50 Spelling Words

Here are the 50 spelling words for the week. These are all words that students should already know from previous weeks.

add

ask

came

name

ride

bone

save

kite

cute

mine

be

see

got

she

sheep

shop

queen

green

bee

he

no

go

going

most

kind

find

gave

so

do

doing

the

that

them

day

may

made

was

of

if

a

some

come

home

fun

funny

run

running

ran

us

use

place

make

making

help

here

want

nice

to

two

into

Welcome Ms. Zimmermann!

This morning we met our new teacher, Ms. Zimmermann! We were very excited to hear all about her and ask some questions. Here are things that we learned about her:
- Her favourite colour is green
- She likes to paint
- Her favourite adult book to read is called Rescue Me
- Her favourite kid book to read is called The Day the Crayons Quit
- Her favourite animal is the koala bear
- She likes art like me (Allison)
- She is from Ontario and the rest of her family is still in Ontario
- She loves teaching

We do not have new spelling words this week. Last week was our tenth week of spelling. This week we will be reviewing the 50 words we learned from weeks 5-10. Ms. Binks will post all of these words separately. Please remember that because we do not have school on Friday, our spelling test will be on Thursday.

We continued our research on either gorillas or dogs today. Students have been encouraged to make sure they are focused and writing down information because they will be evaluating themselves and their group members later in the week. We will also begin taking the information we recorded and using it to make a special project to teach the other grade 2s about our animals.

This afternoon we came together with Ms. G's class to do activities around healthy eating. We listened to a story about a goat named Gregory who began to frustrate his parents because of all the things he wanted to eat. We learned from the story that it is important to have good eating habits and a good balance of healthy choices and sometimes choices. After the story we played a game. One of the teachers put a picture of a food on our back. We had to ask other students yes/no questions to try and figure out what food we had. Once we did that, we had to decide what food group our food belonged to. We could choose from meats and alternatives, fruit and vegetables, grains, dairy or other. Some the foods we had included:
- Flour
- Cottage cheese
- Tomatos
- Raspberries
- Peas
- Apples
- Ketchup

After we played the game, we created a sketchbook page to show what we learned. We had to list the food groups, draw 3 foods that belonged in that group and then write one fact. Ask me about some of the foods and facts I included in my sketchbook.

Reminders:
- Book fair starts tomorrow. We will be browsing/buying the book fair during our regular scheduled library times. Students have been asked to bring their money on their library day. The book fair will also be open during conferences
- Booking for conferences is now open. Please make sure you sign up to come either Thursday night or Friday morning
- There is no school for students on Friday

Happy Friday!

Good afternoon,

We started today with morning activity. We had to create a square that was 30cm on all sides. We used a ruler to measure our squares and cut them out.

After morning activity, we played bingo. Congratulations to today's winner. We did our spelling test. The students had to pay close attention to the sentences. The test included the homophones; to, two, too.

After gym we continued reading The One and Only Ivan. We learned more about our new character, Ruby. She is a baby elephant who likes to ask lots of questions. She asked Ivan all about life at the mall. We wrote some predictions about what we think  will happen next in our story.

This afternoon we did a quick read and then we worked on Social Studies. We learned about the province of manitoba. We had to write 5 facts and draw 5 pictures in our sketch books.

After social studies we met up with Mrs. G's class. We used the squares we made this morning to do some measuring. We laid them out to see how big Ivan's domain is. Then, we discussed if we think that is a lot of space or just a little space.

Reminder, t-shirt orders are due Monday!

Have a great weekend!

Spelling Test Tomorrow

This morning we started to draw pictures of what we think our brains look like. We had to draw pictures of what we see or how we think our brain works. Then we had to write sentences explaining our brains. We will continue to work on this writing tomorrow and share our brains with each other tomorrow.

We continued to work on our Picasso art projects. Today we added thick black lines and background colours to make our faces pop! Thank you to those students who completed Picasso artwork at home or found interesting facts about Picasso! We are super impressed with the future artists we have in both rooms!

In novel study today we met Ruby, the baby elephant. She was very quiet and scared to come to Big Top Mall. Stella had to coax her out of a truck and get her into the domain. We learned that Ruby had been born in the wild and then sold to a circus after her entire family was killed. We talked about our feelings around this happening to Ruby and what we could do to help animals.

This afternoon in math we continued our work around measurement. We revisited our discussion about how Ivan's domain is 40 feet by 40 feet. We each had to share an object we had chosen in the classroom that we thought showed 1 foot. Ms. Binks was very surprised that no one chose to use their own foot! We traced some of our feet, Ms. Binks's foot and Mr. Sadowsky's foot to show how different they could be. We talked about how this was using non-standard units of measurement because the unit kept changing. We talked about how we needed to change feet to cm in order to use standard units of measurement. Mr. Fisher told us how there are 30.48 cm in one foot. Tomorrow we will be creating our own square feet and placing them together to see how large Ivan's domain actually is.

We had buddies today only this time it was with our friends in grades 5 and 6. Some of us read while another group of us made cards or pictures for the students who were hurt in the hit and run. It was very heartwarming to see the caring messages and bright and colourful pictures that were made. Our cards and pictures will be passed on to the family.

Reminders:
- Spelling test is tomorrow
- Please bring home reading sheets tomorrow for marbles
- It is Ms. Binks's last day as our teacher tomorrow. Ms. Zimmerman starts on Monday.

Fun lunch is tomorrow

This morning we worked in partners to complete task cards to practice our spelling words! Make sure when you are practicing at home to think about homophones (to, two, too) word families (ake, ice) and how to properly add the ing to words that originally end in e.

We were invited into Mrs. Cokar's kindergarten class to have a chance to be the "big buddies" and read to her students. We were very excited to be in this role. We were asked to share some thoughts about our buddy time. Some ideas we had were:
- It was fun when we reading the books
- I liked that I was reading buddies with my neighbour
- I read to my friend's little sister
- I got a buddy who had the name Max
- I liked that I got to read with my sister
- I liked how my new buddy was

Ms. Binks's class continued their research on gorillas today. We were using a link through the Learn Alberta website. Students were asking how to access this at home...here it is!
Go to www.learnalberta.ca
Click on English
Click on the tab Online Reference Centre
Click on Amazing Animals of the World
You may need access to use this site: login: LA06  password: 4105

This afternoon we completed some art inspired by the work of Pablo Picasso. We heard Picasso mentioned in our novel study and wondered why Mac compared Ivan's work to Picasso's. We watched a video of the story When Pigasso Met Mootisse to give us an idea of the style of Picasso. We learned that he had many different styles of art but was best known for Cubism. This style is when you draw or paint an object and show all of its sides to fill up the page. He was also known for abstract art which is art that is not realistic. This can be seen in distorted faces and bodies and use of bright colors. We began to create our own abstract self portraits. To start we had to draw a profile of our face. We then added a new section of the face but this time it was facing forward. We then added in hair, shoulders and a neck. We drew the outline of our face using light coloured pencil crayons. Once our face was drawn we started to use oil pastel to add in bright colors. We will complete our projects tomorrow morning.


Reminders:
- Home reading can be brought in on Friday
- Remember to practice spelling!
- Fun lunch is tomorrow. If you ordered fun lunch please make sure you still bring a snack
- Ms. Binks class has library tomorrow
- We would appreciate more donations towards Movember

Ivan's Home

Good afternoon,

This morning we started by doing some writing for morning activity. We wrote about our dream house. We had to include some things we wanted and some things we needed. We talked about the difference between wants and needs.

After morning activity, we did some work on our novel study. We watched a video about Ivan, the real life gorilla that our book is based on. We saw the enclosure Ivan lived in at the mall and talked about the things he had in his enclosure.

Following the video, we made a chart about the different places Ivan has lived. So far we know about two places Ivan has lived. We attached sticky notes to the chart that showed all the things Ivan would have in his domain and in the jungle.

After gym we read a couple of chapters from our book. We met a new character named Ruby, she is a baby elephant. Stella, the older elephant was worried that a baby elephant was being brought to the mall.

We continued working on our animal research project today. The students are finding out lots of good information for their projects.

This afternoon we had a conversation about the recent accident in our community. We gave the students the opportunity to ask questions or discuss how they feel. We gave the students the current facts about the hit and run as they were given to the school. The only things discussed were those in the letter that has been sent out to families. The students were very eager to help the family and want to make cards for the students involved.

We also reviewed the "point, pause, proceed," strategy of crossing the street. We made sure students have a clear understanding of the steps involved. The students brainstormed about what each step entails and created a sketch book page about them.

Remember, our movember fundraiser is still going on! Our class was in the lead but the grade ones have surpassed us. We are challenging students to bring in donations for the rest of this week.

Room 7 has library tomorrow, please remember to bring your book.

If you are returning your dental screening please have it in by tomorrow.

Have a great evening!

New Word Wall Words

For morning activity this morning we wrote questions to Ms. Zimmerman who will be taking over for Ms. Binks next week. Some of the things that we wondered were:
- What is your favourite color?
- Do you like to paint?
- Do you have any pets? If you do, what type of pets and how many?
- Do you like to read or do math?
- How old are you?
- Do you like sports?
- What is your favourite animal?
- Have you read or watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

We also wanted to tell her about what it is like in grade 2 and Beddington Heights. Our ideas included:
- Welcome to the school
- We do pillars of care and there are 4
- Grade 2s are the best
- This class is crazy
- Grade 2s are working towards showing more respect towards the books that belong to Ms. Binks and Mr. Fisher

We learned a new letter blend today: ow and ou. The action to help us remember this blend sound is to hold our head and say ow! We had to brainstorm words that had the ow or ou sounds in them. Some of our ideas were:
OW: owl, brown, vowel, town, towel
OU: mouse, house, cloud, loud, sound

Mr. Fisher continued to read our novel today. In today's chapters, Ivan drew a beetle. There is also a new animal coming. Stella thinks the new animal is a baby elephant because she told Ivan she could smell it. We talked about how Ivan and Stella were upset about the fact that a baby elephant might be coming because the mall would not have everything the baby needs, it might cry because it is away from its family and Stella's foot hurts so she might not be able to take care of it. We are excited to see what the new animal turns out to be.

Both classes started research projects today about gorillas or dogs. We talked about the importance of picking out the big facts when we are reading information. We practiced reading facts and figuring out what categories the fact could go under when we write it down. We also talked about how to use point form to record the important information. Students will be using computers and books to find information about their animal. We will be creating something later on to teach the other grade 2s about our animal.

We have our new spelling words for the week. They are:
1) place
2) make
3) making
4) help
5) here
6) want
7) nice
8) to
9) two
10) into

We talked about the homophones to, two and too. Please make sure you practice using these words correctly for the spelling test. Too will most likely be a bonus word. Here are some sentences to give examples:
TO: I went to the store to buy groceries.
TWO: I have two older brothers. (the number 2)
TOO: I really like to eat ice cream too. (as well as or in addition to)

Reminders:
- Dental forms are due on November 25
- Please read and review the important information sent home on the yellow forms tonight. We will be continuing to support student safety through discussions and activities this week.
- Fun lunch is on Thursday

Learn Alberta Link

Learn Alberta

No Bullies Allowed!!

Good afternoon,

This morning we started with bingo. We used our words from the last couple of weeks. Congratulations to the winners.

After bingo we did our spelling test. Marked tests will be coming home today. Reminder, all of the bonus words build on our spelling words. Use those words to figure out how to spell your words.

For the last few minutes before gym we worked on a template for a shirt that would be used for an anti-bullying campaign. We continued this work after gym.

After recess, room 8 had music and room 7 began work on their animal research project.

We read a story called Howard B. Wigglebottom Listens to His Heart. It is about staying true to yourself even when you are different. Howard really likes to dance but other kids make fun of him. He tries different hobbies to fit in, nothing feels right. His grandfather tells him to "listen to his heart." Howard sticks with dancing and ends up impressing all of his friends.

This afternoon room 8 had library. While they were in library room 7 did health. We learned about our inner coach and our inner critic. Our inner critic tells us mean things about ourself. We can use our inner coach to help when we are having bad thoughts.

We finished our afternoon with a visual representation of a poem about bullying.

Movember is still going on! Room 7 and 8 are currently in the lead for the most money raised. We would love to keep our lead going. Remember, you are voting for the WORST mustache.

Reminder, there is no school for students tomorrow!

Blue Shirt Day Tomorrow

This morning we worked on task cards to practice our spelling words. Reminder: our spelling test is tomorrow due to no school on Friday! Please make sure you are practicing the tricky words that don't match our regular spelling rules like some and come. Make sure you are practicing rhyming words and homophones for the spelling words since they will likely be bonus words!

We watched a few short videos today about bullying. We talked about how bullying is when one or more people continually bother someone and hurt them physically or emotionally. We talked about a bullying pledge and repeated it. The bully blocker pledge is:
- I will not bully other students
- I will help students who are being bullied by speaking out and getting adult help
- I will include students who are left out

As part of bully awareness week our classes are adding on to ideas in the Learning Commons about how we can make Beddington Heights a bully free school. Ask me to share to some of my ideas!

This afternoon we had to use our background knowledge to try and decide how big 1 foot is. The reason we are talking about using feet for measurement is because Ivan's domain is 40 feet by 40 feet. Some items we thought showed 1 foot were:
- markers
- glue stick
- marble jar
- middle bin
- books
We will continue to use our measurement skills to determine the actual size of Ivan's domain in the upcoming weeks.

This afternoon we had a special surprise...Mr. Willy Wonka wrote back to Ms. Binks! He sent his letter in a golden envelope and sent some gifts of gratitude...Wonka candy! We were all very excited to hear back from Mr. Wonka. Students who wrote to him were told to put the candy in their backpack and show it to parents when they got home before eating it. A picture of the envelope is below:

Reminders:
- Blue shirt day to show support for anti-bullying is tomorrow
- Ms. Binks class has library
- Spelling test tomorrow
- Please bring back home reading sheets for marbles tomorrow
- Ms. Binks class had forms sent home about new tshirts and hoodies to order if interested
- Dental forms need to be returned by November 25

Calgary Firefighters Toy Association Christmas Party

Dear Parents:

The Calgary Firefighters Toy Association hosts an annual Christmas party for families who may require some form of assistance during the festive season. If you feel you may need some support this holiday season and would like your children to be considered to attend the party on December 20^th at the Stampede Corral, please pick up a form at the office and return to Karon Hayes, Assistant Principal. Please note this is only for children 12 years of age or younger. There are a maximum number of children that can be accepted and applicants are chosen on a first come first serve basis. If you have any questions, please contact Karon at (403) 777-6610. There is a deadline for applications so please contact Karon no later than Wednesday, November 18, 2015.

Respectfully,

Karon Hayes, Assistant Principal, Beddington Heights School 

Home Reading Program...For All The Marbles

Today we started our home reading program. Each student was given a ziplock bag with a pink booklet, a white tracking sheet and 2 books from the classroom home reading collection. Students are responsible for reading at least 20 minutes per night. Students may read their home reading leveled books as well as library books, books from home or other resources.

Each student chose 2 books that are leveled for their reading. If students find that these books are too easy or too difficult, they may let their teacher know and we will adjust the level accordingly.

The white tracking sheet should be completed each time a student reads. You are responsible to fill in the title of the book, how many minutes it was read for, parent initials that show the student did read for this time and student initials. Students may read to themselves, to someone else, or with someone else. We are asking that students read for at least 20 minutes per night. Each Friday (or end of the week if there is no school on Fridays) students are responsible for bringing back their tracking sheet. Ms. Binks and Mr. Fisher will total the number of minutes read for the week. For every 20 minutes, students will receive a marble to put in a jar. When the jar is full, the students who contributed will decided on a reward.

The pink booklet may stay at home. This has information for parents to help students with their reading. There is information about the importance of reading 20 minutes a day as well as questions and strategies to help build comprehension and fluency. We will be using the same strategies outlined in the booklet within the classroom to help students build their reading skills.

If you have any further questions about the home reading program please contact Ms. Binks or Mr. Fisher

Home Reading Started

Today for morning activity we had to work through problems involving days of the week and months of the year. We were able to use a yearly calendar to help us find the answers. Some of us are still finding these problems tricky. We will continue to work on this skill for the rest of the week.

This morning Ms. Binks explained our new home reading program and how we can earn marbles towards a reward. Please see the separate blog post for a better explanation.

Today we learned new letter blends for one sound. The blends were "er", "ur" and "ir"
We had to work in partners to brainstorm words that had each of these sounds in them.
For er some words we found were:
- river
- Movember
- November
- her

For ur some words we found were:
- Saturday
- sure
- turn
- your
- fur
- curling

For ir some words we found were:
- Irving
- first
- third
- twirling

We will continue to learn letter blends to help us with our spelling, writing and reading skills.

This afternoon in social studies, we mapped the 3 prairie provinces. They are Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We also mapped communities in each province which included Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. We are excited to begin a more in depth look at the prairie community of Calgary in the upcoming weeks.

We will be beginning another project involving Mrs. Grunerts class around our novel study. Students will use their knowledge of measurement to create life-size animals, a domain for Ivan and dioramas. To begin this project we brainstormed ideas about Ivan's domain to complete these sentences:
- Is as big as...
- Is smaller than...
- Is bigger than...

Ask me about some ideas we brainstormed as a class!

Reminders:
- Fun lunch orders are due TOMORROW
- Picture re-takes are tomorrow. Please bring your original proofs with you
- Mr. Fisher's class has library tomorrow
- We are still accepting money for Movember. So far the school has raised $27.00. Our goal is $300.00. We would appreciate any donations to help reach that goal
- Important information about Dental program sent home
- Swimming report cards sent home

Home reading starts soon!

Good afternoon,

Today we started with morning activity. We did writing about what kind animal we would become if that was possible. We had to explain why and write at least eight sentences. Some of our animals were; a lion, a dinosaur, a great white shark, a white tiger, a dog, a sheep, and a pegasus.

After morning activity we got our new spelling words. It's important to practice the homophones this week because they could be bonus words.

The new spelling words are,

some
come
home
fun
funny
run
running
ran
us
use

This morning we read more from our novel. We met a new character today who is named Julia. She loves to colour and draw just like Ivan. Ivan loves Julia's imagination. She is able to think of lots of things to draw.

Fun lunch orders are due on Wednesday. We will accept book orders until tomorrow.

Movember is still happening. They are hoping to raise $300. Please donate if you can!

We are starting home reading tomorrow. Please bring in a large ziploc bag for your books. If you have any extra we would appreciate it if your bring them.

Pointillism

Good afternoon,

We had a guest teacher in for Ms. Binks today.

We started our day with morning activity. We played hangman or word scramble with a partner. After that we played bingo with some of our spelling words, congratulations to our winners.

We had our spelling test today, the results will come home on Monday as they were not able to be marked in time.

After gym we read from our novel, The One and Only Ivan. We learned about a new character today, named Bob. He's a stray dog who lives near the mall. We learned about what a stray dog is and talked about animal shelters.

Following recess room 8 had music and room 7 did ketchup.

We started our afternoon with a quick read. After reading we did social studies. We did a self assessment of the map we made of our bedroom. We had a check list of the things we needed and wrote about what we did well. We gave ourselves a mark and explained why.

We had another fire drill today! It was a pre scheduled fire drill. The students did well exciting the school. We are working on staying quiet outside.

To finish off our day we did art. We learned an art technique called Pointillism. In pointillism you make tiny dots or lines to fill up a space. The students used colours that were in a similar palette. They layered them over top of each other to create texture.

Movember is still going. You can still bring in donations. Reminder, we are voting for the WORST mustache.

We are still doing our We Scare Hunger drive. You can bring in non perishable food items until the end of the month.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Guest Teachers!

Good afternoon,

This morning we had a guest teacher in for Mr. Fisher.

This morning we started by writing about what kind of superhero we would be for morning activity. We had to write 8 sentences and explain our ideas. We had  to talk about if we would have a secret identity or if we would have a hide out.

After that we had an unexpected fire drill. There was a mechanical issue with the fire alarm. The students did quite well and were very patient while we waited.

Following the fire drill we finished our superhero writing and then we read our novel study The One and Only Ivan. We read about another animal at the mall, named Stella. Stella is an elephant. We drew a picture of Stella in our sketchbook.

This afternoon we continued our work on calendars. We looked at all of the months and found some similarities and differences within the months.

Have a great evening!

No School Tomorrow!

Good afternoon,

This morning we started by counting all of our  Movember donations. Thank you to those students who brought in a dollar to vote! Today, Mr. Sadowsky got the most votes for the the worst mustache. He has a total of 14 votes. Students can continue to bring in donations until the end of the month.

We also counted up all of food bank donations and we got 34 donations which surpassed our goal! Students can continue to bring donations until the end of the week! We would love to see if we could double the 34 items!

After this, we did morning activity. This morning we did problems about the days of the week. Students had to figure out how many days were in 3 weeks, and solve problems where they had to count up on the calendar. Ask your child to show you an example of the problems tonight!

Before we had our Remembrance Day assembly we read a book called "What Does Peace Feel Like?" We wrote and did some drawings about what peace looks like, feels like, smells like, tastes likes, and sounds like. Some examples were:
- Peace feels like the softest bunny
- Peace smells like a pepperoni pizza coming out of the oven
- Peace looks like the sun rising in the sky
- Peace tastes like if you mix chocolate and vanilla ice cream together
- Peace sounds like the water in a waterfall

Our Remembrance Day assembly this morning was very well done by the students in grades 3/4 and 5/6. We heard the poem In Flanders Fields, heard an original song dedicated to fallen soldiers and saw beautiful artwork representing the graves of the unknown soldier. We are hoping that students reflect tomorrow during Remembrance Day.

This afternoon Mr. Fisher continued to read our novel, The One and Only Ivan. We learned more about what Ivan's enclosure looks like. It does not sound like Ivan has the greatest life. For fun he throws "me balls" which are dung balls at the window and also draws. When he gets bored, Ivan eats the crayons he draws his pictures with.

We were very excited to work with our buddies this afternoon. We created pieces of art based around peace. We had to think of a symbol that represents peace. Some of our ideas included a heart, a dove, the peace sign, two hands holding each other, a cross, the Canada flag and a star. Once we chose our symbol, we drew it in our sketch books. We had to make sure it took up our entire page. Then we drew lines through our pictures to create sections. In each section we used patterns and pictures to fill the space. Some examples of our work are shown below:

Reminders:
- There is no school tomorrow! School resumes on Thursday and Friday
- Fun lunch orders are due next Wednesday November 18
- Book orders are due on Friday
- Word wall quiz on Friday
- Both classes will have library on Thursday. Please make sure you return your library books

Remembrance Day Assembly Tomorrow

Good afternoon,

Today we started our day with morning activity. We wrote in our journal about how we spent our weekend. We had to write 10 sentences and use lots of juicy words.

After morning activity, we learned a new letter blend. Today we talked about "th." Your child should be able to tell you what sounds those letters make together. We did a hunt for words that start with th, words that have th in the middle, and words that end in th.

During gym we continued to work on our throwing. Today we used smaller balls which made it a little bit harder.

After gym we continued reading our new novel, The One and Only Ivan. We learned a bit more about our narrator, Ivan. He is a mighty silver back gorilla. Today we learned what Ivan looks like and where he lives. Ivan lives in a mall. He has an enclosure with a jungle painted on it. We started working on a title page for our new novel study.

After recess, room 7 had music and room 8 did word work.

When room 7 came back from music we did social studies. We are going to be learning about a prairie community. We did a KWL chart about the prairies. We wrote down some things we know and some things we wonder. Ms. Binks and Mr. Fisher will use this info to decide how we are going to do our prairie unit. Many students seemed interested in the animals on the prairies and the history of our First Nations peoples.

This afternoon we got our new spelling words. Many of them had the th sound that we learned about this morning. We also learned about the homonym may/May. This will come up on our test on Friday. One of the bonus words will be the month May. Students will need to pay close attention to the sentence and remember to include a capital letter.

This weeks word wall words are,

the
that
them
day
may
made
was
of
if
a

Following spelling we did math. We did a review of the days of the week and then some problems around this.  We are posting a homework question below similar to the ones we did in class.

Homework question! If your child answers this question and brings it in, they will have a chance to enter the superstar student draw.

If today is Thursday and Mr. Fisher goes fishing on Tuesday how many days does he have until he leaves?

The Remembrance Day assembly will be tomorrow. If your child attends Girl Guides or Scouts, they are welcome to wear their uniform.

Several of our staff members are participating in "Movember." They are asking for votes for the WORST mustache. Every dollar counts as a vote. They are hoping to raise $300 dollars. Please bring any donations to Ms. Binks or Mr. Fisher.

Fun lunch forms were sent home today and are due back on Nov. 18th.

We have challenged the students to all bring in a food bank donation tomorrow. We are hoping to get at least 20 items.

Reminder, Jacket Racket is underway. Please bring in any gently used winter coats. They will help keep other Calgarians warm.

Have a great evening!

In Flanders Fields

This morning we had our spelling test. Ms. Binks and Mr. Fisher were very impressed with how well everyone did on their test! Keep up the good work! Spelling tests were sent home in purple folders today.

We completed our painted paper poppy art today. The final steps were:
1) On the black side of our circles we had to draw another smaller circle in the middle
2) Using scissors we cut flaps into our black circle but we had to make sure we stopped cutting once we got to the middle circle lines
3) We folded the flaps towards the middle so they stuck up
4) Using black tissue paper we added centers to our poppies

Some completed poppies are shown below:

Today was the last day for us to write our letters to Willy Wonka. Ms. Binks is sending all of the finished letters to the chocolate factory tonight. We are hoping to hear back from Mr. Wonka by next week.

This afternoon we read the poem in Flanders Fields. We talked about the importance this poem has during Remembrance Day and how it is written from the perspective of the soldiers who lost their lives to ensure we have the rights and freedoms we do today. Once we read over the poem, we were sent off to our space to draw out our understandings about what was happening in the poem. We will continue to do some work around Remembrance Day next week.

Mr. Fisher started reading our new novel today called: The One and Only Ivan. We only read two chapters and were surprised that each chapter was only a page long! We learned that Ivan is a silver back gorilla who is also known as the Freeway Gorilla and the Gorilla at Exit 8. We are excited to read more and figure out how the pictures Mr. Fisher showed us fit into the story.

Reminders:
-  Book orders were sent home today. They are due back by next Friday
- Please bring non perishable food items for the food bank
- There is no school next Wednesday November 11

Spelling test tomorrow

This morning we did some word work around letter blends. Letter blends are when there are two or more letters that when put together make a sound. The blend we learned about today was "sh" Ask me what sound sh makes. We learned an action to help us remember this sound. We pretended to shave our face while saying the "sh" sound. Then we had to work with a partner to find as many words as we could that begin with an sh, have an sh in the middle and end in sh. Some of the words we came up with were:
- sheep
- shop
- ashes
- ashamed
- bash
- crash

We were excited to see Mr. Sadowsky again for phys ed this morning. We continued to work on the steps and skills we need to throw a ball correctly.

We will be starting a new novel study. Mr. Fisher didn't tell us what the book was but showed us some pictures that have to do with the story. We then had to make predictions based on the pictures. The pictures we were shown were:
1) A ball and chain
2) A mall
3) A paint palette
4) A dog
Ask me about the predictions I made. We will be finding out what the new book is next week.

Both classes had library today. Please make sure you are reading and returning your library books.

This afternoon we started an art project for Remembrance Day. We started to make poppies for a wreath. The steps we finished today was:
1) On a red piece of paper we used red, orange and yellow paint to cover the paper. We had to start in the middle of the page and then pull the paint towards the edge
2) On a small beige piece of paper we used black paint to cover the paper. We did not have to cover the entire piece of paper and were encouraged to have some of the paper showing through.
3) We cut out flower shapes from our red paper
4) We traced circles on our black paper
We will finish our poppies tomorrow

To allow for our paint to dry Mr. Fisher read us a story called: A Bear In War
It was about a little girl who lived in Quebec during World War 1. The story was very interesting because the story was told from the perspective of the little girl's teddy bear. There were lots of great descriptions about what happened during the war and what was happening back home.

Thank you to those students who completed their maps of their bedrooms. Here are a few examples of the excellent work that was brought in from both classes:

Reminders:
- Photo orders are due tomorrow
- Spelling test tomorrow
- We are collecting non perishable food items up to November 11

Map Homework For Tonight

Today we wrote about our favourite things we have done in swimming since today was the last day. Lots of us were sad that swimming is now over, but a few people were excited that they wouldn't be freezing cold after getting out of the pool anymore. Some things that we wrote about included:
- I thought treading water in the dive tank was hard because you had to keep your head above water
- It was fun going off of the diving board
- The front crawl was fun to learn
- I really liked my teacher because she was nice
- I would like to go swimming again because it was so much fun

This afternoon in social studies we learned about maps. We talked about how maps are drawings or pictures of landscapes or communities. They are usually drawn from a "birds eye view" which means if you were looking down on the area represented in the map. We brainstormed ideas of why we might use maps. Some of our ideas were:
- to help find our way
- to locate something
- for information
- to measure distances
- to show where something begins and ends (boundaries)

We also talked about features that should appear on a map. These features can help you when reading a map. They include:
- Title (what is your map showing?)
- Date (when is your map made?)
- Author (who made the map?)
- Symbols (basic shapes or pictures to show specific features)
- A legend (to explain what the symbols mean)
- Different colours (to show where something begins and ends or land features)
- Directions

Directions are shown on a map through a compass. There are four cardinal directions: North, East, South and West. North will always point up, East will always point right, South will always point down and West will always point left. We came up with a few sayings to remember the cardinal directions:
- Never Eat Slimy Worms
- Never Eat Slimy Waffles
- Never Enter Santa's Workshop

Ms. Binks gave us a special HOMEWORK assignment to complete TONIGHT. Our job is:
- To create a map of our bedrooms (or another room in the house)
- We need to include:
a) a title (what is your map of?)
b) symbols (shapes or pictures that show the main features of your bedroom: windows, doors, bed,          dressers, shelves, closets etc)
c) a legend (this shows the symbol and what the symbol means)

An example map is shown below:

Reminders:
- Both classes have library tomorrow. Please remember to bring back your books
- Picture order forms are due back on Friday
- There is no more swimming

Last Day Of Swimming Tomorrow!

This morning we learned a new word: community. A community is a group of people who live in the same area. We talked about the communities that we belong to and what are some things you can find in a community. We figured out that we belong to the communities of Canada, Alberta, Calgary and Beddington Heights. Some of our ideas about things that you can find in a community included:
- libraries
- swimming pools
- schools
- streets
- trees
- parks
- restaurants
- buildings

In our sketchbooks we drew 4 sections. The first section was the biggest and then each section after it got smaller and smaller. We talked about how the communities we belong to can start off big and then once you "zoom in" can get smaller and smaller. In the biggest section we wrote Canada and had to draw 5 pictures or words that described part of the community of Canada. Then we had to do the same for Alberta, Calgary and Beddington Heights. We will continue to build on our knowledge of communities as we explore 3 Canadian communities in social studies.

This afternoon we started a special art project to build a thank you card for Mrs. Stables. We used the same art technique that she taught us when we created machines to make pictures of candy for her. We were given watercolour paper and had to use a yellow or light pencil crayon to draw a candy that filled the entire space of our paper. Then we traced the lines using a sharpie. The next step was to add colour by using markers and just drawing lines within our sharpie lines. The final step was to add water to the marker which made it look like paint. When we were finished we wrote thank you notes to Mrs. Stables to thank her for her time in our classrooms. Some pictures of our candy is below.

Reminders:
- It is our last day of swimming tomorrow. Please make sure you have your swimsuits and towels. Please dress in warm jackets and bring a hat to keep your head warm!
- Our school is collecting non perishable food items for the food bank until November 11. The challenge for our students from Mavericks is to collect enough food to extend through our hallways, upstairs and downstairs. Mavericks thank you for your support.
- All student photo orders are due back by Friday
- Important letters went home in purple folders today

Happy November!

Good afternoon,

This morning we started with morning activity and we wrote about how we spent our weekend. Some of us wrote about Halloween some of us wrote about other things. We had to have at least 10 sentences. Most of us are still working on that.

After that we had a special activity and we read a book. We read a book called Bugs in My Hair, by David Shannon. It's a very funny picture book about head lice. It made us all feel a little bit itcy. Obviously, it was all in our head. There is no need for concern, the students just think it's funny. We were familiar with the author because he has written the David books.

After our book we continued working on our venn diagram comparing the movie version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the book.

We had a great time at the pool today. Students are progressing quite a bit. Everyone seems very comfortable with swimming at this point.

This afternoon we started with quiet reading. We are still working on picking a perfect fit book and practicing our three different ways of reading.

Room 8 had music this afternoon while room 7 finished up their journalling activity from this morning.

For the last hour of the afternoon we did our spelling. We worked on our new word wall words,

no
go
going
most
kind
find
gave
so
do
doing


Reminder, we have swimming tomorrow and Wednesday. Please make sure your child has their swimming gear.

Have a great evening!