AIS - Grade 2

Term 2- Week 15- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *This week really flew by! We spent the week preparing our organizations and businesses for "Happy Life Town", the town we will be officially "opening" when we return in January. Students thought about the materials and people they would need to be successful, and set about creating and planning their jobs and buildings! Yunosuke made a magnetic fishing pole to fish on his farm, while Riria made a menu of services at her hospital/ clinic. We all decided together that we would use solar panels as our energy source for the town! Math *We reviewed our addition and subtraction strategies by playing two new games: Race to 1,000, and Race to 0. We also worked in small groups to practice certain strategies that we had the most difficulty with. English *We learned all about comparisons in poetry! We studied examples in mentor texts to see how poets come up with creative ways to compare one thing to anothe

Term 2- Week 14- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *Students were very excited to begin creating our own town community within the classroom! We first took a walk around the neighborhood to brainstorm the types of places we could see. We then created a list of all the businesses and organizations in a community. Finally, students sorted these items into categories, which they created. Once that was taken care of, we were free to start applying to jobs, create our town map, and name our town!  Math *We moved on to our next addition and subtraction strategy: Break it Apart. Although this strategy looks slightly different for addition and subtraction, the core strategy is the same. Students practiced both methods, and even made homework for each other to practice at home! English *In poetry, we studied published authors to find tips that we could use in our own poems. For example, we looked for repetition, white space, and creative line breaks- then tried these out on

Term 2- Week 13- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *This week we wrapped up our "sharing the planet" unit by working on our final projects. Each student brainstormed a problem that is occurring in our class, our school or our community. We spent the week thinking about the conflict, what's causing it, how we could respond, and what would happen. Then, students took action to try and help solve the conflict. Math *We practiced adding and subtracting three-digit numbers by using a number line. We carefully showed our "jumps" on the number line to demonstrate adding or subtracting the hundreds, tens and ones.  English *We started our new poetry unit by learning to look at the world with our "poet's eyes". We practiced describing things in new ways, like a poet would. We also wrote our first poems, about objects and topics that are important or meaningful to us! LOOKING AHEAD: UOI *We will begin our next unit of inquiry! We

Term 2- Week 12- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *We took a break from our normal UoI unit to participate in Science Week this week! We helped our buddies in the toddlers class with an exciting rainbow experiment. We also spent the week using recycled materials to create new tools, toys and products! We shared our reused materials at the Science Fair, and also explored other grades' science experiments. Math *We finished up fractions and data this week by creating our own pie chart graphs. We also practiced changing fractions into percents, and vice versa. As a group, we practiced splitting into halves, thirds, fourths, as well as 50%, 25%, 75% of the group, etc. English *We spent the week using our editing checklists to improve our final teaching books. Then, on Friday, we "published" our books by reading them to one another, giving feedback, and sharing all of the books we wrote during this unit!  LOOKING AHEAD: UOI *We will wrap up our P

Term 2- Week 11- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *In UOI we took a closer look at each type of response, and how these responses could impact the quality of life for those people involved. We also finished up writing our peacemaker biography books, and then shared our work by reading them aloud the class, and by answering questions afterward. Math *Going further with fractions, we learned about comparing fractions, ordering fractions, and adding fractions. We also discussed equivalent fractions, and how to determine if two fractions are equivalent or not.  English *While writing our teaching books, we came to realize that we need to edit our writing more! Therefore, we started to create an editing checklist to use on our writing. We practiced looking for capitalization, punctuation and spelling errors. LOOKING AHEAD: UOI *We will read about some of the ways that people have encouraged peace in the world, such as the Nobel Peace Prize, and the creation of

Term 2- Week 10- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *This week we brainstormed the different responses that people can have to a conflict. We created posters and acted out scenarios to guess which type of response was shown. We also discussed what " quality of life" means, and sorted pictures into groups based on the quality of life shown in the photo. Math *We took a break from graphs to learn about fractions! We created our own fraction strips, as well as our fractions of a circle pieces, to help us explore and understand how fractions work. Once we practiced these, we then learned about how to read and understand a Pie Graph/ Pie Chart! English *This week we continued working on all our "All-About" teaching books. We wrote about topics we know a lot about, and also began writing peacemaker biography books to teach about a famous peacemaker (which we researched independently during UoI time). LOOKING AHEAD: UOI *We will continue to res

Term 2- Week 8 & 9- 2nd Grade Blog LOOKING BACK: UOI *For the past two weeks in UoI we dug deep into conflicts.We discussed the many types of conflicts that occur in our families, our schools, our communities, our country and our world. We also examined equal rights, and how inequality often leads to conflict. Finally, we began to discuss how people can respond to conflict. We learned two nonviolent ways to respond: peaceful protest and boycotting. Math *In math we have been learning about different ways to represent data on a graph, including picture graphs, bar graphs, line graphs and line plots. We designed surveys, collected information, and created our own graphs to display this information! English *During the past two weeks we have been working on teaching books. Students created a list of topics they are an expert on, then chose one topic to write their book about. They created a Table of Contents with chapters, then wrote each chapter to teach