This has been one busy week! A new unit and preparing for the "International Art Museum", the student's assembly presentation. Students in G2.2 did an amazing job preparing their art, costumes and speeches for the assembly. Please view the videos in the Google Drive folder. Our new Unit of Inquiry started off with the brainstorm of universal signs, symbols and their colours. Students had a chance to draw signs and symbols they had seen, and then participated in a gallery walk to look at other signs around the room. Students were to leave a post-it on any symbols they didn't recognise and then reflect on why someone was unable to interpret the sign. The math exploration of shapes continued this week. Students made pictures with tangrams by flipping, turning or sliding 2D shapes. In partners, students continued to name the properties of 3D as well. We will be getting deeper into writing narratives over the next few weeks. To become better writers, students worked in groups to connect sentences with connecting words to create longer, more complex sentences. It was a busy but really great week of learning!
0 Comments
This week is Math, students spent time using math and science tools to explore measuring volume and weight of matter. We went down to the playground to use sand and water, estimating and making comparisons between two containers. Students used non-standard and began using standard units of measure both volume and weight. In Daily 5, students visited the library to work on developing their research skills using informational books. This is a skill they have transferred across units, and have done so successfully. Students also used their photos to write How-To booklets and have been searching for interesting words in their reading books. During our UoI, students have really build acquiring more and more knowledge about how matter changes. It was exciting to visit the Grade 6 students in the Middle School Science Lab to watch a demonstration. Students have also grasped the understanding of the water cycle and will begin examining how changes in matter affect them. Finally, we have an exciting new club! Alina and Ayesha have got an Art Club that meets Tuesday and Thursday at lunch time. Alina stated that they can only meet those days because she has been using a lot of paper from home to make the sheets for her peers and it takes a long time to set up. This is a great example of student action! Although it was only a two day week, students were right back at work. In Daily 5, students applied what they learned about writing recounts when writing about an event their enjoyed over the break. They had a chance to share stories with partners and then get into writing! Students use a process of underlining the sequence words they used in pink then underlining areas of growth in green. Students also traded with a partner and offered feedback to help each other. Students explored measuring length using nonstandard and even tried out using standard units!! They used links, cards and lego to measure objects, then used appropriate tools to measure things that were small, large and curved (like their heads)! Saturday marks an important date in the Hindu religion and culture. It is Diwali! One of the beautiful things about being in an international community is that we learn about so many traditions! Students watched a story and made mandalas to decorate the doorway. Enjoy if you celebrate! This week students were developing questioning across disciplines. In Daily 5, students were practicing asking questions before, during and after reading. They were also determining the differences between "Easy" or "Hard to answer" questions. They decided that "easy" questions can be answered by looking at the picture. "Hard to answer" questions need some "exploring and investigating". Students also have been exploring procedural writing. They made snowflakes using a set list of instructions! During unit time, students transferred their knowledge about forming questions about the three states of matter - solids, liquids and gases. Many questions were raised about gases! "How do you get oxygen in a tank?" asked Ayesha. And, Julian wants to start an eco-company that changes "bad gas into good gas"! In math, students wrote survey questions to collect data. They then organised their data into bar graphs. They had to think about how to word questions in order to be able to record their data effectively. Students have been really looking forward to after-lunch meditation. They recorded their emotions on a chart and noticed the changes on different days, and how other affect their mood. In Daily 5 this week students spent time exploring the features of social writing such as emails, letters, cards and invitations. This week, we began our new Unit of Inquiry: How the World Works. Our central idea is "Changes in matter affect our environment". Students explored different types of matter and began voicing their ideas about how to describe matter. They also had many thoughts and wonderings about the glue, ice, flour, and jelly they observed. Questions like "why is glue sticky", "is all flour soft?" and "why is some ice white and some ice clear?" emerged from the exploration. These are some of the questions that will be inquired into throughout the unit. In math, students used number lines to help them round to 10 and 100. Students also made a discovery that you can use a 100 grid to add and subtract! We had the author, Blair Reeve, visit us. We learning about poetry techniques that he and Dr. Seuss both used to write their books! And finally, it was exciting to have many students share their work this week! Lots of research and story writing happening in Grade 2.2! This week during Unit of Inquiry, students did a lot of reflecting on what they learned about communication and relationships throughout the unit. Many students shared that they communicate with friends and family in far away places vis Skype, Facetime or email, and that a challenge when communicating with people far away is that the internet doesn't always work well. Lucy wrote about how introducing yourself to people on the first day of school is a way to make friends, but a challenge in doing that can be that you may be shy. Students came away from the unit with a few questions to still inquire into such as: why are there so many different languages? Why do people in England and America both speak English but have different accents and pronunciations? Seems like we have some more inquiring to do! In math, students worked hard on applying adding strategies to problems. Students worked in groups and independently to share their learning in different ways. Grade 2 students taught their Grade 6 how to play a game that they played on our trip to the Botanic Gardens. They had great success building pyramids together! A lot happened last week! Students continued their work in learning new strategies for reading, as well as in math. We had two parents from Ms. Cass's class share information about communicating challenges when moving to new places. Students really took away learnings about the differences in how taxi drivers in different places can communicate with clients. Friday was Sports Day. Thankfully we weren't rained out, as students did a great job on their events! Thanks to Mrs. Milligan who took some great photos and shared them! They will be added to shared photo folder this week. Our week started with a great trip to the Botanic Garden where students communicated in a variety of ways with their teams. In her field trip reflection, Alina wrote that her best memory was "when we had to make a pyramid because it was about working together!" Ayesha wrote that "if we communicate, we can help each other and work together as a team." In math, students continued working with the values of numbers and were trying out some strategies for adding! Students really worked well using the base-ten blocks to show how ones/units can be traded in for a stick of 10! Student really showed their developing independence in Daily 5this week. I was very proud of students when they made choices in how to become better readers and writers. Some students choose to work on stories they are writing while others might work on their listening skills and listen to stories. To end the week, students got to meet their grade 6 buddies! Ice breakers and reading together was our focus this week. We look forward to more time together with the grade 6 students! |
Grade 2.2Students in G2.2 at ISS will contribute words of wisdom to the class blog weekly. Blogs to Read:
|