2Y Weekly Newsletter
By Anne-Marie O'Donnell
STeP Conferences
Thank you for participating in last week's STeP Conferences. I know that the students were very excited and proud to have you in their classroom and show you their work. There were some great dialogues and a strong partnership between parent and child was established. I look forward to helping students achieve the goals set out in their conferences.
By now you will have received your invitations to FreshGrade, your child's digital portfolio. Although we looked at a few snippets during our STeP Conference, there is much more to see when you click on the pictures under the headings. As this is a form of communication and collaboration between us, please feel free to comment and provide feedback on what you see. I know your children will be encouraged by your support.
Research Using Non-Fiction Texts
The class exceeded my expectations with their ability to read their non-fiction texts and classify their owl information appropriately. Mrs. Nason and Mrs. Woodrow were on hand for additional guidance, but I was also pleased to see students collaborating on on their work. The research portion of this project is winding up and we will now focus on the demonstration of learning, based on student choice.
Spelling Practice
Due to the recent shorter school weeks, we temporarily changed our spelling days. We will now go back to the words going home on Mondays and the spelling test taking place on Fridays as usual.
We did some extra practice in class this week and the kids were so good, they could spell the words with their eyes closed!
Spelling game
Students loved this game whereby they had to spell the word I called out on a white board with their eyes closed.
Student Driven
This game was actually thought up by one of the students in the class, Victoria Ramirez-Garcia! It was so popular, I think she should patent it!
Diwali
Thursday, October 19th was the first day of Diwali. The newest member of our Grade 2 community, Anya Jerome, gave the class a brief history on the festival of lights and brought in some artifacts to share with us. She had some help from Olivia, who also has an extensive knowledge of this special holiday.
Field Trip
We are going to Mt. Doug by bus the afternoon of Tuesday, October, 24th departing at 12:15pm and returning to the school by 3:00pm. So far, Environment Canada is calling for a beautiful, sunny day with a temperature of 14C. We all know how quickly this can change, so please ensure that your child has all their necessary clothing at school, including rain boots, pants and jacket.
Learning Through Play
I believe in the importance of play for the promotion of a child's learning and development. There is much research to support this philosophy, however, I thought I would end off this newsletter with some evidence of my own as seen during Centre Time on Friday. These creations and activities were done completely independently and originated from the students themselves.