Conflict in Grade 2

 This week there was a lot of conflict in Grade 2. Fortunately, most of it was simulated as we used different scenarios to help us focus on our third line of inquiry, “Ways to communicate our thoughts and feelings.”

We began by brainstorming the different types of things that lead to conflict in the students’ daily life here at school, in the class or on the playground. Groups wrote down lists of things and then shared their ideas with the class. They also brainstormed and suggested solutions to some of the common problems.

Next we watched a fun video, Kelso’s Choices, and had fun dancing along!

Continuing on with dance in PE, we listened to a couple different types of songs and tried to dance in a way to communicate what we interpreted as the mood or feeling of the song. After a few practice tries, the students worked in groups and chose their own feeling or emotion to express. They chose a song and then created their own dance to go with it. In art they also did a similar activity, using lines, colours and shapes to create abstract art which also communicated emotions and feelings.

After learning about the different types of verbal and non-verbal ways to deal with problems thanks to Kelso’s choice wheel, we went into more detail with verbal responses such as how to use I messages (no not the iPhone app) but rather “I statements” to share how you are feeling about something without blaming the other person. We also practiced apologizing properly and role played some different situations. The students worked with a partner and acted out their chosen scenarios, demonstrating how to solve problems non-verbally and verbally with ‘I statements and proper apologies. They used the iPads and InShot video editing app to create their videos and you can watch them on Seesaw!

Fun Feelings Videos and Dancing with Friends

 This week we continued our inquiry into our relationships. We spent the early part of the week finishing up projects about friendships from last week. Then we learnt a valuable lesson about how we can hurt someone very quickly, but it takes much longer to heal a crumpled and ripped up heart. Using a paper heart, each student took a turn to crumple or rip part of it, just like how each mean thing someone says or does hurts us a little bit. Then the students were tasked with repairing the heart, to try to put it back to how it was! Although it only took about 3 minutes for everyone to damage the heart, it took everyone working together nearly 15 minutes to put it back together and even then it was far from healed as pieces of it were still missing, and it still showed signs of damage. Just like a real heart that still shows signs of damage after being hurt, therefore we must be mindful of our thoughts and actions because it is much more difficult to make things better.

In discussing our thoughts and feelings with others, we looked at how we use non-verbal communication to show others how we are feeling. In a special ICT lesson with Mr. Huber, we were introduced to video editing on the school’s iPads using and app called “InShot.” For their videos, the students were tasked with acting out an emotion or feeling and then having others guess what feeling or emotion they were trying to show. The students really caught on quickly and had a great time working with their table partner to film each other and to use special effects and music to make their videos look professional! They also learnt how to import them into Seesaw, so please check your child’s Seesaw to see their fantastic videos!

In language, we have been working on story writing, and focused on coming up with descriptions of settings and characters. 

Our new PE unit is also about communicating our feelings via dance! This week we explored different ways to move and had fun pretending to be fireworks!

Happy New Year 2024!

 Welcome back everyone! Well, almost everyone as some of us had extended holidays (not all of us by choice unfortunately!) It was nice seeing many of the students back at school on Tuesday, but then unfortunately I came down sick for the rest of the week. Luckily, Ms R was back and did a great job of looking after the class in my absence!

With the Christmas festivities behind us we came back full swing into our third unit of the year, under the transdisciplinary theme of Who We Are, we are focussing building relationships through communicating with others and this week we inquired into the different types of relationships (family, friends, romantic and acquaintances). The students worked together in groups to sort out images into the different types of relationships, then we focussed on what makes someone a friend, and a best friend. They also have a bit of homework on Seesaw to add in pictures of family members to create a family tree to show the different types of connections between people in their families, as we learned that relationships are “the way two or more things are connected.”

We also looked at relationships between number bonds in math, learning how to find complements of double digit numbers in our heads and did some practice adding and subtracting. In language, we have begun a new writing unit on telling stories. Our focus this week was on describing settings for a story. We also started new spelling lists, and will have our spelling test as usual next Friday. The students can practice at home on their PowerSpelling.com assignments.

In PE, we wrapped up our Karate unit with a performance of the kata “Taikyoku-shodan” and began a new PE unit on dance!