October 27-31, 2014

Happy Monday!
Even though it is a 5 day week, we have lots going on!

Tuesday-Library; please return all library books
Wednesday-Popcorn (please send $0.50 for each bag of popcorn for  your child to receive at snack recess)
Friday-Class party at 10:30am; Spelling Test; Hot Lunch; Walk to Salem Manor at 1:30pm

Please ensure that your child comes to school dressed up and ready to go on Friday. They can wear their costume all day, but teachers will not be on hand to put on make-up and costume pieces. Please refrain from sending costume pieces that may be inappropriate (ex. guns, knives, etc).

As the weather is becoming colder, please make sure that your child is wearing the appropriate clothing for outside recess. Each child should have: gloves/mittens (with insulation), hat/toque that covers ears, scarf, snow pants, and a winter jacket. Feel free to send an extra pair of socks to school for your child to wear if their socks get wet.

We are entering/have entered cold and flu season. As school policy will be followed, there will be no sharing of kleenex and hand sanitizer. Please send a small amount of each with your child to keep at their desk. They can keep the sanitizer and kleenex inside their desk and use it at their discretion. This supply will not be shared with other students.

This week:
Language Arts
-Spelling Words
-Journal Writing
-Phonics-introduction to long vowel u words, and review of long and short vowels a,i,u
-Story Prompt (Wednesday) about their Halloween costume they will wear on Friday.
-Writing-discuss the organizational framework of narrative writing, begin to distinguish features of narrative writing; read and evaluate facts on the topic of Autumn, identify facts they know, new information, and information they do not understand.
-Reading Comprehension (Friday) about a Halloween story

Math
-Patterns: predicting parts of a repeating pattern
-Numbers to 100: working with money (specifically: pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters, loonies, toonies), introduction of ordinal numbers (ex. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc)

Social
Exploring the difference of land, water, and weather between Leduc, Iqaluit, Meteghan, and Saskatoon.

Science
We will be exploring the north and south poles of magnets and how they attract/repel each other. In addition, we will test magnets and if they are strong enough to attract/repel objects through another object (cloth, styrofoam, plastic, etc).

Gym
Our focus for this week (and the weeks to come until Christmas) will be ball throwing and running. Our time in the gym will incorporate these two skills.

October 20-24, 2014

Another 5 day week is upon us! This week there are Parent/Teacher Interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday. Students are asked to attend these with their parents.
Lice Busters will be coming in on Tuesday to check the students. If you have returned the pink form, your child will not be checked.
Popcorn Wednesdays will begin again this week. Popcorn is $0.50 per bag and they will receive it at snack.
Friday is McDonald's hot lunch, spelling test, and October Scholastic Book Orders are due.

Language Arts
This week we will be working on our writing with a focus on 'Autumn Days'. We continue to discuss the difference between Expository and Informative writing.

Spelling test is this Friday. Please find the words under the "Spelling Words" tab.

On Wednesday, we will try our first 'Story Prompt'. Students will receive a picture with a 'starter sentence' and have free write time. This sparks a creative side of the students, and we will develop their skills over the course of the year.

Math
Our focus this week is on patterns that appear in every day sights, and extending those patterns.
With Numbers to 100, we will be looking at objects that appear in groups of 2, 5, and 10. We will then take those objects and find easier ways to count them.

Science
We are almost done our Magnets unit and are testing the magnets to see how many paper clips they hold. We are discussing predictions and observations with regards to science experiments/test.

Social
We have started to talk about the 3 areas of Canada: Meteghan (Nova Scotia), Iqaluit (Nunavut), and Saskatoon (Saskatchewan). We will be looking at these 3 communities throughout the year.

October 15-17, 2014

**PLEASE SIGN UP FOR PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS NEXT WEEK! Go to the following link to sign up online: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f4daeac29a2f58-october/


Even though it is a 3 day week, we still have lots going on in Grade 2!

There will be no spelling test this week. I will be testing for Dolch words all week for the September words. 

Assembly has been changed to Thursday October 16 at 1pm, at which time we will have an author visit. Tyler Enfield is an Alberta author and will be visiting East Elementary School during this time. If students/parents are interested in purchasing Mr. Enfields book, please fill out and return the form (sent home earlier this week) and bring it on Thursday (with cash) to the presentation.

As many parents have been contacting me about Parent/Teacher Interviews next week, I will let you know that the Secretary is working diligently to send out the website for each individual classroom. Once the website has been created, it will then be distributed to me, and I will pass it along to you. East Elementary has gone digital with signing up for these Interviews, so STAY TUNED :)

The interviews will take place on Tuesday October 21 and Wednesday October 22 from 3:30-8pm (last appointment at 7:30). The interview time can range anywhere from 15-25 minutes. 

October 6-10, 2014

A few reminders about what is going on this week: 

- Students are encouraged to bring one non-perishable food item every day this week to support the Food Bank

- As temperatures are changing, please ensure your child is wearing the appropriate clothing to school. A fall jacket, mitts, and a hat are good pieces to ensure your child will not get cold at recess.

- Club Moo starts on Monday.

- Spelling Test and Hot Lunch from Swiss Chalet on Friday.

Language Arts

RazKids was a HUGE success this past week, and I encourage you to allow your child to use it at home. I notice some students already using it at home and that is AMAZING! Here are the instructions on how to get to the website: google 'razkids' and select the first option. The teacher login is 'jennkruse'. Allow your child to find their name and type in the password they were given in class (no spaces). The program is great and they can spend 10-15 minutes on it every night. This would even count towards their home reading (red duotang). 

Continue Reading at home with your child. Our goal for October is to have each student read 3 hours each. If each student completes this goal, we will have a popcorn party at the end of the month. 

We will continue to talk about expository and narrative writing, and students will be able to identify parts of these types of writing. We discussed last week about opinions and why opinions are not necessarily accepted by everyone. For example: "The best season of the year is Summer" is my opinion and is not true for all students. 

This week we will begin Reading Comprehension. We will be doing this once/week. This is to build confidence in understanding what they are reading, as well as understanding what to look for in their reading. 

Math

This week we will begin our "Patterns" and "Numbers to 100" unit. The "Pattern" unit will continue until mid-November and "Numbers to 100" will continue through February. 

Science

We will be continuing to look at magnets and the different types of magnets that exist. 

Social

Our focus for social this week will be mapping. I hope to finish this unit this week and begin with another topic next week.