November 6th, 2017

Dear Parents,

I hope that you are all feeling a little bit more knowledgable about your child's progress at school after the parent meetings. If you have any problems or want to know how your child is doing, please feel free to contact me on classdojo or email.

Math
To begin our week, students reviewed place value skills that they needed extra practice with. We had a place value test on Wednesday, which covered all of the skills we have learnt in math this year. I was looking at the end of year Grade 1 test, and couldn't believe how well the children have done in comparison. The Grade 2 numbers are much higher, and the skills are a lot more demanding. We should be so proud! Place value is a skill that comes up daily in math. If your child needs extra help with a certain skill, we will continue developing their knowledge, and no doubt it will be a recurring theme throughout the units. To end the week we started our new math topic of data management. Students will be learning about tally charts, bar graphs, pictographs, as well as being able to answer questions about their graphs (very similar to word problems). Students will be using their addition and subtraction knowledge to interpret the information, which is why I was saying that place value is everywhere.

Unit
In unit we went back to the term 'scale' and tried to create a scaled map of our classroom. Each square on our math paper equaled one square tile in our classroom. Students tried to scale the classroom to the best of their ability, and now have a greater understanding of the concept. It is fantastic to hear from some parents/families that the children are sharing their understanding of maps with you. This is taking great action, and if this is happening at home and you haven't told me, I would love to know :) I would like to organize a field trip to the park across the road towards the end of next week. If you would like to be apart of it, please let me know. We would love some parent helpers.

Literacy
Students were given a words their way spelling test. It is great to see how much growth has occurred in the classroom since the beginning of the school year. I have adjusted some student's spelling words/groups due to word family knowledge.