a variety of art pieces and discuss how we felt about them. Some were realistic, some had very bright colours. We talked about what we liked and didn't like. We also discussed which ones we liked the better and why.

We continued to work on our words of the week.
The words of the week this week were: but, his, one, so
The words of the week next week will be:  go, him, like, my 

In social studies we continued to learn about our communities. We leaned some history about our community of Cranston. We learned that Cranston is named after a family from Scotland and that it  stands for "Crane Town" or "Crane Settlement". We also learned that when people first settled here they have windmills and that is why we have the windmill as you enter Cranston.
We also discussed our community of Calgary. We discovered that our  community of Calgary is much bigger then our community of Cranston and that Cranston is a small part of the Calgary community. We also realized that we are apart of some communities at the same time. For example, when we are at school we are apart of our school community, the Cranston community and the community of Calgary.

Today we had Club Thursday! We had such an amazing time at our clubs once again. We will be going to these clubs one more time before we switch to a new club in the new year.

We also continued our work with becoming a problem solver. We learned four more strategies and now have 10 different strategies we can use to solve problems with our friends peacefully. Here is the full list of problem solver strategies we have learned and will continue to practice inside and outside the classroom.

1. "I Statements". We use these when our friends do something we don't like. This can make us mad, sad, or frustrated. Instead of hitting or yelling we can use an I Statement.
I feel (emotion) when you (action) please (new action)
For example. "I feel mad when you push me, please keep your hands to your self".

2. Make a Deal. We make a deal when my friend and I disagree about what to do. This can make us mad or frustrated. Instead of hitting or yelling we can make a deal so we both are happy.
For example, instead of fighting over who goes first, we will play rock, paper, scissors to see who goes first this time. Then next time the other person can go first.

3. Say Sorry.  Sometimes when I am playing with my friends I may do something that is not nice. I can tell that my friend did not like what I did by their body language and/or words. I may have done it on purpose or by accident, when this happens I need to say a sorry statement.
I am sorry for __________
This was wrong because_________
Next time I'll___________
Please forgive me 
 For example, I am sorry for not including you in our game, this was wrong because it made you feel sad, next time I'll include you in our game.  Please forgive me. 

Most often I feel happy when I am with my friends. But sometimes my friends might do something that I don't like. This might make me feel annoyed, frustrated or mad. I don't need to hit or yell, I can use the following strategies to keep this problem small.
4. Ignore Them.  I can ignore what they are doing and tell my self it isn't a big deal.
Sometimes ignoring someone may not work and I am still feeling frustrated and in the yellow zone. If ignoring them doesn't work I can use my next strategy
5. Ask Them to Stop. Before I say something I take a deep breath and look at the person who is bugging me. I then use a calm voice and say "please stop doing that" or " I feel frustrated when you...".
If that doesn't work I can..
6. Walk Away. Walk away quietly to another spot in the classroom then I can use my calming down strategies to stay in the green zone.

7. Join Another Activity.  When we are having disagreements with our friends or are not liking what our friends are doing, we can choose to join another activity instead of getting mad or sad.

8. Take Turns. When me and my friend both want to play with something or do an activity, instead of getting mad or upset we can take turns.

9. Wait and Cool Off. When my friends have made me frustrated, mad or sad, instead of yelling or hitting I can take a break and cool off. I can use my calming down strategies to bring myself back to the green zone before I decide what to do next to solve my problem.

10. Talk it Out.  When I am having a problem with a friend, instead of hitting or yelling I can use my words to talk it out. I can tell my friends how I am feeling and listen to how my friends are feeling to talk out our problem.

Reminders:

Friday November 23rd is a PD day. So No School Tomorrow

Monday November 26th-Thursday November 29th is our Hip Hop Dance Residency in Gym

Friday November 30th is our Dance showcase, where our class will be performing the dances they learned throughout the week. Our class will be performing at 8:25am on Friday 

November 16th

Hi Parents,

This week we learned about the letters Z, X, and E. We have now learned all the letters of the alphabet and we are continuing to work on using our knowledge of letter sounds to sound out words when we are writing and reading.

Our words of the week this week were: all, had, not, they
Our words of the week next week will be: but, his, one, so

In writing this week we did a free write, where we were allowed to write about whatever we like, for example our weekend. We also used our learning and discussions in social studies to write about how we help in our communities.

In math we continued to develop our number sense and knowledge through calendar, games and activities.

We also continued to develop our reading, writing,  letter recognition, letter sounds, storytelling, and listening to reading through literacy centers.

We worked with our grade 2 buddies to roll a character. Together with our buddy we used a sheet and dice to roll our a character. We really enjoyed this activity, we may even be able to use our characters in one of our stories during writing!

In social studies we continued  learning about communities. We learned about our next community, which is the community of Cranston. We also discussed who is apart of our Cranston community, such as police officers and doctors. We then discussed ways in which we help our Cranston community to be a better and safer place. Some of the ways we help our community are by picking up garbage we see on the ground, being respectful to nature, using the cross walk when crossing the street and helping others in the community.

This week we started a discussion about how we can be problem solvers when we are having problems with our friends. So far we have learned about six strategies that we can use to help us solve problems.

1. "I Statements". We use these when our friends do something we don't like. This can make us mad, sad, or frustrated. Instead of hitting or yelling we can use an I Statement.
I feel (emotion) when you (action) please (new action)
For example. "I feel mad when you push me, please keep your hands to your self".

2. Make a Deal. We make a deal when my friend and I disagree about what to do. This can make us mad or frustrated. Instead of hitting or yelling we can make a deal so we both are happy.
For example, instead of fighting over who goes first, we will play rock, paper, scissors to see who goes first this time. Then next time the other person can go first.

3. Say Sorry.  Sometimes when I am playing with my friends I may do something that is not nice. I can tell that my friend did not like what I did by their body language and/or words. I may have done it on purpose or by accident, when this happens I need to say a sorry statement.
I am sorry for __________
This was wrong because_________
Next time I'll___________
Please forgive me 
 For example, I am sorry for not including you in our game, this was wrong because it made you feel sad, next time I'll include you in our game.  Please forgive me. 

Most often I feel happy when I am with my friends. But sometimes my friends might do something that I don't like. This might make me feel annoyed, frustrated or mad. I don't need to hit or yell, I can use the following strategies to keep this problem small.
4. Ignore Them.  I can ignore what they are doing and tell my self it isn't a big deal.
Sometimes ignoring someone may not work and I am still feeling frustrated and in the yellow zone. If ignoring them doesn't work I can use my next strategy
5. Ask Them to Stop. Before I say something I take a deep breath and look at the person who is bugging me. I then use a calm voice and say "please stop doing that" or " I feel frustrated when you...".
If that doesn't work I can..
6. Walk away. Walk away quietly to another spot in the classroom then I can use my calming down strategies to stay in the green zone.

Next week we will continue to practice these strategies and discuss the other problem solver strategies so that we can become independent problem solvers with our friends.
Check out the picture below to see all the strategies that help us  to be a problem solver.

Reminders:

Friday November 23rd is a PD day. No School

Monday November 26th-Thursday November 29th is our Hip Hop Dance Residency in Gym.

Friday November 30th will be our Dance showcase. Parents are invited to come and watch your child perform the dance they learned during the week. Our class will be performing at 8:25am on Friday.

November 9th

Hi Parents,

This week we learned about the letters K, V,  U, Y, and "Qu"

We are getting so much better at sounding out words and we are even able to sound out some whole words correctly now!

We continued to practice the words of the week

Our words of the week this week were: as, have, she, with 

Our words of the week next week are: all, had, not, they

In honour of Remembrance Day we learned about poppies and how they came to represent Remembrance Day and peace.  We decorated poppies with words and pictures that we felt representing peace. These poppies, along with the rest of the schools' poppies, were put up in the gym for our Remembrance Day assembly.  We also created poppy art using our fingers and paint. We created our classroom wreath by tracing our hands on green paper for the leafs and using tracers to make our poppies. Our wreath bearers did an amazing job presenting our wreath during the Remembrance Day assembly. The whole class did an amazing job being respectful during the Remembrance Day assembly today 

In writing this week we discussed how lucky we are to live in a peaceful community and read the story "The Peace Book"by Todd Parr. After reading this story we wrote about what peace is. Eg. "Peace is making friends"

This week in math we continued to work on our number sense and number recognition for numbers 1-20. We learned a new number buddy game, where we all given numbers shown in different ways (tally marks, ten frames, dots) and we had to find our partner with the same number as us. 

We also learned a new game called Roll and Build, where we had to roll a die,  or two if we were up for a challenge, and then whatever number was on the dice we had to find on our game board and build using unifex cubes. 

When working with our grade 2 buddies, we had the chance to teach them Buzz, which is our favourite math game right now, and Find the Fish. 

We learned that numbers can also be representing in words. We were given two sets of cards, one set had the number symbols on them (eg. 2,3,4) and the other set had the numbers in words (eg. two, three, four). In our groups we had to work together to match the numbers with their words and then we had to build each number using manipulatives. It was challenging  but by working together each table was able to match and build for each number 1-20. 

We continued with our literacy centers this week. We are still working on letter recognition and sounds, listening to reading, telling stories through puppets, letter bingo on abcya.com, and finding words around the room. 

In music we practiced our special peace songs for the Remembrance Day assembly. 

Reminders:

Thursday November 15th is Math Night from 6:00pm-7:00pm. Families are invited to join us at school to learn math games that you can play at home to help practice and develop your child's math skills. 

Thursday November 15th is also the bake sale, which is being put on by Cranston School Fundraising Society. It is during Math Night and they hope you will donate some delicious baked goods! They are looking for cookies, cupcakes, loaves, squares, trail mixes and various other items. Please find attached the sign up list for baked goods. They ask that you please package items individually or in small portions for sale (loaves can be sold as a whole) and include an ingredient list with your donated goods. If you have any questions please email at cranstoncares@gmail.com.  If you are coming to math night, bring along some change so that you can purchase the delicious baked goods and that the talented parents of Cranston school have donated. 
Link for the signup page: http://signup.com/go/MUyzMdr

Friday November 23rd is a PD day, so No School


Monday November 26th-Thursday November 29th is our Hip Hop Dance Residency.

Friday November 30th is our Dance showcase assembly. Students will be performing the dances they have learned during the week. Schedule TBA

November 2nd

Hi Parents,

Wow! What a busy and fun filled week.

This week we learned about the letters N, W, I, H, and J. We used these letters, and the others letters we have learned to continue to work on sounding out words. We are really starting to be able to sound out whole words! 

In writing, some of us wrote about our weekend, others wrote stories and all of us wrote about our Halloween. 

We also started literacy centers this week. In literacy centers we are working on our letters through letter bingo on abcya.com and a game called letter detective. We are working on writing words through word hunt. We are working on listening to reading by listening to books on CDS and on storytelling through play with puppets. 

Our words of the week this week were: are, be, for, we

Our words of the week next week are: as, have, she, with

In math this week we worked on building our number sense with numbers 1-20. We learned two new games. One was called Buzz the other was called Find the Fish. We did a button activity where we were given cards with jars on them. Each card had a number 1-20 on it. We had to work with our group to order the numbers and then we had to fill the jars with matching number of buttons to the card. We also worked together as a class to make our own number line. First Ms. Hill gave us each a card with one number from 1-20 on it. We then had to put ourselves in the correct order. Once we were in the right order we had to choose a manipulative of our choice to make that number. Check out the pictures at the end of this post to see our number line. 

In Music we are learning  a Peace song called "Day of Peace" for the Remembrance Day assembly next Friday. 

In gym we learned about how to throw and catch a football underhand. 

We loved being able to dress up in our Halloween costumes this week, it was so much fun! We also loved getting to wear our Pajamas to school on PJ Day! 

We had a lot of fun creating our pumpkin designs and voting on which one Ms. Hill should carve. We also enjoyed gutting our pumpkin, although some of us thought it was super gross touching the pumpkin guts! We also worked together to count the number of seeds in our pumpkin. We estimated how many we thought there would be and were very surprised to find out there was 649 seeds in our pumpkin!! 

Reminders:

It's fall back this weekend. Don't forget to change your clocks on Sunday! :)

Wednesday November 7th is fun lunch. Don't forget to pack your child a snack

Friday November 9th is our Remembrance Day Assembly at 10:40.