February 5-9th 

A Message from Ms Mandin - 

Grade 1&2

January was an exciting month in music as the grade 1 and 2 students explored the jazz genre. We listened to and watched a number of jazz performances to help us better recognize examples of musical improvisation and scat singing. The grade 1 and 2 students accompanied jazz songs using percussion instruments and syncopated rhythms. We have been working hard to learn the song “Just be Kind” by Stephanie Leavell for our upcoming friendship assembly. I am truly amazed at how quickly the students have been able to memorize the lyrics! We are looking forward to performing “Just be Kind” in our assembly on February 28th.


Science - we are continuing with our focus on energy but have switched to light. We started with a scavenger hunt to identify sources of light within our school where students categorized the sources into natural and artificial light sources. Our next steps were to explore light and how it behaves with different types of materials where students were focussing on their observational skills. Our next inquiry focused on the question - "How does light travel?". Students used index cards, and flashlights to determine if their hypothesis were accurate as they worked through the scientific method which includes making observations and analysis of those observations to draw a conclusion.  








Art/Writing - This week read the book, Sky Sisters by Jan Bourdeau Waboose as a provocation for our Light unit. From there we were inspired to create  artwork showcasing Aurora or Northern Lights.  Students used the medium of chalk pastels to create striking wintery night scenes. The next day we developed a word bank of nouns, verbs, and feelings words around the topic of Aurora. We then learned about the Japanese style of poetry called Cinquain where students inserted chosen words into the 5 line stanza format to produce their own poems about Auroras. These pieces turned out amazing and are a beautiful representation of learning!








Math - This week we turned our focus onto The Meaning of Addition and Subtraction. Addition always involves joining (also called combining), but subtraction is more complicated. Sometimes subtraction is used to describe the result of a takeaway situation (also called separation), sometimes it describes a comparison situation, and other times it describes how much more is needed (a missing-addend situation). By having a solid understanding of addition and subtraction situations students will be confident in choosing the operation needed to solve mathematical equations.

We also focused on different addition strategies such as counting on, doubles (4+4) and near doubles (4+4 +1). 


Phonics - this week we centered on silent letters: kn /n/ know, knob, wr /r/, write, wrong, mb /m/ thumb, comb

High frequency words we covered this week - next, hard, open, example, begin, life, always, those, both, paper. 


Buddies -  we spent time with our grade 6 buddies making Valentine's friendship crafts. 







 

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