Circle Time

In the last few weeks, we have started having circle time every morning.

It's a great time to check in to see how everyone is feeling!

When we listen to our classmates talk about their feelings, 

we are using our communication skills and our social skills. 

We know that it's our turn to share when the "wise owl" comes along!

When someone shares their feelings, everyone is caring and respectful. 

People share about things they are excited about, which zones they are in, 

what happened over the weekend, what's bothering them, and so on. 

Circle time is also a time to work together to solve problems.

  

We are discovering many different problem-solving strategies that we can use!

We hope you will all have an excellent week!

See you later alligator!

Self-Regulation

In grade 2, we have been inquiring about the different feelings we have. 

We realized that most of our feelings can be sorted into four "zones". 

When we are happy, calm, and ready to learn, we are in the green zone. 

When we start to get silly, distracted, upset, frustrated, or too excited, we are in the yellow zone. 

When we are angry, out of control, mean, or mad, we are in the red zone. 

When we feel sad, sick, tired or hurt, we are in the blue zone. 

When we notice we are not in the green zone, we need to stop and take a break. 

We choose a strategy to help us go back to the green zone so that we are ready to learn again. 

This is called self-regulating!

We can choose to hug a stuffy...

use a calming jar...

or go for a walk on the second floor. 

We always carry a sand timer to make sure we come back within five minutes. 

When we are learning, there are other strategies we can use to stay focused. 

When we would like to work or read quietly,
we choose to use these earmuffs which muffles out some of the sounds.

Don't worry; we can still hear the important instructions!

We can also use these "forcefields" to help us focus on what we are doing.

Happy self-regulating everyone!

*We are adapting a program called the Zones of Regulation which was developed by Leah Kuypers. 

If you would like to find out more about the program and self-regulation, please follow this link. 

Reading Unit in September

Hello everyone! Welcome to the first blog post of the school year!

In September, we started a language unit with a big idea "Readers build good habits." 

As a part of this unit, we all brought in our FAVOURITE books! 

We realized that there were different types of books, and that we all have preferences!

We are also learning about being respectful while having conversations. 

This means that we take turns to speak and listen.

During small group and circle discussions, we don't raise our hands.

 We need to really pay attention and avoid interrupting others,  just like grownups do! 

This skill takes lots of practice, but we are getting better!

Check of the different types of books we like!

During our breaks, we are a creative bunch and LOVE to build cool objects using different shapes. 

Here are a few designs we created. Look how proud we are!

Bye for now! We hope you all have a great week!

Multiplication Fun!

The grade two class has been exploring the concept of multiplication!

We have been very excited about finding out new strategies we can use to multiply two numbers. 

Some of us have even come up with our own strategies like Eason, Léon, and Rinne! 

What a group of thinkers!

As a class, we cooperated to create a multiplication table using arrays. 

Working hard...

Some of us even started to realize that there were patterns in the table.

Watch us use our social skills!

Phew! Finished!

We are also currently using various multiplication activities to strengthen our mental math skills. 

If you see a second grader with an origami folded like what Jules is holding above, ask them to give you a multiplication problem to solve!

Have a great week :)

Assembly!

Today we had our assembly related to the central idea, 

"Our uniqueness is expressed in creative and artistic ways". 

We planned out the whole assembly, including coming up with the dance moves, figuring out the orders and positions, and even designing the house we used as a prop!

Watch us express our uniqueness in different ways!

Cubism Self Portraits

Our unit with the central idea "our uniqueness is expressed in creative and artistic ways" is nearly coming to an end. 

We looked at some artwork by Pablo Picasso and realized that he created art using a style called cubism. 

In cubism, objects and people are looked at from different perspectives. 

One side of the face is viewed from the side, and the other side is viewed from the front. 

We decided to express our emotions using this technique. 

During this project, we had two questions is mind:

- How can we express our uniqueness?

- How can we express our emotions?

Some of us showed more than one emotion on the different sides of our faces!

 Can you tell how we were feeling when we created these portraits? 

Go ask the grade 2 students!

We are so proud of our work. 

Come take a look at our bulletin board downstairs for a closer look!