Our first full week of being back in class and it was a little bit extra long as we had our Parent’s Night in person for the first time since Covid began. It was great seeing all those who could make it in person! For those who did not attend, or if you would like to review some of the information that was shared, please see the attached Parent Night PDF file here. You can also find a link to it in the Website Links tab above.
Thank you to Maria and Jacy’s mothers for volunteering to be our PTA class representatives for Grade 2 this year!
This week we began our first unit of inquiry, under the transdisciplinary theme, “Who We Are.” The central idea for the unit is, “Our senses help us to learn about and interpret the world around us.” This week we started by finding out what we already know about the first line of inquiry, “how we use our 5 senses.”
We began by watching a short video taken from a baby’s point of view as they discover the world around them. We then reviewed and discussed the different ways the baby explored and discovered things in the world.
The students identified the 5 senses and sense organs that we use. We also did a senses scavenger hunt where the students had to use 4 of their senses to find things around the classroom (they didn’t use their sense of taste because it wouldn’t be such a good idea to taste things around the room!). They used their eyes to find something purple or something square. They used their sense of smell to find something that smelled sweet, as well as something stinky. They used their sense of hearing to help them find something that rattles, and finally they used their sense of touch to find something fluffy and something rough.
Students received their unit notebooks and created a title page for the unit.
We also worked together to decide on classroom helper roles for class and the students helped by creating job titles and their name cards to be put into a job wheel that we can rotate each week.
The students also logged into their Seesaw accounts for the first time and practiced using the different functions to create a page about them. The used the camera to add a photo, text boxes to type 5 adjectives to describe themselves and the microphone to record their explanation of why they chose those 5 words.
In PE, we reviewed playground safety and the importance of sportsmanship when winning and losing games. Our focus for the first weeks in PE will be playing cooperative games and using (or simulating a loss of our senses). Some of the games we played this week were, Cross the River, Loggers, and Over Under Caterpillar.
In Cross the River, the students worked in teams of 4 or 5 with a set of objects (skipping rope, stepping stones, scooter board, etc.) that they had use to get their whole team across the playground without touching the blue. Teams used social skills (cooperation) and communication skills to discuss and plan how they would use the different things to help get across.
For the game Loggers, students worked in teams of 3 to move a log down the river. One logger had to jump over the log as their two teammates carried it over them each time until they reached the other side and then the players switched roles. The race was over once all 3 members had finished their turn at jumping across the river.
Then in Over-Under Caterpillar, teams of 4 or 5 students worked together to pass a ball over their heads or under their legs to the person behind them with the last person in line having to bring the ball back to the front of the line to start the process over again and to bring the team’s caterpillar one step closer to the goal on the other side of the playground.
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