Ms. Midgley's Blog

Hello families,  This week we learned all about Orange Shirt Day and Truth and Reconciliation. We began by reviewing what it means to be Indigenous and learned about Residential Schools. We learned about Phyllis Webstad's orange shirt story and read various stories from different Indigenous authors. We focused in on the word "reconciliation" and learned more about what this means (trying to make up for our wrong-doings). With our big buddy class we read the story "Trudy's Rock Story." We made our own reconciliation rocks with messages and students were asked to either speak or think about their feelings towards Orange Shirt Day and residential schools before placing the rocks in our school's garden. In the story, Trudy uses rocks to help her process feelings and we wanted to do the same.  Here are some of the stories we read! I will add a Youtube link for Trudy's Rock Story and for When We Were Alone, as it is one of my favourites!  We hope that you

Hello families,  We've had a busy week! We packed a lot of learning into our four day week.  In literacy, we reviewed all of our letters from last week (S, A, T, I and M) by sorting pictures based on their beginning sounds. Grade 2 students (and any grade 1s who want to challenge themselves) were asked to try spelling 5 or more words. We also reviewed the letters P and O using our Animated Literacy Characters. Students have been working on drawing and writing words that start with these letters. Students are encouraged to slowly stretch out the sounds of the word and write what they hear. Here are a couple of examples! Some of the words were copied environmental print.  In math, we continued to work on patterns. Students created pattern art to show their understanding of patterns. We also started to look at patterns in nature. We learned about different types of patterns in nature and went out to the garden to see if we could find any of them!  This week we had a lot of birthdays t

Hello families!  We made it through our first full week of school!  This week we started to review some letters and sounds with the Animated Literacy program. Since this is review for most students, we talked about the character and action that goes with each letter., rather than the full story and song. We've been doing a letter each day and this week covered: S, A, T, I and M. Students brainstormed words and drew pictures of things that start with these letters. Students then did their best to stretch out the words and spell them as best as they could. We also continued to practice building reading stamina with Read to Self, and Buddy Reading. On Tuesday afternoon we have a Back To School Blast virtual presentation from the Calgary Public Library.  In phys ed, we enjoyed sharing some of our gym time with Ms. Gierl and Mrs. Green's classes. We learned how to use the parachute and played lots of fun games. It was a blast! We have gym times on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and

Hello families,  We had a great week in room 11! It has been fun getting to know each other better this week.  This week we learned a little bit more about our hermit crabs. We were lucky enough to see one of them molt today and got to see some of its exoskeleton. Ask your child what they learned about hermit crabs this week! We have two hermit crabs - Jimmy and Sheldon. Jimmy is named after a family friend that gave me the hermit crabs, and Sheldon is named after Sheldon J. Plankton from SpongeBob because he only has one eye (plus his lives in a shell so it's very fitting!) On Fridays we usually watch something during snack time so today we watched a Wild Kratts episode about hermit crabs.  In math we reviewed and learned about repeating patterns. We made patterns with our actions, built patterns, and coloured patterns. We also learned about some new practical-life work choices.  This week we also had our first fire drill! Students did very well. There was definitely a little bit

Hello families!  We had a great start to the school year this week!  Students enjoyed getting to know each other and slowly getting back into the routine of school. We learned a lot about classroom routines and materials and are easing into school work. Students enjoyed some reading time, playing games in the gym, building and free choice time on Friday.  Soft Entry On Tuesday, teachers will be outside to meet students in the morning from 8:00-8:10. Starting on Wednesday morning, we will begin our soft entry in the morning. When students arrive at school they will come in the doors near the garden and will make their way down to the classroom. Doors will be open from 8:00-8:10. Students will be engaged in a morning activity and instructional time will begin at 8:10am. If you are late, please go to the front doors instead.  Placemats During snack time students will be using placemats in their space as part of our Montessori practical-life learning. Our laminated placemats don't hold