Plasticine and King's Gold

Today in gym the grade two's helped to teach the game King's Gold to the grade ones.  To play the game you have two teams.  Each team has gold in their kingdom that they have to protect.  Your team has to run to the other kingdom to steal the other team's gold.  If you get caught you have to go to the other teams jail and wait there until someone from our team comes over to rescue you.  If they get caught then they go to jail too.  We are learning to play it inside before we go to play it out in the field.

This afternoon we had animal research.  Many of us have moved on to working on our dioramas.  A few are still finishing up research.  This afternoon the kids that finished their landscape got to move on to making their animal with paper or plasticine.  They have to make a male, female and a baby of their research animal.  Mrs. Hamby showed us some techniques for making our animals.  We also have some Barbara Reid books to look at how she made animals and added texture and details to them.

In math today we started another math problem.  This is the last problem we will do together with a buddy.  On Wednesday we each ave to show on our own how we can save a story math problem.  We always have to include a picture to show how we solved it, a number sentence and a word sentence to answer the question.  Today our problem was about people and wheels.  Our two questions were
How many wheels in total?
How many legs in total?
Some people rode unicycles, bikes, tricycles, motor bikes and cars.  We will work on it again tomorrow.

Tomorrow the helper is Joel.

Volunteer Tea Day

We were all excited today about our performance for the Volunteer Tea.
Thank you for all those volunteers who were able to attend and thank you also to those volunteers who were unable to attend.  We appreciate all the help and support that we get for field trips, fresh air Fridays and Home Reading.  It was a great way to end Volunteer Appreciation Week!  We hope you enjoyed it.
We sang "All You Need Is Love", by the Beatles.  Mr. O'Reilly was very proud of our performance. If you would like to watch our performance you can go to the room two blog where a video has been posted of our performance.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday, we will be doing some bird watching.
The Helper on Monday is Yazmine.

Solar Panels for Dr. Coffin

Mrs. Hamby was back today.  She was home because she had Strep but she is beginning to feel better.

Today we had an assembly and we found out that our school was one of the schools chosen to get solar panels on the roof top.  They will be installed late spring or early summer.  We learned that the sun can provide so much energy to heat things instead of using natural gas and coal.  We are excited to learn about this and see how it works for out school.  This announcement was made in conjunction with our recognition of Earth Day celebrated over the weekend.

This morning we finished up our journal writing about the Bird sanctuary.  In word work today the grade ones worked on their word family words "ig"  an the grade two worked on rules for adding "ing" to the end of a word.

In math today, it was our second day to work with a math buddy on our word problem.  The problem was:
At the sanctuary we saw:
one muskrat
one deer
two hawks
five geese
three chickens

How many legs were there?
How many wings were there

We had to show one picture,  and then a number sentence and word sentence for each question in the problem.

This afternoon we worked on our animal research and dioramas.  Our finish up job today was journals and our Dr. Coffin writing in our paper bag books.  If we had those things done we got to have some free choice for 30 minutes, otherwise we were working on those things.

In gym we had stations and one of them was the climbing wall.

Our helper tomorrow is Levi.
Tomorrow is also the Volunteer Tea!

Can you solve it? 1 Hunter Math Problem

How many animals did the hunter see all together?

Your answer has to include :
A picture to show the problem
A number sentence
The answer to the question in a sentence.

Today we had to work with a math buddy to see if we could solve this problem.  See if you can solve the problem too.   Don't tell us the answer because we have to finish solving it tomorrow.

Our helper tomorrow is Solomon.

Who is Dr. Coffin?

This morning after guided reading and library we had to go on a hunt around the school for a man that Mrs. Hamby showed us a picture of.  Our job was to find out who it was and she said that we could find him somewhere in the school.  We discovered that it was Dr. E.W. Coffin.  He is who our school was named after.  There is a picture of him hanging in our hallway.  Here are some things that we learned about Dr. Coffin.  Tomorrow we will start working on the last page of our paper bag books.  It will be about our community.  We will begin by adding some ideas about Dr. Coffin.

After recess we had some word work time and then we practiced our song for the Volunteer Tea.
For Math today we did a short show what you know for subtraction.

This afternoon Mrs.Hamby and Mrs. Boyer showed us how we would make aspen trees and plants for the landscape in our dioramas.  Some of us got to start and others still needed to finish working on research.  We are all at different stages.

In gym we worked on the climbing wall again.  Today we reviewed the rules and then we had a buddy that watched us traverse and gave us suggestions for where we could put our hands or feet.

In music we practiced our song for the tea.  We are excited to sing it for you at the Volunteer Tea next Thursday.

The helper tomorrow is Yazmine.

Climbing Wall and Dioramas

This morning after guided reading we worked on our journals.  Those of us that still had to work on our paper bag books to finish our "me bubbles" worked on that instead.  Tomorrow we will begin the last page of the book.  This page will be all about the school and community of Dr. Coffin.

In word work this week will be using different ways to practice some of our own personal spelling words.   The way we practiced today was to look at the word, spell it with our eyes closed.  Then try to write it again and then check to see if we were right.  Tomorrow we will learn of some other ways to practice our words.

For Math today we had did an activity to show what we can already do with adding numbers to 18.  Grade twos had to show what they could also do with double digit numbers.  We are getting ready to begin our work on Number Operations.  Mrs. Hamby also wrote down the strategies that we liked using to help us find the answers.

Today in gym we got to use the climbing wall.  Mrs. Hamby had to go over the expectations and rules for the wall.  We can't go on the wall if we don't have running shoes and also if you jump down from the wall you lose the privilege of climbing for that gym period.  We even had to practice how you would fall.  You can only go on the wall when there is an adult to supervise.  Sometimes you will have a climbing wall buddy who will watch you and give you suggestions.

This afternoon we began to paint the background of our dioramas.  This diorama will be used to show all the things that we have discovered about the Nose Hill animal we have been researching  The scene is Nose Hill. We also had to decide on the season that we would be showing in our diorama.  We had to paint the hill and the sky.  Tomorrow we will learn how to add other things to the scenery.  To help us with this we brainstormed a list of plants and trees that we already know about that exist on Nose Hill.

Tomorrow our helper is Avery.

Coffin Cares

Today at Dr. Coffin we put out hockey sticks to show the Humboldt hockey families that we are thinking about them.  We also wore jerseys or green coffin shirts or yellow shirts.
Here is a picture of all the sticks in front of the school.  The "WE" team tied green ribbons around all the sticks.  We posted this on twitter as well as on our blogs.

Today at the Coffin Cares assembly the focus was on showing respect.  Respect for self, others and respect for the environment. We also go to watch some short skits about how to show respect.  Elaina from room one was also in the skit.  She did a great job!  Iain, Levi, Anisha, Muhammed, Ahmad and Gavin were recognized for showing respect for themselves and for others.

In gym today we had to pull each other one at a time in the small parachutes. The team had to pull the parachute as one person sat in the parachutes.  Everyone had to have a turn.  We had to go down the the cone and around the cone and then back again.  We had si much fun we wanted to do it twice.  It was super fun!

The helper on Monday is Leo.
We will be outside tomorrow for Fresh Air Friday using binoculars and doing some bird research.

Picasso Day

Today was a day where we spent lots of time creating Picasso Style art.

This morning after guided reading and centers we worked on making sure our all about me bubbles were all typed and put into our paper bag books. The friends that are finished are helping some of the ones that still need to finish by doing the typing for them.

After recess we worked on our Picasso self portraits, by painting them.  We had to be careful because we had to pay attention to the sections we had created on the face.  The last part of the piece will be to outline them in black.

In the afternoon we worked on a mini Picasso piece.  A bookmark will be given to each parent when they come for the volunteer tea celebration on the 26th of April.  Once we were all done we went outside for some play time since we missed our gym time to finish.

In support of the Humboldt strong, kids can wear a jersey tomorrow and if they don't have a jersey they can also wear yellow or green.  Students were told that they can also bring a hockey stick for the day, to set in a special place to support the "sticks out for the boys",  in recognition of the tragedy.

Our helper tomorrow is Nicholas.

Picasso Style Self Portrait Drawings

These are our Picasso style self portraits.  We liked drawing these because they didn't have to look right.  We could put the parts of the face wherever we wanted to.  It could look unusual or weird!  We watched a short kids video about Pablo Picasso.  Today we learned that he spent a lot of his time in Paris working on his art.  After his friend died he went through a time that they call the "Blue Period".  During this time he painted many of his paintings using shades of blue.  He also had a "Rose Period", here he used lots of reds, pinks and oranges in his paintings.  This was at the time when he became very interested in going to the circus and watching the clowns.  After he had been painting for a long time he became interested in African art.  This is when he began to to paint faces that looked similar to masks.  This then lead to the cubism style of his portraits, which we are trying to recreate with our own self portraits.  We will be painting them tomorrow.  They will become part of our paper bag books.

In recognition and support of the Humboldt Tragedy the students are invited to wear hockey jerseys to school this Thursday, April 12th.

Our helper tomorrow is Satvik.

Simon Fraser Band Visit

Today we had a visit from the Simon Fraser Band.  They played lots of songs for us.  Some of the songs were; Pirates of the Caribbean, The West and also what they called a "scary song".  They showed us and taught us all the names of the various instruments and then played each one so we could hear what they sounded like.  Maria liked the Baritone.  Muhammed liked the tuba,  Anisha liked the giant tuba and Levi liked the tuba too.

After the concert we came back to the room and worked on our journals.  Almost all of us got our journals finished today.

After recess we had some word work time and then we did a special art project.
We worked on Picasso style portraits.   The portrait is going to go on the front of our paper bag books.  Mrs. Hamby and Mrs. Boyer read some facts to us about Picasso.  He was painting and drawing even before he could talk.  He grew up in Spain. His dad was also an artist and taught art at one of the art schools there where he grew up.   He spent time living in many different parts of Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona.
In Mrs. Hamby's demo she showed us how to us a vertical and horizontal center line to help us create the asymmetrical drawing of ourselves.  We had fun putting the different parts of our faces and has in various unexpected spots to recreate his style.  We only had enough time to begin drawing them and we will work on them again tomorrow.

In the afternoon we worked on our animal research.  Please make sure that you have sent in a shoe box by the end of this week.
Most of us got to have free choice for the finish up time today since we were able to get our journals done this morning.  We worked with focus and intention this morning to meet that goal.

In gym we had relay games.  Today we used balls, bean bags and movement pads with various exercises on each pad.  The pads were placed in various spots and each time we got to one we had to do what was on the pad.

We ended our day with sharing and jobs.  Payton also shared a medal that she won at a dance competition this weekend.  Way to go Payton!  Nicholas shared some weaving that he made at home. It reminded us of the weaving we did at the Art Center.

The helper tomorrow is Elaina.

CPAWS

Here are some photos of our morning with CPAWS.
 These are the things that we learned about:
Ask me about the Ebird website for protecting birds.
Ask me why we count birds and send the numbers in to the Ebird website.
Ask me what dimorphism means for birds.
Ask me what biodiversity means.
Ask me what citizen science is.  
Ask me what I found on my biodiversity quest.

We are looking forward to the next visit on May 4th.  We will have a bird expert that takes us to do some birdwatching on that day.  Before he comes will will have some projects to work on to prepare for the visit.  They also left us with some binoculars and some bird artifact to borrow until they come again.

It was a very fun morning!

Today we started our new centers.
Solomon was a researcher and he is doing baseball research.
Payton was a scientist and she researched about Alpacas and also kangaroos.
Joel was a scientist finishing his lynx picture.
Yazmine was a performer.

In the morning we worked on our All about Me Books and the friends that were finished helped the others that needed help typing.  We are excited to share with you what we have one so far at the Face to Face conferences.

After recess we worked on our "show what we know " for spelling and math.

We worked on our animal research this afternoon.  We had to go with a buddy and  check each other's work to make sure that we included the information that we needed to have from the animal research checklist.  Today we had to focus our check on the food, and appearance categories.


We also had music and gym this afternoon.  In our relay games this afternoon we had two relays.  One relay we used scooter boards.  In the other relay we used small sticks and eggs that were made out of foam.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday and we will be outside with CPAWS.  They are coming to begin some work with us on Bird Watching.

We are excited to see what we can learn about the birds in our natural spaces.

The helper on Monday will be Muhammed.

New Centers

We started our morning today all together so that Mrs. Hamby, Mrs. Boyer and Mrs. Armour could show us the new center choices in the morning during guided reading time.  We have five new centers but they are more like project centers.  They are:

I am a writer- We get to write stories or poems.
I am a researcher- We get to research topics that we are interested in and then share it with the class.
I am a scientist- We get to research an animal that we want to know more about.
I am a mathematician- We get to practice our addition and subtraction skills.
I am a performer- We get to practice and perform a readers theater.
I am a book reviewer- We get to write a book commercial about a story that we have read or heard that we want other people to read too.

Each morning we will have to come in and write our name on the whiteboard to show what we will be working at during center time.

We also continued with a "Show what you know...", for spelling and for math today.  Now that our Mathlympics is done, we worked on a show what you know about numbers and counting patterns.  We will also be working again on that tomorrow.  Our Mathlympics gave us lots of time to practice all those counting and number patterns.

This afternoon we worked on our animal research.  Before we started to research today we got together with a buddy and we had to tell our buddy five things that we already learned about our animal.  We were supposed to try and tell from our memory but if we had to, we could check our book for the facts.

In gym we continued with some of our relay games.  It is fun to work together as a team and be cheering for your team.  At the end we did our team cheer again just like yesterday.

Tomorrow the helper is Payton.

Please send in a shoebox for your child's diorama.

Welcome back from spring break.  It seemed that everyone was excited to be back at school today.  We started our day with guided reading and working on our pictures for journals.  Most of us had something exciting to draw about what we did over the holidays.  After guided reading we went to the library and then came back to work on our journals.  We had a sharing circle and if anyone wanted to tell a highlight from the holiday they could share it with the class.  While kids were sharing Mrs. Hamby added some of the words to the chart to help us with our journal writing and spelling.
Joel got a new bike and it had shocks, grips and gears!
Solomon's family went to Arizona.
Payton's family moved in to their new house.
Yazmine enjoyed doing some things with her family.


After recess we had a short spelling practice.  Every day this week we will be working on this, so that we can show how our spelling and sounding out has been improving since the beginning of the school year.
Mrs Hamby read a story called The Art of Making Friends. To be a good friend you need to:
-be friendly to others
-be honest
-play with others
-include people
- laugh along with others and let yourself have a fun time.

After the story we did a final Mathlympics medal count.  Our class total for medals was 381.  We sure worked hard to get all those medals.  We can show you our medal and event recording books at face to face conferences this month.

This afternoon we worked on our animal research.  In music we played a game using a big music staff that was taped to the carpet.  We took turns throwing the beanbags on it.  You had to try and guess the note that it was based on where it landed.  We had to try and remember the rhymes for the staff.  They are "Every Good Bear Deserves Fish" and for the spaces it spells the word FACE.

In gym today we started relay games.  Today we used fluff balls, pylons and dots on the floor.  We had teams of four.  At the end we had to give a team cheer.

We will be making a diorama to show what we have learned in our animal research so if you have a shoebox at home please put your child's name on it and send it in and we can store it here until your child is ready to start..
Our helper tomorrow is Yafet.