What Are We Up To...

It's been a very busy 2 months of school and the days are flying by. I can't believe Halloween is next week...please save me know. Here's what's been happening in 2B.

Writer's Workshop:
In September the kids focused in on writing their ideas down. Some are still working on this while others are moving on to use Organization in their writing. They are learning how to use question leads and sound leads to create Bold Beginnings.
• They'll be moving onto learning how to write Mighty Middles and Excellent Endings.

Word Study:
They've learned the routines and activities we'll do while Ms. Brown works with small groups to teach them their sounds.
• Our first test is on Tuesday. You won't know how you did until Wed.
• New words will come home on Wednesdays - I think we'll take 2 weeks to do this next set of words again because we miss school on Friday and Halloween activities the following week.

Reading/Daily 5:
They've built up their stamina for being able to read independently for 20 minutes. I've finished the testing I needed to do and now I get to conference with students. They'll be picking a reading goal and strategy to work on during Daily 5 time. I can't wait to meet with each of them.
• Several reading strategies have been introduced and they have all been sent home. More will come home so please save them.
• They are working at building their stamina with Reading to Someone. Work on Words and Listening to Reading will be coming up next.

Math: (Ms. Brown's favourite subject to teach :-))
They've worked on knowing the words Compare, Build, Measure, Organize and Thinking. They've done a lot of work with building with Cuisenaire Rods (They are math manipulative used to help explain their thinking). They've built relationships, worked on building their visual memories, building equalities all to reach the goal of being able to use personal strategies to solve problems. They've measured length, height, and distance around then compared the measurements.
We'll be looking at how to measure the canoe/kayak as well as look at building larger numbers to 100 in the coming weeks.
Here are some photos of the Kayaks they built. I learned in my research that a traditional kayak is:
- The length of they kayak is 3 full arm spans long (from finger to finger)
- The cockpit is your hips plus 2 fists
- The depth of the kayak is your fist plus the hitchhikers thumb.
Interesting information, so we set out to build the length of what their kayaks would look like.

Look at how long they are. Some were very surprised. 

The length, distance around of cockpit and the depth of their kayak.

Helping each other measure.

Showing where he'd sit in his kayak.

So nicely labelled

Science/Social:
We're investigating Boats/Canoes and trying to answer the driving questions:
Why would the canoe be named as one of Canada's 7 Wonders of Canada?
• They'll work in building canoes/boats that are stable and can carry a load.
• They've tested to see what objects float and sink
• In the coming weeks, they'll learn more about Canada and the communities of the north, east and a prairie community.
I can't wait to share all that we learn about these communities.

In the coming weeks, we'll be prepping for our Halloween Party. The students will decide what they would like to do. We've also committed to decorating a Mini Christmas Tree for the Festival of Trees. I can't decide if we should be a Charlie Brown Tree or a Scaredy Squirrel Tree. I'll need to make a decision soon.

If you have any questions, please just email us. Or better yet, leave a comment so the students can learn how to respond and write good quality comments themselves.