Magnificent Magnets

Today we worked with the other grade 2 classroom to complete a word work activity. We had to brainstorm something we could eat for each letter of the alphabet. This was a good way for us to get to know friends in the other class as well as work on our best try spelling skills. Lots of us had to remember letter sounds we learned in grade one to complete some writing.

We continued to read the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We just learned about how Willy Wonka has put out a contest in the newspaper inviting any 5 children who find a lucky golden ticket in one of his chocolate bars into his factory. No one has come in or out of the factory in 10 years! We brainstormed how Charlie must be feeling about his chances of winning a golden ticket. Some of our ideas were: nervous, disappointed, scared, sad and hopeful.

We continued to find juicy vocabulary words from the chapters we read. Our new words from today were:

- dotty

- deserted

- astonishing

- marvelous

- glistening

Ask me the meaning of these words

We will be starting to go to the learning commons to take out books this week. Mr. Fisher's class will have library on Wednesdays and Ms. Binks's class will have library on Thursdays. It will be each student's responsibility to take out books and return them on time. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Binks will be reviewing "perfect fit" reading materials to help students with their choices. Each student will be able to take out 2 books at a time.

In science today we started a new unit about magnets. Some wonders we have about magnets are:

- what kind of metal do magnets stick to?

- if you stick a magnet to a computer will it break?

- what is the smallest magnet?

- how do magnets stick to metal?

- how far away does a magnet have to be from something to move it?

We will hopefully answer some of these questions as we continue to explore magnets! We will be starting some experiments with magnets later in the week.

This afternoon we started to talk about problems and problem solving strategies. We learned that there are 2 types of problems: big problems and small problems. Big problems are problems that we can not solve on our own and need to tell an adult about right away. They are when something scary and dangerous is happening or could happen. Some examples of big problems are:

- if someone is hurting you

- if there is a fire

- if we are having a lockdown

- if someone threatens to hurt you

Tomorrow we will look at small problems and learn 9 problem solving strategies that we can try on our own first before asking an adult for help.

Reminders:

- Please return school information packages if you have not already done so

- Digital citizenship forms need to be signed and returned in order for students to use technology

- A yellow form was sent home today about the FREE BBQ lunch that is being provided by parent council on September 15. If you would like to participate in the lunch the forms need to be returned by Friday September 11.

- Ms. Binks's class had a form sent home today about Chickadee magazine subscriptions. Students are asked to return the forms to Ms. Binks even if the answer is NO. If every form is returned, the class can earn things like free magazines that can be added into the classroom library.