March 21st, 2023
A reminder that we are doing mission impossible this week, as well as the week after spring break. Please make sure that your student is dressed appropriately : )
Bike Survey: To encourage Active School Travel, Woodbine has partnered with EverActive Schools to run a “Bike to School Day” on June 7th (weather dependent). This initiative will focus on increasing cycling knowledge and safety awareness. In preparation for this event we are looking to find out what students have bikes and helmets at home and other logistical items. We ask that you please complete the following quick survey (please follow this link or copy it into your search engine) https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2JCPWNK If you have multiple children at the school, we kindly ask that you fill the survey out separately for each child. In addition, if there are any individuals who have cycling knowledge or knows how to tune up bikes and would like to contribute their knowledge to this event, please reach out to Ms. Bignell at clbignell@cbe.ab.ca At a later date we will be sending out some details to ask for volunteers for this event! Stay tuned!
Swimming Volunteers: Thank you to all the parents/grandparents that have signed up to help with our swimming lessons in May. There are still a large number of spots to be filled. If you have a valid police clearance and have the time, please sign up
https://www.signupgenius.com/g...
Timbernook Residency: In April, Woodbine school will be participating in an outdoor play residency. Please see the information below. More detailed information will be posted on the teacher blogs closer to the date.
We will be having our zoo field trip on Monday, May 8th. We will need volunteers for this field trip. It is an all day event. If you can volunteer, please email me at: jvshimmonsfournier@cbe.ab.ca
Sincerely,
Jen
February 19th, 2023
Hi Families,
Just a friendly reminder that we have our field trip to Telus Spark this coming Wednesday, February 22nd. If you have not done so already, please go to your students' MyCBE account to pay for the field trip. Thank you so much!
Students are to dress appropriately for the weather and bring indoor shoes to change into once we arrive at Telus Spark. Students should bring their backpacks with their lunches, water bottles and change of shoes. We will have a storage cabinet at Telus Spark to store backpacks and outdoor gear. This is an all day field trip, with us departing the school at 9:30 am and arriving back at school at around 3:00 pm.
If you are volunteering for the day, please sign in at the front office and then head down to Room 10, our classroom, to get your student group and itinerary. We will begin boarding the buses at 9:15 am, hoping to leave Woodbine school by 9:30 am.
We will have sometime to explore Telus Spark, as well as do a program called Architecture Adventures. This is a perfect opportunity for us to start our new unit, building things! Students will be challenged to look at the needs of a community, design and then build different structures.
The grade ⅔ team will also be presenting quickly at the parent council meeting this coming Wednesday, February 23rd. We will be sharing about our field trip, as well as our next steps in learning.
As well, the grade 2/3s are responsible for the upcoming assembly at school. We will be developing an assembly based on one of the 7 Sacred teachings, which is honesty. On our Google Classroom, I have posted the song that we will be singing, so students can practice at home if they would like. We will be doing the assembly on Wednesday, March 23rd at 2:00 pm. You are welcome to attend if you would like, or are able to. The assembly will be approximately 30 minutes long.
If you would like to do some extra practice at home with your student, we have been working on subtraction with regrouping. We have been learning 4 different ways to do it. With base ten blocks, on an open number line, expanded form and then the traditional stacking way. The reason why I would like students to be able to do all 4 strategies is to help deepen their understanding of subtraction.
February 5th, 2023
Students have been busy looking at different playground structures to help design our new playground. Students gathered data from other students in class and other grade ⅔ classes to see what their favourite playground item or equipment is. Students then graphed their info into a bar graph.
Some students even started building their playground designs in Minecraft.
In math we have been learning about 2D shapes and their attributes, as well as graphing.
In literacy, we will be doing some persuasive writing.
Humility is the sacred teaching we will be focusing on this month. The animal that symbolizes humility is the wolf.
On February 14th, students can bring in Valentines for their classmates if they would like. I will supply a class list to any student who would like one. We currently have 26 students in our class.
Thank you to all the families who responded to volunteer for our upcoming field trip to Telus Spark. We have enough volunteers, so thank you : )
There will be a need for more volunteers in May. The first week of May we will be having swimming lessons. Then on May 11th, we will be going to the zoo.
December 19th, 2022
We have 4 more teaching days before the winter break. We have been very busy finishing up some work, such as our unit on magnetism and learning about Alberta and Nova Scotia. We will be continuing our learning about the Mi'kmaq (pronounced meeg-maw) on the East Coast and the Inuit in the North.
On Thursday, students are encouraged to wear their pyjamas. We are going to have a little winter celebration in the afternoon. All the grade 2/3 classrooms will be playing a different movie and students can choose which movie/room they would like to go to. As well, students are welcome to bring in some treats if they would like. Please be mindful that we do have a student who is severely allergic to nuts. So any treats must be nut free.
In math, we have been working on addition with regrouping. We have been practicing using base ten blocks to help visualize what is happening when we regroup.
In writing, we finished up our procedural writing (how to books). I now know how to fill up a water bottle, wash my hands, draw a Kaiju, take care of a kitten, and get ready for Christmas, just to name a few. : )
Thank you to everyone for all the donations to our Winter Wonderland of Giving. It was so great to see so many families at the event. The Calgary Humane Society was so grateful to receive all the donations and hand made cat and dog toys.
It is going to be a cold week. All days will be blue days. If your student has signed up for Polar Bear club, they will be given the choice to stay in or go outside with me. Ms. Johansen will be inside to supervise students, and I will be outside. If your student is in the Polar Bear club, when they are outside, they are more than welcome to go inside whenever they would like. All students who are NOT in Polar Bear club, must remain inside during all recesses.
During our PD on Friday afternoon, we were learning about literacy and how important sight words are. It was brought to our attention that the first 100 Fry sight words make up around 50% of all text that students are reading. If students know these words by ‘sight’, it frees up their cognitive load to read the other words on the page. Over the break, I encourage you to look over these words and practice them if you can. The new curriculum specifically addresses sight words and it is suggested that by the end of grade 2, students should know the first 200 sight words and 300, by the end of grade 3.
I have put the sight word lists in our Google Classroom under Literacy. I have also included a page with some suggestions on how to make learning them more engaging.
November 30th
Thank you, families, for coming in or visiting me online last week! If you were unable to attend our November Parent Teacher Conferences and would like to check in, please contact me through email:
jvshimmonsfournier@cbe.ab.ca
Woodbine’s Winter Wonderland of Giving
It is coming up and we are looking for some more donations. A parent in our school has created a sign up for some of the items. Feel free to sign up in the link below:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0a45a9aa29a3f58-woodbine
Food Bank Boxes Are Outside Our Doors
Students can start to fill the boxes up anytime from now until the last evening of December 15th. Non-perishable items only please. The Food Bank will be picking up the boxes between the dates of December 16th and December 22nd.
Students have been planning/designing a device that will move an object using magnets. Students created a list of things that they will need, to construct their devices. I asked students to check their recycle bins at home to see if there are any materials that they can use and bring them to school. Of course, we will have some supplies at school as well : )
November 19th, 2022
Math: In math we have been working in our Jump math books. Some of the concepts we have been working on are, skip counting, number patterns, written number words, as well as addition and subtraction patterns. Students have also completed a couple of bar graph assignments and 2 math assessments.
Inquiry: We have been learning about landforms and which landforms are in Alberta. We are looking closely at the prairies and how they impact our way of life. We are also exploring the different Indigenous groups that live in Alberta and how their communities are distinct and diverse.
Students are writing up their rock reports as a final assignment for our geology unit. They are compiling all their data into one written document. They have been working hard to write engaging sentences, as well as include all the important information.
We will be moving on to our magnets unit this coming week.
Literacy: We have been working on adding detail to our writing, as well as ensuring that we have spaces between our words, we are writing on the lines and to the margins, as well as appropriate punctuation. Students learned the strategy, GUM it. Where they try spelling the word they want to write, underline it if they think they spelled it incorrectly, then moving on with their writing. Students are encouraged to not let correct spelling hinder their ability to write. We also learned to use dictionaries and thesauruses. Students has fun looking up words and using different words in their writing : )
Health: Students were tasked to come up with what the worst classroom would like, feel like, smell like and sound like. After brainstorming in small groups, students shared their ideas. We wrote them on the board and then students needed to decide if it was their responsibility, the teachers responsibility, both responsibility, or out of our control. After going through the list, students discovered that in order to make the classroom NOT the worst classroom, it was mostly their responsibility. We then created a Classroom Community Expectations agreement together that everyone signed : )
Woodbine’s Winter Wonderland of Giving:
As a grade ⅔ team, we decided that our charity of choice is the Calgary Humane Society. We will be making toys for the cats and dogs at the shelter, because everybody deserves a gift. Here are the items we would love to have donated, if possible, to make our toys to donate:
- Pipe Cleaners
- Fleece fabric
- Felt
- Wooden dowels
- Small Wooden rings or plastic rings (like the ones from a craft store or craft section at Walmart)
- Shoe laces
- Paper towel rolls
- Old colourful t-shirts
- Ping pong balls
- Colourful/patterned duck tape
- Knee high/long socks
- Tennis balls
If you would like to donate other items, the Calgary Humane Society has created a wish list. Here it is:
New or gently used items:
- Animal beds
- Towels & blankets
- Flat sheets
- Duvets/comforters (non-feather only)
- Animal Toys
- Enrichment puzzles, lick mats
- Cat posts & trees
- Food Dishes (metal or ceramic only)
- X-pens & crates
- Dry cat food (must be in original packaging)
- Hard-sided cat kennels
- Harnesses (two points of contact preferred)
- Double-ended leashes
New Only:
- Ziploc sandwich bags
- Peanut Butter
- Cheez Whiz
- 9v batteries
- AA batteries
- Rabbit supplies (due to RHDV in the community)
- Bird supplies (due to Avian Flu)
- Puppy pads
- Compostable poop bags
- Large rectangular litter boxes
- Litter scoops
- Dog and exotic animal food
As well, do not forget to sign up for conferences this coming week, November 24th and 25th. You can do in person or online meetings.
Reminder:
- Remembrance Day assembly on Thursday November 10th at 10:30
- No school Friday, November 11th
- If your child is part of a service group (ie. Sparks, Beavers, etc.) they are encouraged to wear their uniform on Thursday
