January 20 - 24, 2025

United in Black Day Monday, January 20, 2025

On Monday, January 20th, the schools in the OCSB are participating in United in Black Day (formerly Black Shirt Day). Students and staff are invited to wear black and use the opportunity to raise awareness about anti-Black racism (and racism in all its forms), raise the profile of the systemic barriers that Black people have faced and continue to face within our school communities, and to speak up against racism wherever it shows itself. Your child is encouraged to wear black on Monday. 

Our Learning This Week

Math:

The focus of our new Math unit in Grade 2 will be on 2-D shapes (polygons). We will explore how to describe 2-D shapes using their geometric properties (e.g., sides, corners/vertices, angles). 

Link to Parent Letter Explaining How to Describe 2-D Shapes

In Grade 3, the focus is on 3-D solids. We will be exploring how we can describe 3-D solids, including their properties (e.g., faces, edges, vertices, angles). We will also examine the meaning of the term congruent (congruence).

Link to Geometry Vocabulary To Know for Grade 3 here

Link to MathUP Parent Letter Explaining How To Describe 3-D Objects

Language:

Our reading comprehension focus continues to be an exploration of several features of non-fiction texts (e.g., table of contents, and we will learn more about headings, special font, photographs, diagrams, labels, captions, text boxes, maps, cut-outs/closeups, glossary, and index.

Reading/Spelling: Last week during our last UFLI Phonics lesson, we started to learn about the long u vowel sound as in the word use. The long vowel sound is the same as the vowel's name, u. 

The vowel u says its own name, u, when there is a silent E at the end of a word, like in the words cube, mute, and cute and also words such as flute, rule, tube, duke, and tune. The E at the end of the word does not make a sound so we say it is "silent" ("silent E" or "bossy E"). 

We will then focus our phonics learning on the _ce ending. We will learn that _ce says /s/ such as in the words rice, trace, twice, space.

This week's new heart words are: one, once

Please have your child practise the heart words we have learned so far in class: the, I, a, said, to, do, of, see, he, be, me, from, you, what, have, look, book, are, was, your, want, go, no, so, goes, says, they, their, were, talk, walk, could, should, would, or, for, who, by, my, *one, *once.

Spelling Check-In Friday, Jan. 24th:

On Friday, Jan. 24th, we will have another heart word spelling check-in. Your child is expected to know how to spell the heart words learned in class so far. In addition, the assessment will include words that follow the long vowel patterns we've been learning. At home, please continue to help your child by practising reading and writing the heart words. Remember, the heart words are high-frequency words so it is essential that your child learns to read and write them 'by heart".

Science:

The Grade 2s have been exploring ways in which humans can protect the quality of our air and water as we finish up in our Air and Water in the Environment unit. Ask your child about their ideas! The Grade 3s have been learning about about the importance of decomposers in soil and why composting is important in our Soils in the Environment unit. Ask your Grade 3 child why worms are so important to our soil and why we need to protect our soil! Both grades will soon have a Science assessment before starting our next units: (Grade 2: Movement and Grade 3: Structures).

Important Dates:

Wed., Jan. 22 - Bell Let's Talk Day

Jan. 27 - St. Gabriel celebrates Family Literacy Day (See Link here)

Jan. 31 - P.D. Day: No school for students