What we've been working on...

Ok so it's FINALLY starting to feel like spring MIGHT be coming soon. We had snow on the weekend and rain this morning. No more negative temperatures in the forecast this week!!! 

Last week we went back to our seasonal changes unit to talk about the transition from winter to spring. My poor little ones were having a hard time wrapping their heads around the typical spring activities we talked about, as they're all very different to the snow and winter boots they're still experiencing. 

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Pictures from the past two weeks

Although I've completely dropped with ball with blogging recently, I've still managed to take a few photos over the past two weeks to share!

Here we go...

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Seasonal changes - Winter mini book

As we've been learning about the seasonal changes living things go through during winter, we've been illustrating our own mini books!! 

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Needs of living things

I've been teaching the needs of living things vocabulary for a few minutes each day over the past week and a half. This gives them lots of exposure to the vocabulary over a chunk of time. We've been practicing "J'ai besoin de..." and 6 words to complete the sentence. 

I write "J'ai besoin de..." on the board, and add 1 card at a time as my students tell me them. Then once they're all up there, we go through them again together in French. 

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Living things - Journal practice

We have talked a LOT about "bumping it up" in school this year. When I get my students started on an activity we go over the basic expectations, and then we always talk about how we could "bump it up". They are slowly learning that it feels good to challenge yourself even though it is of course more work. 

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Fall sentence starters

We have been working hard on our fall vocabulary for a few weeks. It's so fun to hear them say the fall words with so much confidence now!

We practiced a venn diagram together as a class to compare "fall" and "winter" as part of our seasonal changes unit. Then my students tried it independently on mini whiteboards. They shared their ideas and sentences with a partner each time, before erasing and adding new ideas.

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Living things

We have split our "Seasonal changes" unit up to be taught at 4 separate times over the year. This lets us teach about each season during the season itself! So we are pressing pause on that unit and have started learning about living things.

This week we talked about living and non living things. We used our fall French vocabulary cards to sort and create sentences using "vivant" and "non vivant". 

I gave each student two sticky notes and they each drew one thing that is living and one that is not living. Then we shared all the sticky notes and stuck them on this anchor chart:

They used simple sentences to share, eg "Une chaise est non vivant", "une fille est vivant". 

I also added "autour du monde" cards for the needs of living things to my tpt unit - so if you've downloaded it, make sure you check out the new updates! 

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Seasonal changes - 3D trees

Last week we made 3D trees! My students LOVED their finished trees!

We talked about what a tree would look like in each season. They drew in details and cut out their trees. I helped with the folding and gluing for their trees.

Here are some pictures of the finished products!

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Easy 4 seasons craftivity

I just posted a new craft to help you teach about the 4 seasons:

Students draw and colour their trees and then glue them together to make a tree that will stand up on its own!

Check it out here in French, English, and Spanish!

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Seasonal changes units

I've just posted new versions of my English and French "Seasonal changes" units. If you have either of these, please download the updated version! They're now filled with wonderful new fonts :) 

Also - please email me to let me know what I could add to the unit to make it more useful in your class! I'd be happy to add more to it! 

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Grade 2 science - experiment updates

Here are pictures of how our experiments ended up:

The water has started to evaporate and the salt is left on the popsicle stick! 

This spider was a BIG hit! They have been so excited to check on it every day. It hasn't grown since the first 72 hours, but they still find it very exciting to look at. A simple absorption activity! I had to move him to a bigger container as he was getting too squished in the plastic cup.

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Science - grade 1 seasonal changes

While finishing up our living things unit, we have also taken up our seasonal changes unit again to learn about winter. 

After brainstorming what we know, sorting some pictures, and reading some books, we summarized how people, animals, the weather, and plants change in the winter.

Here are some of the pictures we used to talk about the seasons:

And some pictures of the work my students did to identify winter changes:

Then we compared winter and fall using a venn diagram. We also used this activity to practice our French sentences (je vois, je porte, je fais, il y a). It was really exciting to hear them share their work in French and to see what they were able to write. 

We are also still working on French winter words during daily 5. They have really improved their French reading recently! 

If you have this Science unit, I'd love your feedback on it! Feel free to email me if there is something you think is missing. I'd be happy to add it!!

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Liquids and solids - Grade 2

In grade 2 we have been working on our science liquids and solids unit! 

Here are some pictures of what we have been up to...

Science word wall: 

Here's an experiment that we did for absorption...

I found this little guy at Dollarama. We put him in a cup of water and watched him grow over the week! 

We also looked at things that mix and dissolve. I found these little cups at Dollarama and we used them to split up the different things for each group. It was fun! 

Do you have any cool science experiments for this unit? I'd LOVE to hear about them! Leave a comment below :) 

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Polluted water and thanksgiving craft

This week in grade 2:

This week we started our polluted water jar:

We looked at different pictures of polluted water, and then discussed why polluted water is a problem for people, animals, and the environment. Then I filled an empty orange juice container with water. We looked through the recycling, garbage, and compost bins and talked about how different things could cause problems if they were found floating in water in the environment. Then we added them to the orange juice container. We talked about oil spills and I poured some cooking oil into the orange juice container. We looked at how it stayed at the top of the water, and talked about what might happen if a bird landed on the water. Then I dipped some feathers into the water so they could see how the oil affects the feathers. 

Once we had everything mixed into the orange juice container, they drew their observations (and smelled the container!). We will be observing the container once a week. **If you are doing this activity, use a container that you are happy to get rid of once you're done with the experiment. It will smell AWFUL after a few weeks and you won't want to spend any time scrubbing your container clean. 

Then we did a Thanksgiving craft. We brainstormed all the things that we are thankful for as a class. Then I gave them each a paper plate. They divided the paper plate into sections and drew the things they were thankful for. 

We also continued to practice our fall vocabulary! Here is our matching centre:

Hope you had a great week! Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians out there!

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Air activities in grade 2

This week in grade 2 we continued to investigate air! 

We practiced our "Monsieur le vent!" poem. 

We did an experiment with air. I gave them a bucket of small items and two rulers. In small groups, they put the rulers on their desks and guessed how many breaths it would take to blow an item from one ruler to the other. They found it really fun! We worked on making predictions, and we talked about their observations. What did they notice about the objects? Which objects were easier to move? Which ones took the most breaths?

Then we made wind snakes! They decorated the spirals, and then cut them out and tied ribbon around the inside tip. Then we went outside and explored what happened with the wind. We also made our own wind by running with the wind snakes! 

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