VORC Volunteers!

Dear Grade Two Families 

We are in desperate need of parent volunteers for our VORC trip on Tuesday June 14th. We are suppose to have 2 parents and we don't have any right now! Please let me know if you are able to come! You need to have your vulnerable sector screening. 

Thank you! 

Library Books

Library books are due tomorrow! Levelled books are due on June 17th! 

Jump Rope for Heart Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning we have Jump Rope for Heart! Please dress in comfortable clothing and running shoes. Bring a reusable water bottle and a skipping rope if you have one!

PIZZA LUNCH TOMORROW!

Students in Grades 1-3 will have their pizza lunch tomorrow since we are at the zoo on regular pizza day! So if you order pizza lunch remember to pack a lunch on Thursday for the zoo as you will be getting your pizza tomorrow!

ICE CREAM SALE TOMORROW

Students will have the opportunity to buy ice cream tomorrow when we return from our field trip! The ice cream is $1! 

No Poem of the Week!

Since we have such a short week in the classroom I have decided that we will not have a poem of the week this week. Enjoy a weekend without poetry homework :)

Play Day THIS FRIDAY!

Just a reminder that this Friday is our field trip to the Leisure Complex for Activate Aurora Play Day! It is suppose to be very hot! We just finished discussing the importance of bringing:

-water bottle

-running shoes

-comfortable loose clothing

-hat

-sunscreen

-BIG lunch

I also told the students that they do not  need to bring their BEE Bags or agendas on Friday. Their backpacks can be filled with only the things needed for the trip! 

Any questions just ask! 

Helping a Family Affected by the Alberta Fire

This morning Sadie made a presentation to our class about her friend's cousin's family. This family was affected by the Fort Mac forest fire and had to leave everything behind. Their house was ruined. Sadie and her family are taking the initiative to help this family by giving them toys, craft stuff, stuffies, and a gift card.

If any students would like to contribute Sadie will be accepting donations of clothes, toys, stuffies, or even hand drawn pictures for the children.

The children in this family that Sadie is helping are 5 year old Anna and her 2 year old brother Malcom.

Sadie says, "I would feel sad if this happened here because all of my favourite stuff would  be ruined. That's why I want to help them."


If you have any questions just ask! Thank you for your support.

Science Update

When the students arrived this morning there was something special in our classroom! What could it be? We have many wonderings! I am confident that our young scientists will be able to figure it out! 

Update Before the Long Weekend!

Independent Homework Projects

Some students have been taking the initiative to research and learn about something that they are interested in at home. They have been consolidating their new knowledge and creating a short presentation to 'teach' their classmates. So far we have had 4 presentations. This independent project is not a homework requirement however if any student takes the time to learn about something new and creates a short presentation (5 min) I am happy to provide class time for sharing. If you have any questions please ask!

Spring Concert and Book Fair

The Spring Concert is next Thursday, May 26th from 6:30-7:30. While this is a junior/intermediate concert all families as welcome to attend. Also next week the Scholastic Book Fair will be held in the library! The Book Fair will be opened late on the night of the concert.

Lots in Home Folder! 

There is a lot in the Home Folder today! Please look through the items carefully.

-Information about big ideas covered in health class beginning next week

-Hansen Palooza note about our classroom basket and requesting for volunteers

-Jump Rope for Heart information and pledge form.

Have a wonderful weekend and spend some time outside! 

MAY PRIDE ASSEMBLY CANCELLED

The May Pride Assembly has been cancelled. Awards for the character trait of perseverance will be handed out at the June Pride Assembly!

Math Update!

There will be a Show What You Know for money next Thursday, May 19th. A note went home on a green paper yesterday outlining the big ideas for this unit. If you did not receive the note please let me know and I will send home another one.

Students will benefit from experiences where they can use real money at home. Here are some suggestions to support our learning and prepare for the Show What You Know!

- play "store": you can set up some items for sale in your house and have you child be the cashier! Remember that students in grade one only need to add and subtract money amounts to 20 cents, and grade two students only need to add and subtract money amounts to 100 cents....so keep it simple!

-count change: have some piles of change out and ask your child to add it all up!

-representing money: see how many ways you represent (show) different amounts of money ("How many different ways can you make 20 cents?")

-play "20 Questions": we played  this game a little bit  in class this week. Students should be able to teach you how to play this at home. The game is played in pairs with one partner putting some coins in their hand. The other partner needs to guess what their partner has so they can ask questions. The person with the money in their hand can only answer yes or no. The goal is to figure out how much change is in your partner's hand in less than twenty questions.

Tin Roof Thank You!

Thank you so much for supporting our Tin Roof Campaign! We heard on the announcements today that our class has currently raised the most money in this campaign so far!

Tin Roof Global Fundraiser

Tin Roof Global Fundraiser

The Student Council at Rick Hansen Public School is very excited to introduce our newest fundraiser - Tin Roof Global Water Challenge.  The challenges will run from Friday, April 29th to Friday, May 27th.  Our aim is to raise money to build tin roofs on schools in Uganda.  By achieving this goal of raising money to build a tin roof, the water can be collected in a huge concrete vat to be shared throughout the entire community.  Many communities in southern Uganda have to walk at least two kilometres to a water source which is often extremely dirty.  This leads to illnesses, lack of education (time taken away from class time to access water) and in extreme cases, death. Tin Roof Global has been working for years to build tin roofs on schools in Uganda.  One roof, from start to finish, costs approximately $10,000.  It is the aim of our school to raise as much money as we can to help the children of Uganda.

Challenges:

1/ Down the Hatch - Friday, April 29th

2/ Water Walk Challenge - Wednesday, May 4th

3/ Lug-A-Bucket - Monday, May 9th - Friday, May 13th

4/ Water Conservation - Monday, May 16th - Friday, May 20th

5/ Plunge - Friday, May 27th

All these Challenges mimic the harsh conditions that some Ugandan citizens face on a daily basis as they access water.

We would appreciate any help that you can give us as we try to make life better for people in Uganda.  Please visit our website:

Ms Sunnerton's Class Tin Roof Challenge Website

Tax receipts will be given for donations over $25.

Art Tomorrow

We will be painting tomorrow afternoon ! Please bring a "painting shirt".

Spelling Homework

Some of the activities in our new spelling program involve typing and working on a computer. Yesterday I explained to the students that instead of printing their spelling homework they can simply share their document with me on google drive. Many students know how to do this already and I showed the students the steps again yesterday. If students are not comfortable with this it is still perfectly fine to hand the work in. Here are the steps for sharing homework with me on google drive

1. Open Google and type google.yrdsb.ca into the search

2. Login in with user name and password (students have this in their agendas)

3. Create a document (press the rectangle that says "NEW" in red and select document.

4. Type your homework!

5. Click on SHARE on the right side and type in Sunnerton

Flashcards!

Hopefully something like this came home yesterday! In math each student created their own set of flashcards with doubles, and doubles plus one facts. By reviewing these cards at home students will build their mental math skills. I have asked the students to practise with these cards every night for about ten minutes for the next two weeks. These cards do not need to come back to school! Here are some ways students can practise with these cards at home: 

#1 Go through each card and solve the addition problem, check the back to compare your solution. * I really encouraged students to not "skip" cards that they don't know. They should be trying to find the solution to every card! It helps to think aloud. Once students "know" their doubles facts they can use those facts to solve the double plus one facts.

 For example, a thought process for solving 8+9 might be "I know 8+8 =16, 8+9 is one more than 16 so the answer is 17". OR "I know 9+9=18, 8+9 is one less than 18 so the answer is 17. 

#2 Students that confidently know the answer for each fact card might have fun timing themselves to see how quickly they can go through the cards.

#3 As a challenge, students who are confident with the facts can look at the answer (go through the cards backwards) and say the two numbers that were added together to make the answer. 

#4 Playing War! This is a fun way to practise the doubles and doubles plus one facts with an adult, sibling, or friend. Take the cards off of the ring and split them into two equal groups. Each person adds their numbers and the person with the greater number for their answer gets to keep both cards. Play until one person runs out of cards! 

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or even new ideas for how to use the flashcards! Thank you for your support. 

New Social Studies

Tomorrow we will be starting our new Social Studies Inquiry Unit about the Global and Local Communities. For this unit I will be teaching the Grade Ones and Grade Twos together! In this unit we will be exploring our local community, global communities, and we will also be creating, and interpreting maps!

To begin I will be posing the question Why do we live where we live? Throughout the unit we will be thinking about this question and hopefully generating some meaningful answers! It is great if you can talk to your child about this question and come up with some ideas from home as I know that many family members will have some really insightful answers for this.

It would also be great if you can talk to your child about the services and buildings (community centres, schools, municipal building, stores, fire and police, doctor)  we have here in Aurora while thinking about how these places meet our needs. Grade Two students would benefit from spending some time exploring the atlas. If you do not have one at home here is a link to an interactive map that students can spend some time exploring.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-map-viewer.html

Happy March Break!

Just a quick note wishing everyone a wonderful safe and fun March Break! If you are looking for some learning activities for over the break here are some ideas!

• Read everyday! Take a trip to the Aurora Public Library and borrow some books about a topic you are interested in, explore a brand new series of chapter books, or take out some cool looking picture books that you have never seen before! If you read a really great book we would LOVE to hear about it after the break!

• Math Games! In math we are learning about strategies for addition and subtraction. We have been focusing on "Friendly Numbers" (for example if you are adding 5+6 you can easily add 5+5 and then add one more!), and Making Ten (all the different number combinations that make ten for exmaple 8+2, 9+1, 6+4 etc.). I have sent home a couple of math games for students to play with family or friends over the break. The games require dice. I thought most families have dice at home, if not they are at the dollar store. 

• Writing! Consider reading a story and then writing a different ending or new chapter! Perhaps keep a diary of your thoughts and feelings over March Break, or write a retell of an activity that you experienced on the break. If you feel proud about something you wrote on March Break we would LOVE to hear it after the break! 

Which Stuffy is the Tallest?

Today we had fun measuring the length of our stuffys! We learned that Yash's stuffy is the tallest. Followed closely by Sparkles, Teddy, and Puppy! We measured using non-standard units (snap cubes). D.F. noticed that since  he knows one snap cube is 2cm he could figure out the length of his Stuffy in cm too!

Here is our class photo of stuffys. We arranged our stuffys in the same way the students appear in their own class photo- tallest stuffys in the back row!

Math Update: Measurement

Today we had a great afternoon exploring some big ideas in measurement! We determined that J. H-M. has the longest feet in the class followed closely by H.G. and J.G. S.Y. has the shortest feet in the class.

During our problem solving challenge we realized some really important things about measurement. I encourage students to discuss these big ides with their families at home!

There are standard and non standard units.  A standard unit is used across Canada so if you went into a store and asked for a piece of fabric that is 60 cm long the person working there would understand. Some standard units that we talked about today were the centimeter (cm), millimeter (mm), and meter (m).  We learned that the width of our pinky finger is about 1 cm! So we can use that as a bench mark for making estimates. 

We learned that non-standard units can be used to measure things around our classroom and at home. These units can be used if we need to compare measurements. Snap cubes, paperclips, scissors, and Popsicle sticks are all non- standard units.

When we compared the length of our feet we noticed that we all needed to be measuring in the same unit! 

We learned about using the ruler and noticed that you need to start at 0. We also noticed that the rulers in our classroom have centimeters and millimeters. 

********************************HOMEWORK************************************

Tomorrow I will be sending home a page about measuring and comparing lengths at home. It is intended to be used as an extension of our learning in class. I encourage students to work through the activities with an adult. 

For Grade Twos: The homework activities are about measuring using non-standard units. In Grade Two, students are learning how to measure with non-standard and standard units. As a challenge, Grade Two students can complete the same activities using non-standard units, and then measure again using a standard unit (cm). If you do not have a ruler with cm at home please write a note in your child's agenda and I will send home a ruler to borrow for the activity. 

Black History Month

February is Black History Month. Each classroom at Rick Hansen has created a tribute door. Our door is dedicated to K'naan. As our tribute we retold the story of Wavin Flag for others to see. Students are encouraged to share K'naan's story with their families and further discuss Black History Month at home. Some student were asking me to play Wavin Flag again so I have included the link here so that they can listen at home and share the song with their families. 

Wavin Flag by K'naan

Math Update

Our final task in geometry was about building a fantasy city made of 3D solids. Once the cities were completed students took an "airplane" to visit another city and  become a tourist. They had to pack their math notebooks and pencils. When they arrived at the city they wrote about what they saw using math vocabulary. 

Next week we will begin our measurement unit by learning about estimating and why we do this. The measurement unit is about three weeks with a performance task at the end. It leads nicely into our big unit about addition and subtraction and money. 

As we enter Term Two students can expect a little bit more math homework. There will be some measurement challenges to be completed at home and later some addition and subtraction games that will be sent home. Please remind your child to check their agenda nightly! 

Grade TWO Science

In the past few science classes we have been learning about the wheel and axle through exploration. Students were challenged to create their own car. The only criteria was that the wheels had to turn using the somewhat limited supplies that we had. For most of the building time (3 full science classes) you could hear a pin drop in the classroom as the students were so focused on their task. The results were fantastic and I am so proud of these students! We learned so much through the process and from our mistakes.

Yesterday we took our newly completed cars on a parade. Here is a short clip of the cars rolling by!

 

Gung Hey Fat Choy

Winter Carnival Tomorrow

Just a quick reminder that Winter Carnival is tomorrow. Please dress to be outside for most of the day! It is a great idea to bring extra socks and mitts etc. snow pants are definitely a great idea- Even though we are lacking snow we will still be on the field for some of the activities! 

Math Update!

We are learning how to identify, describe and sort 3D solids. 

What are the differences between prisms and pyramids? 

Take a look at some of our creations from today's math class. Which 3D solids can you identify? 

Math Update

In math we are learning about composing  2D shapes. We are having fun creating all kinds of shapes and sizes using geoboards, tangrams, and pattern blocks. 

We are also learning about certain attributes that make shapes alike. For example triangles have 3 sides but the length of the sides can change. Hexagons have 6 sides but we can make different looking hexagons. 

We had some interesting conversations about the differences between rectangles and squares. 

Next week we will be learning about 3D solids! 

Grade Two Science

Grade Two students have science homework! We are learning about movement and simple machines. Students are asked to bring a toy that moves to school on Thursday for our lesson. Students should be able to use movement words to describe how their toy moves (rolls, bounces, turns, etc.) Any questions just ask!

Walk to School/ Pajama Day Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is Walk to School day! We are really hoping for 100% participation. As an extra incentive if students would like they can bring their stuffies and wear pajamas to school tomorrow!

January Calendar

January Newsletter