Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day was celebrated on Friday, April 21st at Little Falls.  Unfortunately, it was a rainy afternoon and our class 'community clean up' was cut a bit short as we got caught in the rain. We did manage to collect some garbage while we were out and about but we were pleasantly surprised by how clean our designated area was.  It was a busy, short week.  Here are some other things we did:

We talked in class about ways to help our Earth be a better place and wrote these ideas down.
We talked about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling.  
We created posters to encourage others to care for our planet.  
We talked specifically about the importance of trees to the world and students wrote their thoughts on this down to enter a draw with the 'Nature Rangers' to win a little tree sapling!  
We tried to produce less litter in our classroom this week.  Thank you to all parents who helped participate in the 'litterless lunch challenge'.  We kept track of our litter each day and created a graph of the results.  
We did a 'making words' activity using the letters from Planet Earth.  We are getting really good at using word families to create many, many words in a short amount of time.  Great job!

Please help us look after our planet!  Happy Earth Day! 

3D Solids!

By the end of Grade 2/3 students should be able to:

- identify,describe and name various three- dimensional figures (i.e., cubes, prisms, pyramids) and 

sort and classify them by their geometric properties (i.e., number and shape of faces), using concrete materials (e.g.,“I separated the figures that have square faces from the ones that don’t.”); 

–  create models and skeletons of prisms and pyramids, using concrete materials (e.g. connection math set, pipecleaners and  straws or sticks and modelling clay) and construct prisms/pyramids from paper nets noting the number and shape of faces, number of edges and number of verticies.

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  We have had a lot of fun working on these curriculum expectations in class.  
• *We wrote clues to describe the 3D solids.  
• *We sorted models of 3D solids according to many different sorting rules and then showed this thinking using paper pictures.  
• *We practiced comparing different 3D solids by finding the similarities and differences in number/shape of faces, edges and vertices and recording our thinking in words.  
• The proof is in the pictures!  Enjoy! 

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Area and Perimeter!

Our class has had a lot of fun measuring the Perimeter and Area of different objects and shapes.  When measuring perimeter, we used coloured tiles, link its, straws, sticks and of course centimeters. We placed these measuring tools all the way around the outside of an object.   When measuring area, we used coloured tiles and different pattern blocks, playing cards and index cards to completely cover an object. We noticed that the size of the measuring tool is really important.  The bigger the tool....the fewer you need to measure and the easier and faster it is to measure.  When the measuring tool is small, you need a lot of them and it takes longer to go all the way around an object or cover the object.  

We have also practiced drawing figures using blocks and the geoboards and determining the area and perimeter of those figures.  We showed our understanding of Perimeter and Area through games, hands on measurement. activities and through paper pencil tasks that involved drawing and determining the area or perimeter on paper!  Great work everyone!  

Lambs in School!

On Friday, Hannah's Grandma and Grandpa (Janet and Andy) brought some little lambs into our classroom for a visit.  They taught us a lot about the lambs and also about mother sheep (ewes) and the father sheep (rams). We learned about what sheep/lambs eat and some things they have to do to on the farm to keep lambs healthy.  We even got to bottle feed these lambs.  We learned about the 'shearing process' and special features of sheep wool. We talked about sheep being taken to market, the cost of each sheep and sheep meat products.  It was a very informative morning!  We all learned things that we didn't know about sheep.  Ask your child to tell you some fun facts about sheep!

Brush-a-Rama!

On Friday, our school had a visit from a local Dentist to remind us about dental health.  In class, we reviewed ways to make sure we keep a healthy smile and even wrote these tips down.  We sorted smart/healthy snacks from snacks that would promote tooth decay to help us remember to make wise food choices.  We also watched a short video that reminded us of proper tooth-brushing technique!  At the end of the day, your child received a new toothbrush and a Brush-a-Rama contest calendar.  Please encourage your child to brush their teeth 3 times per day for 3 minutes each time.  If they do this, you can initial their calendar.  At the end of the month, all students who return their calendars will be entered in a draw for a fabulous prize!  Happy Brushing everyone!  

World Travellers!

Our class had been working on our research skills. 
We use books and the iPads to gather important information about a topic.
We have discovered how useful non-fiction text features can be.  The table of contents or the index are the best places to look for specific things you want to know.  "If you look there, they you don't have to look through the whole book for the information you want to know...it tells you what page to go to and you can find it right away". 

Recently, our research has specifically helped us in the achievement of the following Grade 2 Ministry Curriculum Expectations:

Social Studies:  
*demonstrate the ability to extract information on the location and climate of a region from photographs and print, digital, and/or interactive maps

*identify basic human needs (e.g., for food, water, clothing, transportation, shelter), and describe some ways in which people in communities around the world meet these needs (e.g., food: hunting, farming, shopping at grocery stores; transportation::  on foot, using animals, using motorized vehicles, by water)
*describe selected communities around the world, with reference to their major physical features, wildlife, and some aspects of their culture (e.g., physical features such as mountains, lakes, rivers; native animals; cultural practices related to food, clothing, recreation, the arts)
*describe similarities and differences between their community and a community in a different region in the world (e.g., with respect to food, clothing, housing, beliefs, climate, ora and fauna, recreation, agricultural practice

World Autism Day - Wearing Blue!

Today, we all showed our support for people with Autism by wearing the colour blue.  In our classroom, we read a fantastic book about a child with autism and his friend who helps him each day to feel included, experience success and stay calm.  After reading, we tried to record all the things we had learned about 'Matt', the child with autism.  We also recorded a list of things we can do to help a friend that has autism.  We have some wonderful friends in this class!  Thank you for your effort to learn about autism today and for remembering to be inclusive, helpful and understanding with ALL of your friends at Little Falls and especially those who have autism!

Crazy Hair Day

We had a great 'Crazy Hair Day' on Friday, March 31st!  We did lots of 'crazy hair' activities to keep our learning relevant to the day and help us 'make connections' to a picture book character named Stanley that was celebrating 'Crazy Hair Day' too.
* While reading, we looked for ways to describe Stanley and then found evidence from the text to support our thinking.
*  We created 'Acrostic Poems' about 'crazy hair'.
*  In Art, we used 'blow painting' to create 'crazy hair' and enjoyed watching the primary colours mix to create the secondary colours!