Hello Families,

Hello Families, 

Literacy in grade 2 means many things! 

• First thing in the mornings, we have flex reading groups where your child might go to another grade 2 teacher for a 40 minute block. At time time, your child will learn explicit reading instruction, such as strategies for decoding, phonemic awareness, and comprehension. As of Monday we will start a 6 week cycle in our new groups. Ask your child what they are learning!
• Throughout the week, we continue to read James and The Giant Peach as a read aloud. We alternate between the students choosing to follow along in a copy of the book, or we sketch as we listen to deepen our understanding of the story. Ask your child to retell the story!  
• Throughout the week students have opportunities for Read to Self time. Students have self-chosen library books (or classroom books) where they can choose a comfortable spot in the room to read and enjoy. Our goal as literacy teachers is to create life long readers, and we feel strongly that students choosing their own books to read is very important. Students are currently reading a variety of non-fiction books: Ponies, Tigers, cook books, Guiness Book of World Recod, Hockey, and Minecraft. Current fiction books: Lots of Robert Munsch books, Dork Diaries, Diary of a Wimpy kid, Captain Underpants, Dogman, and The Princess in Black to name a few. Ask your child what they are reading.   
•  Students also have opportunities to read to learn through the lens of an entomologist. Students were given a variety of articles with key information around insects. Students practiced reading the article using annotating think marks. This is a way for students to practice thinking while reading, and marking up their page with their ideas, thoughts, and questions. Ask your child what they learned from the article!  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• As writers we are building our descriptive vocabulary around what insects look like and how they move. In groups students created posters of words they currently know. Together we brainstormed more words to add to our word collection. Students will practice writing sentences using this vocabulary and eventually a descriptive paragraph using real facts they have learned. 

Ask your child to explain what some of these words mean, and can they use them in a sentence! 

As Prairie Entomologists, we continue to inquire about insects and the prairies and build our backgroud knowledge on these topics. We watched these videos to deepen our understanding around certain insects and created mind maps in our visual journals:

Aphids 

Ladybugs

Bees of Alberta

Ask your child to tell you what they know about these insects!

Now that our junior entomologists know a thing or two, they were challenged to use the Blockly coding app using our Wonder Robots to code how a prairie insect moves. They used the vocabulary words as inspiration to code the movement.  Ask you child which insect/word they picked, and what blocks they used to code. Coding in the classroom has many benefits including: computational thinking, problem solving, creativity, perseverance, and resiliency among many others. Ask your child if they struggled, and what they did to overcome the struggle. 

 

 

 

MATH AND PROBLEM SOLVING PRACTICE

I have had a few inquiries from parents about online resources for math and problem solving practice. Below are some free resources. 

First are a few coding resources. Coding is a continual process of problem solving, iterations, and math. 

Start coding with your kid!

P5.js
P5.js is a JavaScript coding language intended to make coding accessible for artists, designers, educators, and beginners. It is an excellent language to begin with because it has so many available resources. 

Here is a link to the free P5.js Web Editor
https://editor.p5js.org/


Here is a link to an introduction coding video, by Daniel Shiffman from the Coding Train, using P5.js  Shapes & Drawing - P5,js Tutorial

And here is a link to some of my simple code programs using P5.js  https://www.openprocessing.org/user/96112

Python
Python is a popular coding language that is very practical for a variety of automated tasks. 

Here is a Python tutorial
Python Tutorial

Here is the Python website
https://www.python.org/

Prodigy Math Game

Prodigy Math Game is a RPG-like game where students avatars battle by correctly solving math problems. This is great for math fact practice and practice solving word problems. 

Here is the Prodigy Math Game website
https://www.prodigygame.com/


Here is a link to a short video of someone playing Prodigy Math Game 
Prodigy Math Game Play

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