Sorting and Estimating

We have been sorting everything from shapes, shirts, animals and names to underwear (Captain Underpants)!  Today the class sorted vintage buttons.  Using a sorting map, partners worked together to sort the buttons into four different groups.  They came up with some very creative groupings including buttons covered in fabric, buttons made of plastic, see through buttons, buttons with diamonds, sparkly buttons, buttons with holes, coloured buttons, big buttons, small buttons and buttons with designs.

I am sorting buttons!

                                                                           1.  All these are diamond buttons

                                                                           2.  All these are metal buttons      

                                                                           3.  All these are blue buttons        

                                                                           4.  All these are fabric buttons      

We also started an Estimating Chart this week.  A glass jar is filled with different objects each day and the children estimate how many objects are inside.  They record their estimates on the chart before being counted.  We practice skip counting by two as we make groups of ten. Yesterday we counted 28 wooden blocks in the jar.  Dhakin's estimate was the closest at 27 so we circled his estimate in red.  We counted 2 groups of ten and 8 ones.   Today the jar was filled with small plastic cubes.  The estimates ranged from 10 to 102.  We counted 95.  Vienna guessed 88, just seven less, and Van guessed 102, just seven more!  So, we circled both their names.  What will be in the jar tomorrow? 

Valentine's Day - Love, Splat

Rob Scotton has quickly become one of our favourite authors.  We think he's extra talented because he writes the stories AND does the illustrations.  We love both characters from his books, Russell the Sheep and Splat the Cat.  This week we read Love, Splat.  Splat has a special valentine for a certain cat in his class.  It's for Kitten, who Splat likes more than fish sticks and ice cream (that's A LOT for Splat).  Then there's Spike, Splat's rival who is also competing for Kitten's attention.  Does Splat's valentine find its way to Kitten's heart?

The kids painted Splat the Cat with black tempera paint and used a toothpick to create Splat's frizzy hair.   Then, with pink, white and black chalk pastels they blended colours to add all the details.  Didn't they turn out great?

This morning we transformed paper bags in to very pretty Valentine's Day mailboxes with hearts, hearts and more hearts.  Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Year of the Snake

Check out our colourful wax crayon resist dragons.  The kids coloured their dragons with brightly coloured wax crayons before painting them over with a wash of black paint.  Our toilet paper firecrackers were painted with Chinese characters and glittered in gold.  Gung Hay Fat Choy!

The grade 2's next door in Ms. Yu and Ms. Polley's class made these incredible tissue paper snakes with water colour backgrounds.  Aren't they fabulous?