Rolling Out Poetic Expressions of Ourselves

 This week we continued to express ourselves through poems and art. During language time, Grade 2 continued to learn about different types of poems and wrote their own. So far, we have covered acrostic poems about people, rhyming couplets about places, 5 senses poems about holidays and events and shape poems about things we like.

In unit, we used our new knowledge of different types of art to create artwork about endangered animals. Some students chose to create collages, while others did painting or tried their hand at creating digital art with a drawing app on the iPads. 

Next, the students had the opportunity to do some independent inquiry into an art topic such as how to draw or paint a specific subject.

Finally, we ended the week with a lesson on portraiture. We made connections between art and math as we looked at some fractions and ratios found within the face. Did you know that your eyes are almost exactly halfway between the top of your head and your chin? On that the width of your face is about 5 eyes wide, with the space between the eyes the same width of your eye! We also learnt a little about Vincent Van Gogh, and will try to paint our self-portraits in a style similar to his famous post-impressionist manner next week.

In PE, we worked on our gymnastic skills balancing, somersaulting and doing some handstands!

Discovering Different Artforms By Dividing and Presenting

 This week the students continued with their research projects on the various artforms and then presented their slideshows to their classmates in order to help others discover artforms that they might not have known much about. We also began working on our next project which will combine the unit on extinction with our current unit on art as the students will create an artwork about an endangered animal to help evoke a feeling or emotional response through one of the types of artwork that they have learnt about from a classmate.

In math we are close to wrapping up our unit on multiplication and division and learnt about division with remainders by using some blocks as manipulatives in order to physically see what it means to have a remainder.

In language, we continued to express ourselves through poetry. The students finished their acrostic poems from last week then focussed on poems which rhymed. This week, we learnt about rhyming couplets and started to write our own about our favourite places.

Finally, in PE we continued to work on our throwing and kicking skills for rugby and played a few small matches of 3-on-3.

Artistic Expression to End the Year

 This week we began our sixth and final unit of the year under the transdisciplinary theme of How We Express Ourselves. Over the remaining weeks we will inquire into the central idea of Artists use different styles and techniques to create visual art. Our lines of inquiry will focus on genres of art, different art techniques and media, and on creating original artwork.

We began by looking at various artworks and did a see, think, wonder activity and also came up with some questions for our wonderwall. 

We also began our first research project of the unit to learn about different types of artwork.

In PE, we started learning how to play rugby with some help from Kai and Hunter.

Finally, in language we began to express ourselves in writing with a bit of poetry as the students wrote acrostic poems about someone important to them.

End to Extinction

 This week we worked on finishing our unit on extinction by looking at the ways in which we humans are causing extinction. With a partner the students read about some of the ways we impact the world such as farming, mining, water usage and more and then the students summarized the information and tried to simplify it for others to understand. We also watched a video on how humans could be causing the sixth mass extinction and the students summarized key information about the 4 main ways humans are endangering animals and causing extinctions: climate change, habitat destruction, hunting/ poaching and by introducing species to new locations which results in some becoming invasive species. Students also began taking action to prevent the loss of animals that they value by creating posters to inform others about these endangered animals.

In PE we continued practicing our basketball skills and played some mini-games. Next week we’ll try a new sport!

We also had a new classmate join this week, her name is Yu! If you see her and her family around please say hello.