Happy Halloween!

It's no secret!  I am not a big fan of Halloween.  However, I have to honestly say that this year I actually enjoyed the day!  We had a lot of fun in Grade 2/3!  We started by carving our class pumpkin.  Almost everyone enjoyed sticking their hands into that goopy mess!  Yuck!  Afterwards, we wrote out the procedure for carving a pumpkin. Carving a pumpkin is a 'tradition' and traditions are passed on by explaining them step by step.  Great writing everyone!  Next, we attended the 'Change for Change' Carnival.  Students were able to select the activities they wanted to participate in and move freely within the gym.  Thank you for all of your generous donations! Finally, we went back to our class to enjoy some 'Halloween Centers' with a partner.  Students rotated through 4 out of 8 Centers and will continue the other 4 centers next day.  Ask your child to explain some of the centers you see pictured below.
It was a great day!  Happy Halloween!

Learning with Technology

This week, we had another incredible day of learning with the ipads.  We are exploring different games and apps that help to support our learning each time we have access to our ipads.  This week, we learned how to use an app called "popplet".

Popplet is the simplest tool to capture and organize your ideas. With Popplet you can quick jot down your ideas and sort them visually. 

First, we used our ipads to find out information/facts about pumpkins.  We used two familiar sources - Epic and Kidrex (a child friendly search engine).  After recording our information on paper, we learned how to either type it into 'popples' or dictate our information so it would appear in a popple.  Students had fun experimenting with this new app for the first time and were able to share many interesting facts about pumpkins using this tool.  

Later, we used the same app to show our understanding of 3 digit numbers.  Students put their number in a popple and then surrounded their number with other popples that showed the number in other ways (ie. words, base ten blocks, expanded form, addition/subtraction sentences).  For this task, we learned how to take a photo and insert it into a popple.  

It was great learning all around - literacy, numeracy and technolgy!  Students are gaining a lot of confidence using this learning tool to show their understanding of topics in a new way.  I can't wait to see what we can do with the ipads as the year progresses.

Repeating Patterns

We have been having a lot of fun creating, identifying and extending repeating patterns using a variety of materials in our classroom.  We are noticing different attributes that can change in a pattern such as colour, size, shape or position.  We demonstrated our understanding of patterns by drawing patterns and one day, we took pictures of each of the patterns we created and saved them in a 'pic collage' using ipads.  The pictures provide me with the proof I need that your child can create a variety of patterns.  We will continue to practice identifying the attribute that has changed in patterns and describing patterns using AB language.

Our Bean Seed Experiment

A couple of weeks ago, we planted some bean seeds so that we could learn how a seed grows and prove that a plant needs sunlight and water to grow.  We planted bean seeds in three separate baggies.   The seeds in the first baggie were given NO water but were placed in the window so they would get sun.  The seeds in the second baggie were given BOTH water and sun and the beans in the third baggie were given water but NO sun.  The last baggie was placed in the cupboard under the sink to prevent it from getting any sunlight.  We waited and watched and were amazed at what we noticed.  Students practiced drawing their observations and adding labels to explain what they observed.  They also practiced explaining their observations by writing about our experiment (method and observations).  These are skills that they will continue to develop in Science as the year progresses.

Ask your child to tell you about the bean seed experiment that we have been conducting in our class and what they learned from this experiment.

Great Big Crunch!

Thursday, October 20th was our 'Great Big Crunch' day.  This is the day that every student and teacher in the entire school enjoys an apple at the exact same time.  The collective 'crunch' was really fun to hear!  Students in Grade 2/3 were inspired to use ipads to locate some facts about apples.  We learned a lot of things about this fruit using Kidrex - a kid friendly search engine.  We also had two students who proved that eating an apple is the perfect way to get a wiggly tooth to finally pop out!  Congratualations on losing a tooth - Jordan and Vaughn!