Last Day of School!

It has been a jam-packed, fun-filled last week of school and our last day was the busiest of all!  We played an 'end of the year' bingo game to find out what we would all be up to this summer.  We cleaned up the classroom by sorting our books, throwing out broken or worn out items and wiping out all buckets and bins!  Thanks for all your help Grade 2/3!  We also took a few minutes to reflect on our whole year together and everyone made a contribution to our final blog post!  We really have had a ball this year!

Noah- I liked when we made gingerbread houses.
Will- I liked when we made the board games.
Javi- I liked when we did the 3 little pigs play with our friends.
Peyton- I liked watching Fairie Tale theatre.
Tristan- I liked when Discovery Western came to our classroom.
Chloe-I liked that we were so busy every day that the time went fast and when our schedule got flopped.
James- I liked when we went tubing at River Valley.
Jorja- I liked when we helped mrs. Stacey clean up the entire classroom for the summer.
Owen- I liked when we went to the Public Library for stories and a craft.
Gavin- I liked the 'Think outside the Box' game.
Mac- I liked when we went to Wildwood and we made land art.
Vaughn- I liked when we went to Wildwood and we did the Monarch Migration orienteering game.
Savannah- I liked when we learned about butterflies and when we had caterpillars in the classroom.
Daniel- I liked when we went to Hearns Dairy and when we got to watch grade 5s do their play.
Brody- I liked when we went skating at the PRC.
Travis- I liked when we went to the splashpad.
Hannah- I liked when we went to Swim to Survive and we got to jump off the blocks and have races!
Jordan- I liked being at school and just hanging out with my friends.

Mrs. Stacey- I LOVED getting to know all these amazing students! They have impressed me so much with their growth in all areas!

We all loved the many Spirit days that we participated in this year like Twin Day, Career Day, Wacky Day, PJ Day, Pancake Day, Water Play Day, Jump Rope for Heart, Movie Day in the Gym etc.

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Have a wonderful summer!

Summer Reading!

Your child has worked very hard this year! According to research, students who do not read over the summer can lose as much as 22% of their reading level. 
You can help prevent this summer reading loss by encouraging your child to read over the summer. Try to read something everyday, whether it’s a book, recipe, or a menu. Every word counts.

Summer Reading Ideas
*Visit the public library   (They have a great summer reading program...see pics below)
*Visit the bookstore
*Listen to books while driving
 *Take turns reading
*Find fun places to read
*Try a new book series
 *Re-read an old favorite 
*Swap books with a friend 
*Find books at a thrift store
 *Read books about places you hope to visit one day 
*Have a family poetry reading night with a microphone
 *Have a reading picnic on a blanket outside
*Read books, then watch the movie version and compare. 

You could also read books online.  Here are some great websites to try:

Storyline Online—celebrities read aloud favorite children’s books
http://www.storylineonline.net

International Children’s Library—a large collection of stories from around the world
http://en.childrenslibrary.org

Storynory—a variety of fun and colorful stories to read online
http://www.storynory.com

PBS Kids—fun, animated stories perfect for reading along http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/ 

Here’s to making this a summer of reading! 

The Three Little Pigs

During our last few days of school, we worked in groups to put on a short "Reader's Theatre" of "The Three Little Pigs".  Students had to assign roles, practice lines and make simple props to tell the story.  It was a lot of fun to watch them working together one final time!  They did such an amazing job that we performed for Mrs. Rae's class and Mrs. Douglas's class also!  What a fantastic way to end the year!

Happy Birthday Canada!

In honour of Canada's 150th birthday, we spent some time researching this great country of ours! We recorded as many interesting facts as we could find.  Our research skills have really improved! We are able to locate key information using a variety of familiar, kid-friendly sites with greater independence and efficiency! We also watched a short video about the 10 most  popular places to visit in Canada! It was fun to take a trip from coast to coast without even leaving our classroom! Happy Birthday Canada!

Friday Fun!

We sure are lucky to be so close to the splashpad! What a fun way to end our week...splashing around with our friends!  Only 4 fun-filled days to go before summer holidays begin!

Public Library and Hearns Dairy

Somehow, we managed to get to the Library before that rain storm came down.  We didn't even get hit by a single drop!   It was nice to see Karen at the Library. We heard some fabulous stories, did a fun craft with Tina (the summer program co-ordination) and enjoyed our lunch upstairs picnic style.  We stayed at the library a little longer than we originally planned and played a fun game called 'Thinking Outside the Box'.  When the rain finally stopped, the sun started to shine and we went up the hill to Hearns Dairy! At Hearn's we relaxed with a cool treat which gave us just enough energy to make it back to the school. It was a fantastic way to spend the morning! 

Soil Science!

Students in Grade 2/3 are still working hard to achieve science expectations related to the 'Soils in the Environment' strand.  We have had the opportunity to observe different soil samples from various locations. We noted the living and non-living things in each sample. We learned about the nutrients contained in soil(N,P,K) and how these can be replaced to make sure plants have what they need to survive and grow healthy and strong ( fertilizers, composting). We closely examined  the 3 main types of soil (sand, clay, loam) and learned how the particle sizes in these types of soils determine their ability to hold water.  We are still hard at work!

Favourite Memories

Today we used our classroom blog to help us reflect on our entire school year.  We had a lot of fun looking at the pictures that have been posted and being reminded of interesting, informative  things we did each month and fun places we visited. It was personally gratifying for me to hear students say things like "oh....I remember when we did that...it was so fun". They encouraged each other to visit certain months on our blog to revisit memories of our year together and even asked if there was time to do certain things again!  If you would like to have this same experience with your child, ask them to take you on a trip down memory lane by visiting our blog at: gradetwothreeatlittlefalls.blogspot.com.

It really has been a fantastic year.

Swim to Survive -Day 3

Today was our final day in the swim to survive program.  I would like to congratulate these students for working so hard to build strength and endurance while practicing their swimming skills. I am so proud of each of you! Please stay safe around the water this summer!

June Art Projects

We were truly inspired by the work of Georgia O'Keefe when we looked at the amazing paintings produced by this very talented painter. 

Georgia O'Keeffe was famous for her large format flower paintings.  She died at the age of 98 but her beautiful paintings continue to be admired world-wide.  

After looking at several examples of her paintings, our class noticed some things that are specific to her style of painting.
* "There isn't very much background....it's all flower"
* "She doesn't usually have white showing on her paper...unless the flowers are white".
* "The outline and details of the flower are easy to see" 
* "The flower is HUGE....like it's a close up".

Armed with this new inspiration, we set out to create our own flowers.  I think ours are just as beautiful. 
We also used some of our art time to review kinds of lines when creating our 'Flip Flop Line Art'.
'Crumple Art' allowed us to revisit the idea of balanced colour in art pieces! 
Art is a favourite subject for many students in this classroom and you can certainly see from the pictures below that these students show a lot of skill and effort when producing their masterpieces! Bravo!