Division 8 at Nestor Elementary

Mrs. Brancati's Classroom Blog

Happy New Year!

January 23rd, 2012 by · 7 Comments · Uncategorized

Today marks the beginning of  the Year of the Dragon  in the Chinese culture.

The dragon is a symbol of goodness and strength. Most of our class, except for Mrs. Brancati, were born under the sign of the monkey. Mrs. Brancati was born under the sign of the pig. We were invited by Lucas Hung (Ms Chung’s class) to watch a shadow puppet play that Lucas and his family prepared. It was an old Chinese folktale that explained the traditions of wearing red clothing, red paper decorations, eating dumplings, and loud firecrackers.

What a great show! Thanks Lucas!

       Chinese New Year Activities 

Gung Hey Fat Choi from Division 8!

Did you do anything special to celebrate Chinese New Year?

Tags: ··

The Maple Man

January 13th, 2012 by · 8 Comments · Uncategorized

p>Today Rene Turmel, the Maple Man, came to visit Nestor.

His presentation shared with us the French Canadian tradition of tapping Sugar Maple trees to make maple syrup!

What a special event it was!

•We watched a video about Rene’s Sugar Maple farm in Sainte-Marie de Beauce, Quebec (outside Quebec City)

• We learned that at the beginning of March(while snow is still on the ground) Rene taps 2000 Sugar Maple trees to collect their maple water.

• After 4 hours of cooking, the maple water thickens into maple syrup.

• 45 litres of sap are  needed to make 1 litre of syrup!

• Warm maple syrup poured on snow makes “le tire” – delicious Maple Taffy

We learned a lot and had a great time.

Merci Rene!                                                                                  

visit :The Maple Man\’s site

What part of the presentation did you enjoy most?

What was more fun: dancing the jig or playing the spoons?

Tags: ···

Happy New Year!

January 4th, 2012 by · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

Happy New Year to all of the families and friends of Division 8!

May 2012 be full of happiness and blessings for you all.

We spent the morning discussing resolutions. The students were thoughtful and reflective

about ways they could try to improve themselves at home, at school, in their personal health, and with others. Moms, I hope you notice. Many of us want to try to help out by tidying our rooms, setting the table, and cleaning!!! 2012 is going to be a great year!

 

 

A Little Christmas Fun

December 13th, 2011 by · 6 Comments · Uncategorized

 

Santa and Division 8 wish everyone a "Merry Christmas".

                         9-tile puzzle swap for Christmas                      Christmas Sudoku                      Christmas Tree Light-Up

Merry Christmas to all our families! I hope your holidays are filled with happy moments shared together.

love,

Mrs. Brancati 

Gingerbread

November 29th, 2011 by · 2 Comments · Uncategorized

 This week we read the traditional folk tale of the Gingerbread Man. As most of us already knew the story, it was a perfect opportunity to practice writing a story summary. We had to write and illustrate only the “key elements” of the story.

Now the fun begins… we will read many different versions of the story. One takes place in New York City, one is about a Gingerbread Girl, and one of Mrs. B.’s favourites is about a Gingerbread Baby! 

 So far, which is your favourite Gingerbread Tale?

 On Tuesday we made gingerbread decorations for our classroom and iced real gingerbread men for our tummies!!! What fun we had.

Try this fun site and decorate a gingerbread cookie of your own.   Decorate a gingerbread cookie

Tags: ···

Nestor Helpers

November 24th, 2011 by · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

 

In class this term we have been emphasizing the importance of others in our regards to our own successes!

Our classmates share their ideas. Mrs. Brancati encourages us to “stretch” our thinking. Our families compliment our efforts and hard work. 

This week we focussed on the adults at Nestor who help us in so many ways.

 Here are some of our ideas:

•Mr. Walton hammers screws in so we stay safe.  • The supervisors make sure the playground is happy and safe.

•Mrs. Cunningham taught me how to do bubble letters.     • Mrs. Burton calls parents when their child is sick.

• Mr. Della Vedova makes announcements.     • Mrs. Torres did a Peace Song for the whole school to sing.

•Mrs. Nielsen makes us learn our alphabet.     • Ms Dorrepaal shows us how to sing.

•Mrs. Donnelly teaches me how to speak English.    •Ms Coyle encourages us to read.

• Mrs. Brancati does beautiful art.    • Mrs. Boekhout keeps our Computer Room up and running.

We’re sure you’ll agree. We are one lucky school! Thank-you everyone!

Enjoy our slideshow of our “helper portraits”. We tried hard to add lots of detail so you would recognize our helpers. 

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow
Create your own slideshow - Powered by Smilebox
This slideshow design created with Smilebox

Did someone at Nestor “make your day”? Tell us about it.

Tags: ··

Doubles

November 3rd, 2011 by · 8 Comments · Uncategorized

   2+2=4     3+3=6    4+4=8    5+5=10     6+6=12   7+7=14    8+8=16   9+9=18

In Math this week we have been working on learning and recognizing our doubles addition facts.

This will be one of the important “strategies” we will use when discovering ways to solve mathematical problems .

Here’s a little game to practice those “doubles”. Click on the link.


                                                                           Match the Lady bugs (DOUBLES GAME)

       To help us “see” and remember our “doubles” facts we brainstormed things in our world that were doubles.

eggs in an egg carton  6+6=12                legs on a spider  4+4=8            tires on a car      2+2

fingers on our hands 5+5=10               wheels on a bike 1+1=2             wheels on roller skates 3+3=6

“Can you think of anything that is a “double?

 

 

Tags: ··

Lois Ehlert

October 30th, 2011 by · 2 Comments · Uncategorized

   As our first “Author Study” this year, Mrs. Brancati chose one of her all-time favorites,   Lois Ehlert

Mrs. B. loves how Lois Ehlert uses shape, bold colour, limited, yet playful vocabulary, and humor in her children’s books. The text always encourages the reader to think and extend.

The students love her books too! They want to read them over and over. 

   Listen to Lois Ehlert talk about her ideas and inspirations. an interview with Lois Ehlert (video)

Here are some of our favorite Lois Ehlert books:

 Lois Ehlert’s use of collage even inspired us to do some artwork of our own.

It has been on display in our hallway gallery!

 

Which was your favorite Lois Ehlert book? Why did you choose that one?

Tags: ··

Nestor’s Pumpkin Patch

October 27th, 2011 by · 7 Comments · Uncategorized

 

Thanks to Nestor’s Parent Group (our PAC) the playground was turned into a pumpkin patch today!

The weather was perfect. The rain stayed away. We are so lucky to have an amazing PAC Group. We can’t thank them enough.

Watch and see how much fun we had:

 

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow
Create your own slideshow - Powered by Smilebox
This free slideshow customized with Smilebox

 What was your favourite part of today?

Tags: ···

Friday Journals

October 15th, 2011 by · 2 Comments · Uncategorized

Has Mom or Dad ever asked you what you did at school today and you answered, “Nothing!”?

Grade 2 is very different now than it was “back in the day”. To help our parents understand what we do in our classroom, we write about one learning situation  every Friday in our Journal. We take it home to share with our parents.

This is a purposeful way we can “work on our writing” (part of our “Daily 5 ” that helps us develop our language fluency).We do a lot of pre-writing; talking, brainstorming, celebrating samples of our writing from last week, and illustrating. Pre-writing helps us be “ready to write” so that when we do start writing, we start write away, stay focussed on our writing, and work on building our writing stamina.

We love writing in our Friday Journals! Mrs. Brancati has noticed that we take this writing task very seriously. We look forward to reading the comments our parents write back to us in our notebooks. 

Look at us in action!!! 

 

Apologies to Ashleigh, Carissa, Austin, and Jakub… Mrs. B. lost the photo of your group! She will take another and add it next week.

How has school changed since your parents were in Grade Two?

What is one of your favourite things so far in Grade Two?

Tags: ··