Merry Christmas SMY Families!

Wishing you all a restful, healthy and joyous Christmas with your families!

Fun Games Day!

Here are some pics from our last school day of 2017! We skipped Morning Warm-up and went straight to games! Thanks to Max for leading the students in origami creations! Cards and Braeden's Bingo were a real hit! We didn't quite get to Goewra's Monopoly game...maybe in June! Lilah presented her project about Portugal and Sofia spoke to an enthralled crowd about Vietnam (they ran out of time during French class). 

Board Game Friday!

One more sleep until Christmas Holidays! Yippee! I invited the students to bring in their favourite board games tomorrow for a Games Day! No electronics just some good old fashioned games!

Christmas Concert!

Thank you to all our students for a successful Christmas concert today! The students sang beautifully and the choir kids, under the direction of the amazing Ms. Morris, capped off a wonderfully festive afternoon with their angelic voices!

Garven got spiffy for his stage performance! 

Week at a Glance

Wear a Warm Sweater Tomorrow!

SMY is turning down the heat to conserve energy tomorrow. Make sure to wear a warm sweater for the day!

We Team Snowflake Sale is Tomorrow!

SMY WE Team is hosting its 1st Annual Christmas Snowflake Fundraising Sale tomorrow. Students will be able to shop for their immediate family and all money will go to support our global initiative of Education. Students are invited to bring a $1, $2 or $5 donation in order to shop!

Origami Christmas Trees

We have been talking about procedural writing during language class this week. We discussed various examples of procedural writing such as recipes, how-to books, instructions for games and crafts, as well as origami books. The students successfully made these colourful origami Christmas trees following a procedure we saw on YouTube.

Gingerbread Cookies

Thank you to the SMY Parent Council for the Gingerbread Cookies!

The Best Part of Me Slideshow!

Here is the link to our slideshow. I am so excited about its positive message and the fact that so many of the students used similes in their descriptions! Hannah suggested we use Oscar Wilde's famous quote on the final page...We all were delighted with this suggestion! 

"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." 

The Best Part of Me Link by 2/3W

Christmas Gallery

Here is the bulletin board outside our class graced with the students' Christmas art. A daycare teacher inquired whether the art was for sale and commented that she felt like she was in an art gallery! What awesome creativity, 2/3 W!

Week at a Glance

Glittery Christmas Art...

In Art, the students have been creating glittery and colourful Christmas tree forests using tissue paper collage, sparkly Mod Podge, and waterclolours. The results are stunning and they will find their way to your homes in time for Christmas!

Hour of Code

Alrizha and Cameron learned to program droids and to create their own Star Wars game in a galaxy far, far away.

Joshua, Goewra and many other 2/3W Minecraft fans used blocks of code to take Steve and Alex on an adventure through Minecraft world.

Sofia and Lilah learned about coding by creating fun, interactive pictures on Code Crazy Creatures. 

Garven, Lucas, Alice and Matteo coded their way through a Minecraft adventure. Alice was very helpful with all the groups as she had done the Minecraft coding activity earlier this week at home. Thanks Alice! 

The Best Part of Me

In the book Best Part of Me, Wendy Ewald, a teacher and photographer, asks her students, "What is the best part of you?" The book presents their answers in their handwriting and includes black-and-white photographs taken by Ms. Ewald. It is a wonderful book that celebrates uniqueness and diversity  The 2/3 W students wrote their own paragraphs to celebrate the miracle of their healthy bodies. I attempted to complement their writing with arty black and white shots. We are in the process of turning our creations into a class slideshow with the students' voices reading their paragraphs. Stay tuned for that... Here is a sneak peak at our bulletin board.

More Measurement!

This morning the students continued to explore centimetres using measuring tape and each other! Tomorrow, they will consider longer measurements that require the use of metre sticks!

Advent Prayer Service

A BIG thank you to all the readers from our class and Mrs. Frangione's class who contributed to our lovely Advent Prayer Service this morning. Brye-Anna, Neela, Joshua, Cameron, Sofia and Joelle - you all read beautifully. Thank you to all the students for singing with the voices of angels!

Hour of Code

What is the Hour of Code?

The Hour of Code started as a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify "code", to show that anybody can learn the basics, and to broaden participation in the field of computer science. It has since become a worldwide effort to celebrate computer science, starting with 1-hour coding activities but expanding to all sorts of community efforts.

When is the Hour of Code?

The Hour of Code takes place each year during Computer Science Education Week. The 2017 Computer Science Education Week will be December 4th-10th!

The 2/3 class will participate this week, most likely on Wednesday if there are enough Chromebooks available. Here is the link to the Hour Of Code Website if you would like to find out more info!
Hour of Code

Week at a Glance

Getting Ready for Advent!

Brye-Anna enthusiastically covered our class prayer table in purple today for the Advent season. We will be leading the first Advent Prayer Service on Monday morning along with Mrs. Frangione's class.

Linear Measurement

 Today we launched the Linear Measurement Unit in Math. Using their pinkies (the width is about 1cm), the students had to estimate objects in the class that they thought were close to 30 cm in length. Once they recorded their estimates, they used a ruler to measure their chosen objects.

Mad Science!

Our exploration of carbon dioxide continued today with an experiment involving Mentos and Diet Coke. We learned that bubbles of carbon dioxide from the Diet Coke lodge themselves and grow in the little craters on the surface of Mentos mints. Once these bubbles pop, they release a lot of carbon dioxide which causes a volcanic eruption of Diet Coke, as well as squeals of delight from the 2/3 class!

Rhythm Circles with Leo Brooks

While the Grade 2 students played Subitizing math games with Ms. Morris' class, the grade 3 students joined the Grade 5 classes this morning for a rhythm circle with Leo Brooks. The students learned that for rhythm to work, it has to be organized (patterns). The students got to create rhythms using a variety of percussion instruments including djembes, shakers and guiros.

Week at a Glance!

Reward Afternoon!

What a fun way to end a short week! The students had a blast this afternoon being cozy in their PJ's, hanging with their stuffies and friends, playing with their devices and eating delicious snacks! Thank you so much to the students and parents who thrilled our taste buds with scrumptious treats!

Choose Kind!

Today, each class prepared a special anti-bullying presentation to share with the rest of the school at our Anti-Bullying Assembly! Here is a link to 2/3W's contribution!

2/3W Chooses Kind!

Class Reward!

As a reward for completing the paperclip chain (for spectacular group effort and behaviour), the 2/3W students will enjoy a celebration tomorrow afternoon! Students are welcome to wear their PJ''s and to bring toys, games and/or electronics. There will also be Chromebooks available for students who don't bring in electronics. The electronics will be in the locked classroom during recesses and lunch. The students are also welcome (but not expected) to bring in some nut-free snacks to share with their classmates.

Chemical Reaction!

Today during our ongoing study of liquids, solids and gases, the students were asked to hypothesize what would happen when baking soda contained in the balloon pictured below mixed with the vinegar in the pop bottle:

Here are a few of the kids acting out their hypothesis...

Here is a peak at the cool science we excitedly witnessed:

Ask your child the name of the gas that was formed when baking soda was mixed with vinegar !

This Week's Precept According to 2/3W...

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."  Maya Angelou

"The cloud is a person who's sad or mad, and the other person is the rainbow trying to make the cloud feel better because it's angry...so it's basically trying to put the light in the cloud!"  -Emily

"The cloud is the sad person and the rainbow is trying to fill that sad person's bucket!"  -Brye-Anna

"The cloud is okay but not happy, and the rainbow is happy. It is an object that gives happiness, and if you put the rainbow in the cloud you get a happy cloud!"  -Hannah

"The cloud is mad because his friends are being mean to him or maybe he feels like he is being bullied. The rainbow is a true friend who turns your frown upside down." -Goewra and Breeona

"The cloud is sad and lonely. Then the rainbow comes to colour it in."  -Matteo

"The cloud is a hurt student, and the rainbow is going to get the teacher and helps bring the cloud to the office." -Braeden

"The cloud is all alone and has no one to play with. The rainbow is a good friend who helps him and plays with him." -Maximus

"The Cloud family is very poor and Christmas is coming. The Rainbow family gives them money to buy presents for their family. The Rainbow can tell them about Jesus' birth and the true meaning of Christmas". -Olivia and Brye-Anna

Week at a Glance

Descriptive Writing Continues...

The students have been honing their descriptive writing skills. Today they learned the difference between metaphors and similes. Read your child the following two sentences and ask him or her to identify which is a simile and which is a metaphor. Once your child has wowed you with this ability, ask for an explanation!

He is a sly fox!

Ms. Wills wishes she was always as cool as a cucumber!

The students used their senses to describe an imaginary island of their dreams...some of these included: Candy Land, Math Island, Dinosaur Land, Hockey Island and Football Island! The completed paragraphs with accompanying illustrations grace a bulletin board in the class!

What's Your Favourite Way to Fly?

Airplane? Helicopter? Hot Air Balloon?

That was one of the survey questions the students asked each other today. They used their collected data to make a bar graph. Airplane was the most popular but a few adventurous students opted for helicopter and hot air balloon! Tomorrow, the students will formulate their own survey question! They look very official with their clipboards in this picture!

Metis Presentation

The students and teachers enjoyed an interesting presentation this afternoon by Metis Elder Bob Stevenson. He spoke about living off the land respectfully and how all parts of an animal are used by indigenous people (food, tools, clothing, musical instruments). Mrs. Kelly took the following wonderful pictures of some of the incredible objects he brought with him. It was an awesome Show and Tell!

Photo Retakes are Tomorrow!

Forgot to mention this in the Week at a Glance!

Oil and Water Experiment

As part of the Grade 2 Science study of the properties of liquids, we conducted an experiment today to observe how oil and water interact. We added squirts of coloured water into a dish of baby oil. The students got a chance to swirl it around and discovered that the two really do not mix!

Breeona squirted purple drops of water on Alrizha's oil-covered hands. The purple droplets on Alrizha's hand really illustrate how the two liquids do not mix! Did I mention that things got a little messy?!

Making Bar Graphs

The students paired up today to make bar graphs. We will look at their work tomorrow and discuss the importance of using a reasonable scale, including a title and labeling the axes. Later this week, the students will conduct surveys and display their collected data on bar graphs.