Week 1

2009 – 2010 Week 1

The new school year has begun and we are all settling in to our new school and new grade.

There are 20 students in our class ... 18 students came up from our Grade 2 a or 2b class from last year and we have 2 new students.

We have spent the week getting to know each other, learning new routines, and starting some work.

On Thursday and Friday each student brought in something to tell the class a little about themselves. This is what we learned.

Yao likes to travel and he really enjoyed his trip to Korea.

Justin enjoys reading and shared some of the parts he enjoyed from the book “King Solomon’s mines”.

Sonia likes to play the piano and practices between 30 minutes to 1 hour every day.

Joshua shared with us his favorite book, “Big bugs”. He told us about his favorite bug – the wind scorpion which eats bugs, spiders, and even small birds.

Wesley brought in his bug to show us but it was a little shy and stayed hidden in the soil.

JC (Jonathan Chen) showed us his transformer that he thinks is cool.

Nick shared with us the first toy he ever had; a bear which he got from Japan.

Jasmine likes to do art and showed us one of her favorite pieces.

Alica is an inventor and showed us the robot she built.

Nicole showed us a photo of when she went to a restaurant called “Run Forest Run” which is a theme restaurant based on the movie “Forest Gump”.

Richard shared with us his favorite toy which is a bionicle which has a cool mask.

Elijah likes building roller coasters using his favorite computer program.

Sandra enjoys reading the book “Glitter girls”.

Jason showed us his pet hamster who likes to run on his wheel and watch TV.

Nina showed us two photos – one of them was when she was a baby.

Congratulations to Sonia who won 1st place in a Piano competition over the summer.

Please remember to let me know if you are competing or performing or have won any awards over the weekend.

We started working on our first Social Studies theme – “Communities are People”. We discussed that the most important part of a community is the people. We are all part of many communities, from small family communities to the big world community. We will be looking at this theme for the next 3 weeks and next week we look at working and playing in our community. You are welcome to preview read pages 12 to 15 for Monday’s class and pages 16 to 19 for Thursday’s class.

In Science we learned about plant parts and what plants need to survive. We looked at how water travels up plant stems in a fun activity. We put a piece of celery in colored water and watched as the color slowly moved up the stem and changed the color of the leaves. We also started an experiment to see what would happen to a plant if it received no water and what would happen to a plant if it received very little sunlight. We will observe these plants over the next few days and see what happens to them.

Next week, we will be learning about seeds. We will begin on Monday by setting up an activity where we will grow some seeds. (I hope you all remember to bring some seeds to grow .. red, black, or green and soy beans grow really well).

In math we have been looking at place and value of digits and have started rounding to the nearest 10 or 100. Most students are doing really well but some are finding it more difficult and need help in remembering to read the instructions carefully. Next week, we will look at “How Big is 1000”,” Place Value to 1000”,” Comparing Numbers”, and “Ordering Numbers from least to greatest”.

In English next week we start the first story in our Storytown book. The story is “Ruby the Copycat” about a girl who learns that it is ok to be yourself. In phonics we will review the short vowels, and our grammar lesson will focus on statements and questions.

Thanks to all the parents who joined us in our class room on Thursday. It was great meeting you all and I look forward to getting to know you all better during the year.

I hope you enjoy the photos of our first week.

See you on Monday, 3b

Mrs.DB