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!