Catching up and Preparing for Conferences

Highlights of the day:

- worked on completing our Inuksuk acrostic poems to share at conferences.  These will be displayed at the coathook bulletin boards along with the glass pipe of Inuksuk art.

- We are working to add more ideas to our arctic charts.  We will share these at conferences.

- In math we worked on another word problem that was started yesterday when Mrs. Hamby was away.  We are practicing the strategies of drawing pictures and tallying to help us solve the word problem and find the correct answer.

- In science we talked about the salt and ice experiment from yesterday.  We had to answer two questions to reflect upon the experiement.  We also watched a video that explains what salt does to ice and then Mrs. Hamby did a demonstration to show what salt does to ice and how the molecules react to the salt.  We talked about it after the demonstration and then we had to go and write our own learning connection.  Ask me about what salt does to ice.

- We had our gym time outside today after the fire drill.  It was so warm.  

Reminders: 
If you have not yet booked a conference please check the schedule to book.  
We are excited to share all the learning we have been doing with you.
Our helper tomorrow is Anisha.

Games and Snowshoeing with our Big Buddies Today

Today we had an exciting day!
We had fun falling in our snowshoes.  Some of us didn't fall and some of us even ran in our snowshoes.  Some of us had trouble because our snow shoes fell off.  Our big buddies helped us get them on again. Once we got down to the soccer field beyond Whispering Woods we had fun making shapes and playing in the snow.  Some of us played games with our big buddies while we had snow shoes on.  While we were getting use to our snow shoes some of us stepped on top of our own feet with the snow shoes.  Some of our feet got stuck in the snowshoes but we still had fun anyway.  Some even said that they would buy the game that they had played that was designed by the little buddy.  Another buddy said that the name of the game was exciting.

When we came inside we had a game time with our big buddies.  We got to go into the learning Commons and choose a space to play our games.  After we had a chance to play our board games our big buddies taught us a new game.  Our buddies gave us feedback for our games.  They made some suggestions and they really enjoyed the cards and extra things that we added to our games to make them more interesting. Some of the games that our big buddies taught us:  Chess, Code Names, Making a new game together, Perfection, Snakes and Ladders, Chinese Checkers.
We had so much fun playing games and our game time ended too soon.  We could have played even longer!
What a great day with our big buddies!

Ice village, Polar Ice caps Melting and Board Games

Highlights of the day:

-A big thank you to all the volunteers for our Fun Lunch today.

- In our Arctic Study we are working as travel agents putting together a travel package. We worked to complete the chart for Climate and Landscape.  We also started working on our Mini suitcases and making all the things that we might pack using construction paper and gluing them into our suitcase. We created a big list as a class and we have to choose the most important things to pack and then some extras.

- In math we worked to complete our board games for our big buddy game day tomorrow.

- In science we watched a video from Bill Nye called "What if all the Ice Melted on Earth".  We talked about and wrote about some of the things that could happen if all the ice melted.
We learned that 70% of all the water on earth is actually in the form of ice.
Bill Nye Video

Reminders:
Tomorrow we will snowshoe and have our game time with the big buddies.  Please make sure that you send boots and snow pants as well as other gear for snow shoeing.

Our Ice Village is slowly melting away.

These are the ideas from the Bill Nye video that we shared and  discussed today.

Here are some of the board games that we have been working on and are excited to share tomorrow!

Arctic landscapes, Polars bears

Today in our Arctic study we looked at various types of landscapes found in the Arctic.  We noticed that in the winter it is mostly solid ice and snow.  In the spring the ice begins to break up and then you can see more of the Arctic Ocean.  In the summer you can see a lot of the tundra.  Tundra is mostly land that is a combination of low plants and mosses, lichens that can survive the very cold harsh weather in the Arctic.  We talked about the tree line and also about permafrost.  We learned that in the Arctic you can only dig about two feet deep even in the summer because of the permafrost.

In math today we worked on our boardgames to make sure that we are ready for Friday.

In science today we went over our "How polar bears stay warm?" experiment.  We talked about which was the best insulator and why.  We also talked about how feathers work to insulate for birds and how other animals adapt to the climate.   We also watched two videos about how polar bears stay warm in the Arctic.


Reminder that Thursday is Fun lunch.
Our helper tomorrow is Yazmine

Usual Monday Routines

Reminder
Tomorrow is treat day.  Please send 25 cents per treat for your child.


In math today we had a chance to finish up our word problem from Thursday .  The people that were finished had a problem to try and solve on the smart board.  The problem was:

The bike shop had 12 bikes in total.  Six were two wheelers and six were three wheelers.  How many wheels all together?  We also had to figure out the number equation or number sentence if we could.

After everyone had a chance to work on the problem we all met back at the carpet and solved the problem together.  It was interesting to see all the different strategies that people used.
I
n computers today we finished typing up the rules for our games.  On Friday we will have a games day with our big buddies.  Then we will be able to share our games.  Then they will help us go snow shoeing.

In word work toady the grade ones practiced the. words in the "in" family.  They also practiced the sight words; from, or, one and had.  The grade twos had silent reading today in word work time.  This is usually on Mondays and is part of the routine in preparation for the silent reading time that they will have in grade three.

In. gym today we had scooter relays.  We had to balance a beanbag on our head while we scootered for one of the races.  Another race you had to sit with your legs crossed on the scooter and then you had to push or pull yourself using a pillow polo stick like a paddle.  The other race was to hold on to the handles and move the scooter with your feet shuffling along on the floor.  By the end of gym our legs were really tired.

Polar Ice Caps Melting

Today we did an experiment to see what could happen if the polar ice caps melt.  We read a story called the River of Life and we watched two videos about the ice and melting ice and polar bears in the Arctic.  We shards bout the importance of water and ice to the animals and people around the world.
Our investigation question was "What happens when glaciers melt?"
We started by building an island inside the tin.  This represented Baffin Island.
Next we want outside and we made some ice glaciers using snow and added them to our tin.
Once inside we added water and measured the level.  Each half hour we measured to see what happened.
We noticed that the sow and ice melted and that the water kept going up.  Once the snow finished melting the water didn't go up anymore.  For most of us the land began to be covered with water.

We talked about the danger that this would be to animals and people that rely on the ice and land and our role in taking care of the earths resources so that we can make a difference.

Math Word Problem

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday please make sure that your child is prepared to be outside.
Our helper on Monday is Gavin.

Today in math we tried working and solving a word problem.
Mrs Hamby demonstrated how she would solve a word problem first.  This was her word problem:

My friend has 4 cars and two bikes.  She parks all of them in the garage.  How many tires all together!
These were the strategies she demonstrated for how she might solve this problem.

Some of the strategies we talked about.





Here are some of the strategies that we used that worked for us. We got to choose the strategy that we wanted to try and that worked the best for us.  We will try another word problem again next week.

Some of us used blocks

Some of us used pictures

Some of us showed the number of legs using counting on hands.

Some of us used tallies.

How do polar bears stay warm?

Reminder to all grade two parents:
Dental forms are due back tomorrow

Also, Home reading spots have now been opened up for the remainder of the year.  A big thank you to all the folks that have so kindly volunteered their time to help in the program.




The question that we were investigating is which works best as an insulator to keep the warm in and the cold out!
The choices were:
feathers
bare hand
blubber
fur
blubber and fur
One person from each table group had to go outside and get some snow to add into the bucket.
You had to put your hand in a bag that had the insulator and a smaller bag inside to put your hand into, we dipped the bag into a bucket of ice water.  We had to hold it in the water for 15 seconds.  Each table group had to take a turn with each bag.  Everyone at the table group had a turn.

At the end we had to talk about which one we thought worked the best at our table group.  Hank's  and Anisha's table group decided that they think it was the fur and blubber.  Avery's, Gavin's, Elaina's and Joel's table group also thought it was the fur and blubber that worked as the best insulator.

Tomorrow we will all meet together and talk about the results of the experiment and then we will have to write out own ideas.