Shake and Rattle 'Dem Bones

Friday was all about 'dem bones....and a bunch of bones put in the right order makes a skeleton!

There they all are, dancing around the room!

Each has his or her own personality...

and the students got to create their skeleton in a way

that they wanted....so cute!

They watched a wonderful youtube video of this book which is based on a Negro spiritual.

Why is it that we should be able to tally?  What advantage does it have?

It's important that the small concepts become part of our larger learning.  Friday's lesson on tally marks led to today's math activity which had the students up and interacting with each other, as you can see from this photo:

 Quotes from the Alberta Learning program of studies for mathematics:

Students learn by attaching meaning to what they do, and they need to construct their own meaning of mathematics. 

Students need to explore problem-solving situations in order to develop personal strategies and become mathematically literate.

During this activity the students were able to incorporate this important aspect of mathematics:

Connections

connect mathematical ideas to other concepts in mathematics, to everyday experiences and to other disciplines

What were they doing?

Each student used tally marks to keep track of their peers' answers to the question "Are you afraid of bats?"  After the tally marks were made, the information was transferred into a bar graph.  The students read the bar graph to write a number to represent how many students were and were not afraid of bats.  Finally, they wrote a sentence about something they know about bats.

Ask your child what the word 'schema' means.  It was an important part of our lessons today.

ON FRIDAY, October 21 the Grade Two classes will be participating in a Teacher's Pet in school field trip about the Inuit culture, which is part of our future learning in social studies.  There is a request for THREE parent volunteers per class.  

Our class will be participating in the afternoon.  If you can join us, please let me know through a note in the agenda or an e-mail.  Thanks!