Grade 2A at St. James

Thanks for joining! What a photo 😅

Tomorrow is our @RedeemerOCSB #haveaheartday! 3C has been preparing centres, writing letters, creating posters, stickers & keepsakes to help share about @JordansPrincip1 & Shannen’s Dream. In awe of the passion & empathy from these Ss as they plan & organize this day of learning!

It was pretty exciting to have @johnmighton teach a confidence building lesson for us here at @RedeemerOCSB! His down to earth personality and relatable math struggles inspired instant buy-in from the students we adults were observing. #ocsbmath

We created plasticine monsters, learned about adjectives & creating mental imagery. We wrote, then typed our descriptive writing into @canva ai. Comparing our original to the AI generated monster, gave us immediate feedback on the accuracy of our descriptions! @OCSBelementary

Our outdoor #STEM challenge: Create a structure & identify the struts and ties. Hands on experiences provide natural opportunities for science of learning principals: dual coding, elaboration, concrete examples & retrieval practice, wrapped in a package of fun! @RedeemerOCSB

In line with our class arts & creativity Halloween celebration, we had a lot of fun learning the value & duration of notes & quarter rests by clapping out this fun Halloween rhythm! Everyone was SO into it! Maybe this learning will help us improve our body percussion! #ocsbarts

3C learned about blending today using oil pastels to create secondary & tertiary colours to show where light hits & shadows hide. Everyone was so proud of their results & some even used their new learning to add & shade additional items! #ocsbarts @RedeemerOCSB #HappyHalloween

Getting outside this week was made easier by these mini nature backpacks. I spent some time reorganizing our class outdoor materials for easy access into these bags not being used. So far the water/rain/puddles one has been a fav - they loved water exploration! #ocsboutdoors

Patterns are everywhere! We took our learning outdoors as we searched for patterns in our environment and then were challenged to create our own with varying attributes. We made patterns with different sizes, shapes and direction. #ocsbmath @RedeemerOCSB

Love the creativity & calm that took over as 3C created their nature journals. We read Leafman by Lois Ehlert & were inspired to create some pictures out of found nature. T made an epic dragon out of leaves! Ss are all excited to use their journals during sit spots! #ocsboutdoors

Teamwork & collaboration were plentiful last week as 3C explored structures using tarps, ropes & pegs. Reading “Be a Maker” had us thinking creatively about materials available around us. Trees became integral structural components & Ss found it more difficult than they expected!

What fun we’ve had exploring the #ocsbnaturebackpack & the outdoor learning materials available to us. 3C showed leadership as they worked with the Grade 1s to play and build. I love the letter path they created together & the joyful learning about animals through dramatic play!

Our class was blessed last Monday to have @MsKramerOCSB help us make better use of our new outdoor learning space! We enjoyed using our sit spots for the first time this year to give us a moment of solitude in nature to truly notice using (most) of our 5 senses. #ocsboutdoors

Pictures of the room ready for our Open House! (It won’t always be this clean! Haha) It was so nice to meet and reconnect with the families in our class. I am so blessed to have this wonderfully vibrant group with their supportive and kindhearted families! @RedeemerOCSB

After reading “Together a Forest” we created line art of imagined plants as unique as we are. This story is a great example of how everyone can find something they need from nature and it will definitely be one we return to this year.

Working on building structures with whatever materials we have on hand. In Phys Ed today we relayed to collect materials for our teams and collaborated to create freestanding structures. Lots of problem solving, rethinking, and seeking inspiration from other teams!

During our Samaritans on a Digital Road lessons, we’ve had some great discussion about screen time: how we can use tech in active ways to connect us, teach us, help us create; & we read about screen time recommendations (many were surprised!) Everything in moderation! @ocsbRE

We had a quick design challenge prompted by a video from @SciShowKids, which taught us how to think like engineers - they make things to solve problems! We worked like engineers to solve Jessi’s itchy back problem. We are learning to Ask, Imagine, Create, and Improve too!

We used triangles to make triangle based pyramids and square magnatiles to make cubes. Which do you think was stronger? Knowing triangles are the stronger shape, we were surprised with the results. Would we have had different results if we had just used frames of the shapes?