Mrs. Stringers Blog

 In literacy this week, we continued working on our small-moment story.  We learned about adding sound effects, 'showing, not telling', using transition words and writing an effective ending.  In word work, we continued looking at vowel teams, this week we looked at the two different sounds oo make in words. In math this week, we continued with our different math groups.  On Monday, we will regroup our math groups again into grade groups.  This will allow the grade three's to continue with multiplication and division and the grade two's to focus on addition and subtraction skills. In Science this week, we continued exploring sound energy and forces.  The grade 2's learned how sound behaved and experimented with sound travelling through solids.  We also went outside to complete some sound mapping and observe the sounds we hear in nature and how we can tell what direction they are coming from. Important Reminders & Upcoming Events: 1. Please,  N...

 In literacy this week, we began working on writing a small-moment story. A Small Moment story is a personal narrative about an event we can turn into a story.  This week, we brainstormed and created a 'draft' or a plan for our story.  In word work, we looked at the spelling patterns that make a long I sound, /ie/ and /igh/.  We also created a word web, with the base 'light' and talked about all the words that have the base light in it and then sorted them into groups based on the patterns the students noticed. In our math groups this week, we continued working on addition and subtraction.  This week we built 2 digit numbers and added them together. In Science this week, we continued looking at sound energy and learned how sound travels through a solid, for the grade 2's.  The grade 3's learned about balanced and non-balanced forces and non-contact and contact forces.  In Social studies, we compared the culture in India and an Arctic community to the c...

In literacy this week, we focused on identifying the differences between a sentence fragment and a complete sentence.  We also unscrambled groups of words to make a full sentence and sorted sentences into their correct categories. On Friday, we discussed the importance of adding capital letters at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end.  In word work this week, we looked at the vowel teams /ow/, /oa,/ and /oe/ that all make the long o sound.   In math this week, we began our math groups again and the students worked with their groups.  In our math groups, we are all focused on subtraction and how we can use subtraction from 1-20 to solve problems.  We learned about tools such as number lines, blocks, and ten frames to help use subtraction numbers between 1-10. In social studies this week, we continued looking at India for the grade 3's and a student from our class just came back from India and shared many pictures about what he saw and did there....

In literacy this week, we worked on expanding boring sentences.  While reading a book about Polar Bears, we expanded kernel sentences by adding because, why and how.  In Word work, we finished looking at long e by exploring the last vowel team (ie and ei).  We also completed a word sort, listening for the long e sounds. In math this week, we looked at transformations.  We explored how shapes turn, slide and flip without changing shape or size.  We worked through different stations, exploring each transformation, translation, rotation and reflection.  On Monday, we looked at Winter counts to celebrate the New Year and record 3 important events that happened to us in 2024.  In gym and art class this week, we began our unit on floor hockey.  This week, we learned how to hold a hockey stick, how to stick handle, shoot and pass with a partner.  In Art, we looked at Tessellations, combining our math knowledge on transformations into an art piece....

 This week in literacy, we created a story plan for our gingerbread story.  We planned our characters and then wrote our beginning, including our setting and introducing our characters. We also worked on alphabetizing words using the first and second letters.  To go with our stories, the students designed and created gingerbread man traps, using only marshmallows and toothpicks.  Check out our traps. In math this week, we continued looking at 3D shapes and identifying their characteristics.  We also explored Tangram puzzles to see how flipping or rotating shapes help us to solve the puzzle. Important Reminders & Upcoming Events: 1. Please,  NO Toys  at school!  2. Library Exchange on  Thursdays 3. Winter Break , NO school from Dec 20–Jan 6th 4. Looking for Volunteers for our February 6th Field Trip to Studio Bell, please email Mrs. Stringer

 This week in literacy, we continued reading and exploring Gingerbread stories.  This week we read The Gingerbread Cowboy and identified the different story elements using complete sentences.  Then we compared the 2 stories, using a Venn diagram, to see what was the same and different between the two stories. In Word Work this week, we focused on vowel teams that produce the long e sounds, /ea/, /ee/, and /ey/.  We spelled words with those patterns, built words, sorted words, and 'coded' them in text. In math this week, we began looking at 2D and 3D shapes.  We looked at how you can tell them apart by looking at their attributes, faces, sides, and vertices.  We also did a scavenger hunt around the room to find different shapes in real life and some math talks about various shapes. In Science, we continued learning about Energy.  This week, we learned that Energy is the ability to do work we also talked about different ways objects and people can move....