Wednesday January 11th 2017
This morning students wrote: "Work on my reading log tonight." in their agendas.
While the grade 2 students were away for gym, grade 1's were tested on their sight words, and learned about the sense of hearing. We began by identifying what hearing is, and how we use it to interpret the world. The class walked through the school making sure they used their hearing to listen to the different sounds in a school.
Once back in the classroom, students listened to a few sounds, and tried to identify them... I asked the class if they could tell me how hearing works, and after some few interesting answers, we learned the real reason (the bones and neurons within the ear). We discussed how hearing can contribute to our safety and quality of life, and how it can help us to describe and identify our environment. We also learned about the limitations of our sense of hearing (high decibals and low decibals) and how people who have limited hearing abilities or no hearing at all adapt to their environment. We also learned about animals who have very good hearing, why their sense is so strong as well as the reason for which they need such good hearing... Finally, we talked about the different ways we could take care of our ears (in the hopes that blasting music through headphones will not be something your child is guilty of doing in the near future).
When the grade 2's returned, we read our French morning message, and completed calendar time. We then read a French clothing themed book, and students added a new clothing page to their dictionaries. They found all of the sounds they knew in the new dictionary page, and then students were asked to describe what they are wearing to a partner, followed by either writing about what they're wearing (g.1) or writing about what you need to wear outside to play in the snow and why you wear it (g.2)
After small recess and snack, 5 more students presented their HRTS posters which are continuing to remind us of the classroom and school expectations, we then completed a round of French Daily 5.
As a class, we practice telling and solving addition and subtraction stories, then the Grade 1's went off and reinforced the doubles we learned yesterday by creating their own domino doubles booklet (this will be sent home later this week!)
While the Grade 1's were busy making their doubles book, Grade 2's continued to recognize and describe characteristics of liquids. Today we compared oil and water. Students described and compared the flow of both the liquids, the shape of their drops, as well as the surface of calm water/oil. We then did a little experiment, where grade 2 students needed to mix water with oil. They were asked to observe and describe the interaction between the two liquids. We talked about the reason why the two liquids did not mix (different densities). In order to make that worldly connection, students were then led to learn about oil spills in the ocean, and the effect these have on our environment. Students were asked to explain why oil spills are not good, and to recognize human responsibilities for maintaining clean supplies of water, and identify actions that are taken to ensure that water supplies are safe.
Today in English, Grade 1 and 2 students learned, and practiced stretching out their writing. We made sure to remember that a reader wants to know everything in your story! Not just the bare bones, remember those details! TELL ME MORE!
In religion we learned about the birth of St. John the Baptist.
The class ended their day with Mme Dominique