October 29, 2003

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins!

Our class pumpkin, whose name is Vampire, is open and we are looking at his insides.

We are singing about pumpkins and counting plasticine pumpkins. We have drawn pumpkins and written Math stories about pumpkins.

Tomorrow we'll continue with pumpkins.

October 28, 2009

Today Shannon came to talk to us about baby Charlotte who will be coming to our class soon. First we had to learn some of the rules about what to do when baby Charlotte is in our class. We also guessed what baby Charlotte can do already and how big she is. When she comes, we'll see if we are right in our guesses.

One important rule is that none of us will touch baby Charlotte. We have a special green blanket for her to sit on. We will sit around the blanket so we can see her and she will be safe.

October 27, 2009

Today we worked on putting periods at the ends of our sentences. Everyone made some improvement! For some of us it was the first time to use a period. For some of us, it was the first time to try to write a whole sentence. Some of us wrote two whole pages. We get better each time we work in our Driting (Drawing and Writing) books.

October 22, 2009

Today we took magnifying glasses out to our tree. We looked at parts of the tree more closely and wrote about what we saw.

We are also learning that it doesn't matter how we arrange a set of items, the number of items will still be the same. The Grade Ones learned about the plus sign and practiced using it. The Grade Twos are working with bigger numbers. It's important to know as much as possible about how the number system works. We'll be spending a lot of time on that.

Here are some ways you can help with Math:

Play board games, especially those that use two dice. In a fun way, children will move from counting every dot to knowing exactly what a roll is worth.

When children are really comfortable with numbers to 20, you can use dimes and pennies to count. The motivation of counting money keeps kids working for a long time, getting lots of practice. Dimes and pennies reflect the number system, so they are a great set of tools. If you child doesn't really understand that a little dime is worth ten bigger pennies, you can play trading games until the understanding comes.

October 21, 2009

We made scarecrows today. Aren't they fantastic!

Thanks to the moms who helped us and to Donna who brought in the so many materials from her garden and told us what to do.

You can meet these wonderful fellows (and gals) tonight at Family Fun Night. That's 5-8 in the gym.

October 20, 2009

Tomorrow we make scarecrows. Today we crumpled up lots of paper to get ready. Just wait until you see the final product!

We will share our scarecrows with everyone at Family Fun Night on Thursday. You can see them there. After that, you can see them in our hallway and in our classroom.

October 19, 2009

At the end of today we had a very emotional chat about family breakups. Your child may come home with questions about adult relationships. If there is any situation I should know about, just put a note in the planner.

October 16, 2009

Grade Two students are learning to build numbers to 100 using special rods and cubes. In just two days we've made huge improvement in how quickly we can build the numbers because we are learning more about what the numbers mean and we can read them with new eyes.


Ms. Knecht's Grade Five class are our special big buddies. Big buddies come down and read with little buddies. What a treat that is! One on one time with someone they can look up to. In some cases, the big buddies are tutoring students who need a little extra boost.

Isn't Gibsons Elementary a great learning community! We are so lucky to be doing our learning here!


We are always happy to have parents come and help. Isaiah's mom, Amy, used to help in my classroom when she was in high school. Now she's back as a parent.

Any time you want to come in for a visit, just sign in at the office(in case of emergencies we need to know who is in the building), knock at the door (the door person will let you in, so you won't be disrupting the whole class), and join in either by watching or participating. If you want to volunteer on a more formal basis, talk to me.

October 15, 2009

Today the rain stopped long enough for us to go out to see "our" tree. We made pictures that show what our tree looks like right now. We also added animals getting ready for winter. These are truly wonderful pictures.

October 14, 2009

With Thanksgiving over, we are all thinking about Hallowe'en. Black cats add atmosphere. You can see our cats hanging from our ceiling if you visit us.

October 13, 2009

Next Wednesday, October 21, between recess and lunch (10:55 to 12:10) we will be building scarecrows. We could really use some adult help. All the materials will be here, but we need grown-ups to help with tying and general supervision. If you are free, please join us.

October 9, 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We made jello jigglers and ate them all up!

October 8, 2009

I can see a jigaree.
It is jumping after me.
Jumping here.
Jumping there.
Jigarees jump everywhere.

We read the book about jigarees today. When we were done, one of us asked if jigarees are real. We spent a long time talking about what we thought about jigarees and how we could decide if they are real.

Now that you've seen some in this picture, what do you think? Are they real, or not?

October 7, 2009

See our beautiful patterns?

We worked hard on this project that combined Math, Social Studies, and Art. Just wait until Friday when we bring these home! The ones in the picture aren't finished yet. We did even more work than you can see here!

October 6, 2009

On Tuesdays, we go to the gym with Mr. Heidebrecht. This time we had to run putting our feet into the hoola hoops.

October 5, 2009

We said a final farewell to Duke this morning. We planted a heather plant on his grave. Someone else had made a cross, and we put it back. We also put back the flowers others had left on his grave. We miss him.

We are getting ready for Thanksgiving. We've made construction paper turkeys and we are working on special place mats for Thanksgiving dinner or simply as artwork to save and display.

Today we got to use lots of special games Miss Owen has to help us learn to read and to learn about numbers. We'll be able to use these games on other days, too.

October 2, 2009

We read the story The First of Octember. Then we made lists of things we wanted on that magical day. We've posted our work outside our classroom.

October 1, 2009

Today we worked on the letters that start high and then go down. Those are l, i, and t. We made a short video so you can see how to make these letters correctly. If you notice any of us making a mistake and starting at the bottom, especially when we write our names, please remind us to start high and go down.