We Miss You!

Dear Grade 2 Families,

We wanted to check in to let you know we are thinking of you all.  We miss the classrooms filled with laughter and hearing all the exciting stories that students share.

Please stay tuned to your emails for updates as they come!

Stay safe and healthy during this time and once schools re open we promise you we will be waiting with open arms and happy hearts as we welcome our wonderful families back!

March 2nd-March 6th

In-school Activity:
Thank you to all the volunteers who were able to help us out with today's in-school field trip. The students enjoyed learning more about the Inuit culture through hands on learning experiences. Ask your child to share their favourite activity with you!


Spelling Words ( ch digraph)

chat, chest, chop, chip, chin, bench, branch, lunch, child, ranch


Student-Led Conferences:

Please note that the start date for parent’s booking conferences  is 16:00 PM (Mar 12, 2020), and booking ends at 00:00 AM (Mar 20, 2020).

Thursday, March 19

• Grade 1 to 6 Student Led Parent Conferences – 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
• Kindergarten Student Led Parent Conferences – 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Friday, March 20

• Student Led Parent Conferences – K to Grade 6 - 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

Mental Math Fluency:

Students went home today with a new Math Fluency graph (found in their Feedback Friday folder) that notes the number of questions correct and their time. Please check in with them each Friday to see how they are doing in developing their Mental Math Fluency. 

Double Digit Addition and Subtraction:

This past week our math work focused on having students apply strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems up to 100. Some students received practice questions for homework- subtraction from 100 was one area that we will need to continue to work on. 

Please see some of the strategies we used in class this week. 

February 24th- February 28th

Spelling Words: (We are working on the th digraph)
bath, math, with, path, sloth, cloth, this, that, tenth, moth



In School Field Trip:
This Friday, March 6th is our in school activity with Teacher's Pet.
Thank you to those parents who are able to volunteer. If volunteers could please arrive at 8:45am on Friday morning. The program is approximately 2 hours long. 


Math Fluency Graphs:
Please take a look at your child's Mental Math Fluency chart in your child's Feedback Friday duotang. Each Friday, students are 'tested' on their fact fluency where they are given a set of 20 addition and subtraction questions to solve. The number of questions correct as well as the time taken is recorded onto a graph. The expectation for grade 2 students is to get 17-20 questions correct in 2 minutes. 

February 18th - February 21st

FRIENDLY REMINDER
Box of Cool Cards campaign:
Order forms and money are now overdue. They were due on Feb. 20th. Please return any un-purchased sample boxes to the school and any outstanding order forms a.s.a.p!  Thank you so much to those parents who have given their time and efforts to organize this campaign for our school. We appreciate you!


VOLUNTEERS STILL NEEDED!
Please ensure that fees for this in school activity are paid by February 29th. 

Thank you to those parents who have already contacted their teachers to volunteer for this activity. We are still looking for volunteers!

If you can help out on the 6th, please email your child's teacher. You must have Security Clearance with the school to help out. Thank you in advance for your support!


PINK SHIRT DAY:
THIS WEDNESDAY- February 29th is Pink Shirt day
Students are encouraged to wear pink if they would like.

Here is more information: https://www.pinkshirtday.ca/about


1/2 Visual Arts Club THIS WEDNESDAY

Due to space and supplies this club can only accommodate 20 students. Those students who returned signed forms by February 18th were included in a lottery. Today, students received a verbal confirmation to let them know if they are in the Visual Arts Club.

Due to technical issues, club written confirmations will now be sent out on Monday, February 24th with important info/dates about the club.

Spelling Words:
dine, line , mine, nine, pine, shine, vine, swine, spine, twine

February 10th- 12th

Multi-Grade Family Groups

On Wednesday, we gathered together as Family Groups to make Valentine's Cards for the residents of the Silvera Senior Centre. This project allowed us to extend our school empathy goal to our community. We talked about how important it is to show empathy to everyone, even people that we don't know as one student shared "So everyone actually feels special and that they belong in this world."

Spelling Words for next week: 'ight' word family

night, right, tight, sight, light, fight, bright, might, flight, slight

In-School Activity

This week some information (see below) went home regarding an in-school activity that we will be participating in on March 6th. Please ensure that fees for this activity are paid by February 29th. We are also looking for volunteers to support this activity. If you can help out on the 6th, please email your child's teacher. You must have Security Clearance with the school to help out. Thank you in advance for your support.

Enjoy your Family Day weekend. We will see you all on Tuesday, February 18th. 

February 3rd- February 7th

Next Weeks Spelling Words:
Due to a short week ahead we will only be doing 5 words for spelling this week. These are from previous spelling lists and words that we still need to work on.

there, like, have, saw, what


Valentines Exchange:
For all those students who would like to participate, we are having a small Valentines Exchange in the afternoon of Wednesday, February 12th. There are 22 students in the class and for ease of exchange if students can write Dear Friend... and who it is from, that would be greatly appreciated. Please ensure that if you are participating in this exchange, that your child bring a Valentine for each student in the class.


Box of Cool Cards campaign:
One sample box has been issued to each family through their oldest child at the school. Please use this to showcase to friends and family to collect orders for additional boxes.  Order forms and money are due Feb 20. 

Report Card Envelope Return:

By now you will have received your child’s report card. Please take the time to read it, then sign the envelope to show you have reviewed it and return the envelope to the school. The same envelope will be used to sent your child’s last report card home in June.


Jump Rope For Heart:

Ron Southern School will be holding a Heart & Stroke Foundation JUMP Rope For Heart assembly on Monday February 10.  Students will have the opportunity to learn about the importance of heart health and the ways that skipping can provide a quick and effective fitness workout.  Skipping activities will take place during Phys Ed classes, and we would like to offer the opportunity for students and families to fundraise online and collect donations for heart disease and stroke research.

For students and families that may be interested in fundraising, students will receive a donation envelope. For your convenience, there is also an online option for collecting donations. Thank you for your support!

How to get started

1. Visit JumpRopeForHeart.ca and Register for JUMP

2. Set up your personal fundraising page

3. Send donation request emails to friends, family and colleagues

If you need assistance, please visit JumpRopeForHeart.ca and check out the instructional videos and step by step “how-to” resources.

January 27th-January 30th

Fundraiser!!!

Your child came home today with a box of cards for our school fundraiser. Please read the info. sheet that also came home and which explains how the fundraiser works. The money raised supports our school for things such as Phys.Ed equipment, special residency programs and other needed materials. Thank you for your support of this fundraiser and for the wonderful group of parents who organized this!


Spelling Words:

blew, grew, drew, new, chew, stew, few, threw, flew, knew


Mental Math Strategies:

This past week our math lessons focused on developing our mental math skills.

From our student's perspective Mental Math is:

• Math done in your head
• Math that is done in the mind, quickly and efficiently
• Math that you understand so well that you don’t need to write anything down to do calculations/find the answer

Mental math improves computational fluency by developing efficiency, accuracy, and flexibility. 

Please see your child's Feedback Friday folder that went home today for additional information on Mental Math including grade 2  curricular expectations. The folder also includes games which are a great tool to use to practice mental math and develop fluency in computation. 

Please see the info. below regarding the different Mental Math strategies:

Curriculum Newsletter

January 20th-January 24th

Report Cards 
Report cards were sent home with students today. Please sign and return the white envelope.

Scholastic Orders:
The Scholastic orders went home in the envelopes today. They are due back January 30th, 2020 if you would like to order.

Spelling Words: 

ring, ding, wing, king, sing, bring, sting, swing, thing, spring

Skip Counting Belts
As an incentive for students to learn and develop their skip counting skills we are using a belt system. Each coloured belt is linked to a skill. Games and songs are two of the tools that students used to support them with learning this foundational math skill.

January 13th - January 17th

Next weeks spelling list:

Dear Families,

We will be focusing on word families as part of our spelling program:

Word families are important because they help students recognize and analyze word patterns. Word families help students understand these patterns and that certain words have the same letter combinations and sounds.

This week's word family is /ay/

bay
day
hay
lay
may
clay
gray
stay
tray
sway

Additional Information:

Yearbook Orders

2019-20 Yearbooks can be ordered online for $20 from now through January 31st. Please visit https://ybpay.lifetouch.ca/ and enter yearbook ID 13802520 to order your book. Books will be delivered to students in the fall. We will forward books to new schools for students who change schools within the CBE. Students who are moving outside of the CBE can provide a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the office so we can mail the yearbook on.

2019-2020 Ron Southern Yearbook Cover Design Contest!

This year, students will have the opportunity to submit original designs for our yearbook cover.

All Designs must:

• be on 8.5 x 11 paper, in portrait (vertical) format

• be related to empathy and kindness

• include our school's name, "Ron Southern"

• include the year "2019-2020"

• have the student-artist's name on the back

Entries are due to Ms. Gavan by Friday, February 7th. Leadership students will select the top 3 choices using the criteria above, and then all students will vote to determine the winner from those 3.

School Council Bottle Drive

Thank you to our Ron Southern Community for your support of our Bottle Drive. With your generosity we raised nearly $900 which will directly support our Ron Southern students.

January 6th- January 10th

Happy New Year Grade 2 Families!


Next week's spelling words:
away, but, find, eat, help, good, play, read, very, well



Feedback Friday and HOMEWORK!

As you are all aware, we use Fridays to review concepts and skills that we focused on throughout the week. This work is then sent home to provide families with feedback around how their child is doing. From now on, any work that is not completed at school during this time will be sent home for homework. We strongly encourage all families to take some time to go through the work with their child to review and complete any unfinished work. Feedback Friday provides families with insight into what your child is learning and how well he/she is understanding.

Skip Counting Practice at home:

Skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's is an area that students in the class need a little more practice. A great way to practice this skill is through songs/videos. Please see the attached links for songs to help students practice these skills. Students can also practice by using the Math Prodigy website.

Counting by 5's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemjeA2Djjw

Counting by 2's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvTcpfSnOMQ

Counting by 10's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftati8iGQcs&list=PL0WiadqKtDlaUXg8WM9Co5CHq0t2gtEFl

Extra Challenge!

Counting by 3's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_cn87hOCDM

Yearbook Cover Design Contest!

December 15th - Dec 19th

Please click on the link below for some ideas on what you can do with your child this upcoming winter break.

You will find a reading log and a math game that reinforces the important concept of place value.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FclIeH0wSajtkg-5LMfmvxJzHbKCCbGW/view?usp=sharing



Students have also been exploring some coding sites that they may want to continue to explore during the break:

Code.org

Go to the following website: https://code.org/join 

Enter the code DBMRVK

Section Name: Mrs. Spiller

Name: look for student name

Secret Picture: students should be able to remember their special creature picture.



Spelling Words for the week of Jan. 6-Jan. 10th

came, come, does, down, now, new, see, that, this will