Rapunzel

Today, we talked about Fairy Tales.  We listed as many examples as we could think of and noted some features/language that is used in most fairy tales.  

*Once upon a time

*Far, far away

*Long, long ago

*They all lived happily, ever after

*Good vs Evil characters

*magic

*animals can do 'people things'

*royal characters - king, queen, prince, princess

*characters learn a lesson

We read the story "Rapunzel".  We stopped at key spots in the story to discuss the beginning, middle and end.  At each stopping point, students were asked to retell the 'key information' from that part of the story.  Students did an amazing job on this.  Ask your child to retell the story for you at home.  

After reading the old/traditional version of this story, we were treated to a live performance of Rapunzel by the 'Big Kids Entertainment' group.  The new/modern version of the tale was quite different.  The live performance encouraged students to like and believe in themselves, appreciate what we have, and develop a growth mindset that allows us to grow and improve at things we didn't think we could do.  We enjoyed the show and the opportunity to meet with one of the actors afterwards.  

Multiplication Fun!

By the end of Grade 2, students should be able to represent and explain, through investigation using concrete materials and drawings, multiplication as the combining of equal groups.  By the end of Grade 3, students need to multiply to 7X7 using a variety of strategies (arrays, skipcounting) and relate multiplication to real life situations in order to solve problems. 

In class, we have been playing a variety of multiplication games in order to practice our facts.  We have been using 2 dice which allows us to practice multiplication facts to 6X6.  

*We soon figured out that 0X and 1X tables were easy for us.  

*We have learned how to find the answer or 'product' by drawing the equal groups, skip counting (which is especially easy for 2X, 5X and 10X tables) and building/drawing/counting array models.  

*We know that 3X4 means "3 groups with 4 in each group" or "3 rows with 4 in each row".

*We can also think of multiplication as 'repeated addition' so 3X6 is the same as 6+6+6=18

Please continue to help your child see the patterns in the multiplication tables and practice these facts at home.  At school we will continue to work on this and will begin applying this new skill to problem solving situations. (Example:  How may wheels are there on 6 tricycles?...think 6X3=___

Art! Inspired by Books and Other Artists

We were inspired by the book "Mouse Paint" to try mixing the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) to create the secondary colours (orange, green, purple).  We learned that adding more or less of one colour can really change the end result.  After mixing our paints, we used paper and scissors to create our own little mice like the ones from the book.  

We were also inspired by the work of Ted Harrison and tried to use his techniques to create artwork that we decided to call "Here Comes the Sun".  We considered  space, lines and also discussed the use of warm colours for the sunny parts (red, yellow, orange, pink) and cool colours for the ground/water (blue, green, purple).  This was our first time using oil pastels and we learned a lot about this art medium.  Small even strokes with pressure or circular colouring seemed to produce the darkest colour and provided the best paper coverage.  These are still a work in progress as we plan to add a black paper image (innukshuk, animal) as Ted Harrison's work often includes these in the foreground!  

 

         

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Today, we celebrated Dr. Seuss's Birthday in our classroom.  
*We noticed features of Dr. Seuss's books (rhymes, nonsense words, funny characters) and had fun making as many rhyming words as we could.  
*We played a fun Dr. Seuss themed math game that helped us practice our adding facts and coloured a 'hidden picture' to reveal one of Dr. Seuss's famous characters!  
*We read Dr. Seuss books with a buddy and read a short biography about Dr. Seuss to practice finding evidence in a text to answer questions.  
*We also read my favourite Dr. Seuss book, "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are".  After reading the book (and laughing at the pictures), we discussed all the things that we are lucky to have and the things we are lucky we don't have to worry about! 
The writing we did on this topic was a pleasure to read.  We really are a lucky bunch!