Ms Courtney's Class

Here are the links to the Padlet boards where we can collect and curate our inspiration from nature.  Sky Fire Birds Water Space Land Animals Sea Animals   Mountains Plants  Jungle, forest, flowers Snow  

Last week we collaborated with 4 other schools in Belgium, Saudi, America and China to write a book based on the UNs Sustainable Development Goal. The books we worked on was on the goal regarding sustainable cities. We wrote the ending to the book. The students enjoyed the opportunity to add to this book and either worked on the pictures, writing the text or recording.

We continued to understand the different ways the Earth can move and change this week. We looked at the fast and slow changes to the Earth as well as the layers of the Earth and tectonic plates. We created poems on either volcanoes or tsunamis. Book Week Next week is Book Week. We started preparing today by adding our page to the collaborative book that started in EY1 and will finish in Grade 5. Here is a overview of what will be happening next week. Monday Mystery Reader Opening assembly D.E.A.R - Drop Everything And Read Tuesday Mystery Reader Visiting author workshop Poem in your pocket day D.E.A.R - Drop Everything And Rea d Wednesday Mystery Reader Door decorating judging D.E.A.R - Drop Everything And Read Thursday Mystery Reader D.E.A.R - Drop Everything And Read Candlelight Read Aloud - 6pm Sleepover - Begins after the Candle light Read Aloud Friday Closing Assembly Mystery Reader D.E.A.R - Drop Everything And Read Book Da...

Welcome back to school. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday last week. This week we began our final unit of inquiry for the year. Our Central Idea is Products can go through a process of change before they are distributed and consumed. We completed a number of learning experiences about where our food comes from and how it has changed. Go Bananas To start the unit the students were given a photo of one stage of the process bananas go through from seed in Columbia to the shop in the UK. First the students needed to think of all the questions they had about this photo. After this the students were given a different photos and needed to think and draw the stage before and after the photo they had. This really made the students think about the photo and what would happen before and after. When all the groups had finished the students arranged the photos in the correct order. Provocation On Wednesday the students had the opportunity to explore a range of food products. ...

Thank you for supporting your child through another great week of school. Spotlight on the Arts Thank you to everyone who came to the Grade 2 Spotlight on the Arts. It was a very successful evening with a lot of creativity shown by both students and parents. Collaboration with another school During the week we collaborated with Vientiane International School's Grade 3 students. They are currently working on the same unit as us and visited the National Museum in Vientiane last week. We worked on a Padlet together to share photos about some of the artifacts we saw at the National Museum in Phnom Penh and learnt about some of the artifacts in Vientiane. Update from PE Click here for the PDF version.  Dates to remember Monday 13th February No School Monday 20th Tuesday 21st February No School Have a wonderful long weekend!

After an extra day to the weekend, we started on week on Tuesday. It was a jammed pack week. Welcome to Anna On Thursday we welcomed Anna to our class. Library We have been going to the library on Tuesdays for borrowing and independent reading. Students have time to explore a range of literature in the library and can select upto three books of interest for the week. Math In math we continued to looking into place value by expanding numbers into the thousands and hundreds and modeling numbers with MAB blocks. We also started looking at tallies and bar graphs. Students have made graphs on their favourite fruits and sports. We will continue with this into next week. Buddies We spent some time with our buddies in their classroom. We worked on cooperation skills by playing some games with them. In the coming weeks our buddies will help us with our unit of inquiry and presentation skills. UoI Germs Our bread continued to grow some interesting mould and th...

Over the past couple of weeks, grade 2 students have been working on a collaborative piece of art. We started with a big idea -  'The challenges we face as learners'. Step one:  We brainstormed the obstacles we face. We asked ourselves 'What makes it difficult for me to learn?' 'What stops me from doing my best?' 'When is learning the most difficult? Step two: All grade two children made some beautiful coloured paper. These were created by drawing in marker pens on paper towels, running them under the tap, and squeezing the water out. The result was a little like tie dye. When they were dry we cut them into strips. Step 3:  We took photographs of ourselves looking like we we climbing, pulling, or pushing our way through obstacles. These were then cut out carefully. Step 4:  In groups we used the strips and glued them like a collage all over some cardboard.   Step 5:  We painted on the obstacles! It was messy work!   Step 6:  We carefu...

Growth Mindset We began to delve into our first unit for the year this week. We started with a challenge for the students to make a folded piece of paper the same as mine. They were allowed to look at the paper from any angle, but could not touch the paper. While they were trying to make it I recorded some of the comments that I heard the students say. After 10 minutes we looked at the list of comments on the board and wondered if these would help us to complete the task. This activity led us into a discussion on Growth Mindset. If you have a growth mindset, you believe that with  work, practice, and perseverance,  you can improve – whether it’s your academic performance, or any other skill. (Those with the opposite, a fixed mindset, believe that our intelligence and talents are predisposed, and either you were born with it or not.) Thanks to the great work of Stanford’s Carol Dweck, we know that not only is the growth mindset accurate, but those who hold these be...

The students worked with Mr Andy in their first PE class this morning to create a set of essential agreements they will follow during PE lessons for this year. Mr Andy keeps a PE blog , please check it throughout the year to see updates from PE. Grade 2CS PE essential agreements  First PE lesson

We had a wonderful start to the school year this week. Students quickly settled into school, enjoyed seeing their friends again and participated in some different activities to start off the year.  Please have a look at the student's pages on the right to see their photo from the first day of school and a reflection they did today.