Thank You!

Thank you to our many grownups who have volunteered for our upcoming field trips! I am happy to say that our class has more than enough volunteers at this time for both the Leighton Centre and Teacher's Pet. It is because of all of our wonderful volunteers that we can continue to provide amazing experiences for our students. Per Mrs. Taylor's email, some classes are still looking for volunteers for their upcoming off-site activities. If you are available for any of those dates/times, please let the office know. We would love to have you! 

If you have not yet signed the permission slip for the Leighton Centre, please do so and send it back with your child on Monday. 

We have had many class conversations recently about friendship, kindness, and keeping our hands to ourselves. Our class strives to be role models within the school and we have been working on asking to play with others, expressing our feelings politely, solving problems with our words (not our hands), and reaching out for help from an adult when needed. If you could support us in this endeavour by having conversations with your child about staying within their own personal bubble and staying out of others, that would be greatly appreciated. 

As always, be sure to read Mrs. Taylor's emails in full to stay up to date on school-wide information. 

Fun lunch- Coming up on May 26th. Please order on Healthy Hunger by May 21st. 

This week: 
Monday- FORMAL UNIFORM
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Library books due
Thursday- Homework due
Friday- NO SCHOOL (PD Day) 

Happy Mother's Day

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day celebrating yourself as moms, your partners, your own moms, your grandmothers, and any other mother figure in you and your children's lives. 

Please read below for what we have been up to in class and some important dates for future events. 

Writing- We will continue on with writing event/climbing stories. Students have worked hard to hone their skills writing great beginnings and we are now moving into writing about the main event. We will be practicing this in class and in the week's homework. 

Math- Students have been working on a 3D shapes project while also working on their fact fluency. In early April they set a class goal of getting over 400 problems correct collectively and in the last week of the month they achieved this goal! We celebrated by spending some extra time outside in the sunshine. I have loved to see their perseverance, dedication, and commitment to improving their skills and working as a group to reach this goal. As we now move into May, we will be setting goals for improving our subtraction scores as well. Be sure to practice these facts with your child at home to strengthen their math foundation before grade 3. 

Science- Room 15 has now finished our unit on Exploring Liquids and will soon be moving on to boats and buoyancy. Stay tuned for some exciting events and projects related to this new unit. 

Upcoming Field Trips: 

1) Thursday, May 26th 9am-11:15am In-School 

2) Tuesday, May 31st All Day Leighton Art Centre

If you are available to volunteer for either of these field trips, please send me an email ASAP. 

Thursday, May 12th is Kindergarten Orientation. If you have a child entering Kindergarten in the fall, please plan to be at the school from 6:30-7:30pm. 

This week: 
Monday- FORMAL UNIFORM
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Library books due
Thursday- 
Friday- Homework due

Hello room 15 families, 

As the year enters its last few weeks, please be sure to read the blog in full, regularly check your emails, and watch your child's homework folder for important information pertaining to field trips, plans for next year, and more. With just 8 weeks of school left, we are still learning in full force to prepare for expectations and academics of grade 3. 

Field Trips!

I am excited to share that the grade 2 classes have TWO field trips coming up! We are in need of volunteers for both. Information for each is below. If you can volunteer for one or both of these events, please send me an email ASAP. These enriching educational experiences would not be possible without the help of amazing volunteers, so thank you in advance. 

1) Thursday, May 26th 9am-11:15am In-School Teacher's Pet; This field trip invites an expert into our school to run the field trip from the comfort of our own classroom. Volunteers will be asked to facilitate a centre for students to enjoy. This field trip is on the topic of Boats and Buoyancy for our final Science unit. 

2) Tuesday, May 31st All Day Leighton Art Centre Rooms 14 and 15 will be taking a bus to the Leighton Centre for an art field trip! Volunteers will arrive at the school first thing in the morning and ride with the classes on the bus to the Leighton Centre. Once there, students will participate in nature exploration and an art project. We will return to the school in time for regular dismissal. This field trip requires volunteers sign an information sheet/permission slip, so let me know if you are interested and I will send it home in your child's homework book. 

Homework!

Thank you to all parents for guiding your children through their homework each week. If you have questions about specific topics or assignments in the homework, please reach out with enough time for me to respond or re-explain during class time. Homework remains as an expectation even as the weather gets warmer and new extra-curricular activities are starting. It is an important bridge between the classroom and home, and allows you, as parents, to see what we have been working on and get a glimpse of your child's understanding of some concepts. 

Monday- FORMAL UNIFORM (No golf shirts!); formal Eid clothes, if you celebrate (no jeans) 
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Hats on for Mental Health (with uniform); library books due
Thursday- 
Friday- Homework due

Upcoming Assembly!

This week we focused a lot on practicing for our amazing Willy Wonka performance! I am so proud of how well everyone performed on Thursday night. It was wonderful to have parents congregate once again to celebrate their accomplishments. 

There is no rest for grade 2, though, as we will now be moving along to practicing for our character assembly about fairness! Students are encouraged to practice their songs at home. The song is HERE and the lyrics are HERE and in the homework for them to practice. If your child was assigned as an emcee, they have brought a script home to practice. Our assembly will be on May 2nd, and will be recorded for parents to watch at home. 

Our assembly practice will be accompanied, of course, by lots of learning! Students will be working on their climbing stories, returning to learning about 3D shapes in math, continuing with their learning about communities in the past in social studies, and finishing up our unit on Liquids in science. 

Next week: 
Monday- FORMAL UNIFORM
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Library books due
Thursday- 
Friday- Homework due 

Willy Wonka Week

The week of the performance is finally here! 

Last week we had so much fun with rehearsals and Spring art! 

This week will be busy with many more rehearsals for Willy Wonka during the school day, culminating in our performance on Thursday night!

Students need to be at First Alliance Church between 6:00 and 6:15pm on Thursday evening. They cannot perform if they arrive late! Students are so excited to show you what they have been working on. 

Monday- NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Library books due
Thursday- Willy Wonka performance- school all day, then First Alliance Church at 6pm
Friday- Homework due

There are lots of things coming up for students and parents to be aware of, so please read this page thoroughly and watch your e-mails for any information. 

If you have sent in your forms and money for Willy Wonka tickets, you will be receiving your tickets the week of April 18th. It is a time-consuming process to assign all of the seats, and your physical ticket is required on the night of, so they will go out the week of the play. Rest assured, that all forms given to me have been brought to the office and time stamped, so seats can be assigned first-come, first-serve despite tickets all being handed out at the same time. 

Math- Students have been making goals for their mad minute addition. They have spent some time graphing their results and we have made personal and class goals, with steps on how we'll improve our fact fluency. You will notice there are mad minutes in the homework, and their class mad minutes will be going home starting this week so you can see how your child is doing and which facts are automatic and which are not. 

Writing- We have been working on developing our great beginnings, including an Action, Sound, Question, or Dialogue, then building on it to introduce the character and setting of the story. 

Social- Students have been looking at pictures of Calgary in the past and comparing them to the present. We are looking at how and why Calgary has changed and will soon be looking specifically at how the geography of the area has shaped its growth. 

Science- We continue to study and explore liquids! Students learned a lot about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and brainstormed what they could do to make a different for the water quality and animals in the ocean!

This week: 

Monday- FORMAL UNIFORM
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Library books due
Thursday- Homework due; FORMAL EASTER CLOTHES (for those who celebrate) 
Friday- NO SCHOOL (Good Friday) 

Felting, Assembly, WILLY WONKA!

Thank you, SO MUCH to our amazing volunteers who came in on Tuesday to help with felting! All of their art looks amazing! Check out the "pictures" page to see the process. 

School time is becoming increasingly busy with our Willy Wonka production fast approaching. Please have your child practice all of their assigned songs (posted to Mrs. Hawkins' blog page HERE) in anticipation of their performance on April 21st. 

Speaking of the concert, if you have not already handed in your ticket form, please do so early this week. There is a spot at the bottom to check off if you will not be attending, therefore ALL students should be bringing this form back. Tickets are $5 each with a limit of 4 tickets per family. 

We also have our own assembly coming up in early May. A video of this performance will be sent to grade 2 parents afterwards, so you have that to look forward to! Students in grade 2 are also performing a song about Fairness for this assembly. Scroll down to the last post to access the link to practice that. 

We continue to strive for perfect formal uniforms every Monday. We have not had 100% success in quite a while. Remember, golf shirts are not  to be worn on formal days- dress shirts only! We are also taking our rooftop photo (students on the lawn, photographer on the roof) on Monday. Formal uniform is extra important for this reason. 

If your child participates in Ramadan, they are invited to wear their formal Ramadan attire on Friday, April 8th. If you do not participate in Ramadan, then your child is to wear their uniform. 
If your child will be FASTING in any capacity for Ramadan, please email me to let me know, so I can support your child in this while they are at school. If they will be fasting, then they will be participating in alternate activities during recess and Gym to avoid dehydration and exhaustion, depending on the weather and activity. 

Monday- FORMAL UNIFORM
Tuesday- 
Wednesday- Library books due
Thursday-
Friday- Homework due; Ramadan clothing