Week of February 10 - 14th, 2025

Black History Month:  “Shaping Black Futures: Uplifting Voices, Inspiring Innovation.” 

February is Black History Month in Canada, a time for people of all ages—students, families, educators, and community members—to reflect on and celebrate the significant contributions of Black Canadians to our nation’s history, growth, and development. It is also an opportunity to honour the achievements of Black individuals and communities, while recognizing that Black history is an integral part of Canadian history.

In our prayers throughout the month, we will take the opportunity to honour and pray for many of the achievements and contributions made by a variety of Black Canadian historical figures.

Black History Month at the OCSB

In our class, we will celebrate and honour the contributions of Black Canadians to the history and development of Canada. We will learn about Viola Desmond, and read stories written by or about Black Canadians for young children. We will also learn about some influential Black Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

Valentine's Day - Friday, February 14   

Just a reminder that on Friday, February 14, we will celebrate Valentine's Day at school. Your child is invited to wear red, pink, or white and is welcome to bring in Valentine cards to hand out if he/she wishes. Your child should bring in a card for each student in our class if he/she chooses to bring in cards.

A class list of first names has been emailed to each parent to help your child label their Valentine's Cards. 

Our Learning

Math:

In Grade 2, we will finish up our unit on 2-D Geometry. We will explore how to compose and decompose shapes.

Link to Parent Summary Letter about Composing 2-D Shapes

Link to Parent Summary Letter about Decomposing 2-D Shapes

In Grade 3, we will complete our unit about 3-D Geometry by composing and decomposing them. 

Link to Parent Summary Letter about Composing and Decomposing 3-D Solids

Language:

Last week in our phonics lessons, we learned that the letter G can also say /j/ when it is followed by a silent E, like in the words page, age, and huge and also words such as cage, stage, and strange. The E at the end of the word does not make a sound so we say it is "silent" ("silent E" or "bossy E"). 

This week in our phonics lessons, we will learn about plurals. The -s ending is used to make nouns plural. Plural means more than one: one cat, three cats. The -s ending can also change the tense of verbs: I run, he runs. 

We will learn about the -ES ending used in plurals. If a noun ends with CH, SH, S, X, or Z, we add -ES instead of just -S, like in the words bunches, dishes, glasses, boxes, and foxes. 

This week's new heart words: use, two, does

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, *use, *two, *does.

In order to develop reading comprehension, since the fall, we have been working on strategies such as making predictions while reading, identifying the important ideas and supporting details in a text, making inferences by using stated and implied ideas as evidence, making connections to our own ideas and experiences, visualizing, asking questions, and using text features to find information in a text. 

In both Grade 2 and Grade 3, the Ontario Language curriculum, and your child's evaluation and report mark, includes his/her ability to demonstrate, both orally and through written responses, comprehension of a text. Reading comprehension includes being able to reflect on and understand the deeper meanings in a text and answering comprehension questions about that content, even when the "answer" is not written explicitly in the text. This ability to infer meaning is extremely important.

In Grade 2, your child begins to learn how to provide written responses to comprehension questions about texts read. An emphasis is placed on learning how to find the answer in the text where appropriate, and then to use words from the question to begin their answer, followed by writing their answer in a complete sentence. 

In Grade 3, the students are expected to clearly explain their thinking using evidence and details from the text to support the answer, as well as his/her own ideas and experiences. This can be a challenging skill for many students, but an important skill which they will continue to use for years to come, into high school and post-secondary education.

Science

The Grade 2s have been learning about movement and simple machines. We have been exploring the forces of push and pull, how we can make objects move, and different types of simple machines. The Grade 2s will participate in a Scientists in School virtual workshop about movement and simple machines on Wednesday, February 12th.

In Grade 3, we have been learning about structures. On Wednesday, February 19th, our class will participate in an in-person Scientists in School workshop with Mrs. Bean's class. The workshop is about strong and stable structures, in which your child will build their own structure using what they learn. The important idea for the workshop is that a structure has both form and function, and that structures need to be strong enough to withstand forces acting on them.

Important Dates:

February - Black History Month

Monday, Feb. 10 - Grade 3 Swim to Survive

Wednesday, Feb. 12 - Grade 2 Scientists in School Workshop Block 1

Thursday, Feb. 13 - Report Cards and IEPs available on Parent Portal

Friday, Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day

Monday, Feb. 17 - Family Day: No school

Feb. 17-21 - Kindness Week