December 5th

Our Metis art from last week!

Happy week, everyone! We had a wonderful time learning together, and we’re excited to share what’s been happening in Grade 2.

Social Studies

We’ve been exploring the land and regions of Canada, with a special focus on Alberta. Students are becoming familiar with the provinces and territories and where they are located on the map.

Two songs we enjoy for learning the provinces are:

🎵 Canadian Provinces Song – Littlest Sound Sprite

🎵 Canada in My Pocket – Michael Mitchell

We are also practicing cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) using the model towns the students built and command cards such as “Place the hotel three blocks west of the museum.” Students used a compass rose to guide them.

Math

In math, we are practicing:
• Counting by 20s, 25s, and 50s
• Using number lines, the 1000 chart, and patterns
• Counting coins and learning about their names and values
• Counting by quarters using the Scratch Garden song

If you have spare change at home, please encourage your child to sort the coins into groups (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies, toonies) and practice skip-counting each group.

Example:
5¢, 10¢, 15¢, 20¢, 25¢
25¢, 50¢, 75¢, $1.00

Math “I Can” Statements (Alberta Curriculum)

• I can name Canadian coins and tell what each one is worth.
• I can count money up to one dollar using pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
• I can skip count forward and backward by 2s, 5s, 10s, 20s, and 25s.
• I can use patterns and number lines to help me count.
• I can use coins to show an amount in different ways.

Winter Count

Last week we created our own winter count. 

A winter count is a traditional Indigenous way of keeping history through pictures, with each image representing an important event from the year. The students loved choosing meaningful moments to record. We paused this video and took a close look at the events.

Language Arts

This week we wrote about our field trip to The Confluence. We started by making word webs and choosing important facts, then stretching those ideas into full sentences. Our goal right now is 5 to 7 sentences in a piece of writing.

We also learned about the three sounds of "ed":

Language Arts “I Can” Statements (Alberta Curriculum)

• I can generate and organize ideas before I write.
• I can write 5 to 7 complete sentences about one topic.
• I can use capitals, periods, and basic punctuation correctly.
• I can stretch out sounds in words to spell them the best I can.
• I can use describing words and details to make my writing clearer.
• I can reread my writing and make simple edits to improve it.

Reminders

• Red folders come back every Monday so students can exchange their books for home reading.
• We will take out library books next Thursday, but all books will be due the following week on Thursday, December 18. Library time will resume again in January.