How Rocket Learned to Read

Tad Hill's book "How Rocket Learned to Read" will be our jumping off point for focusing on all aspects of the Daily Five for the next month.  Thank you to a librarian known as Swersty, who shared this wonderful idea with me!

In the story, Rocket's teacher is a little yellow bird.  Here in our classroom, Rocket brought all of his friends to school today and the students are going to be these little puppies' teachers.

Today the students started the puppies' lessons by demonstrating how to spell some words, and then showed them how to read the colour words.

In the story, the little yellow bird put a name tag around Rocket's neck.  Each child was able to choose a name for their student puppy and now all of the puppies have a name tag around their neck!

The purpose of having the students learn different strategies in mathematics is for them to be able to use them easily and efficiently, making the adding, and subtracting of numbers be something that they do not find difficult.  The strategy the students practised today is known as 'doubles plus one.'  If you know your doubles, then a neighbour number can be easy to figure out.

Here's an example:

I know 6 add 6 is 12, so then 6 add 7 will be one more, 13!

In pairs, the students practised this skill with a fun game.

This afternoon, both Grade Two classes listened to a safety presentation offered through the County of Strathcona.  The presentation focused on fire safety, making a plan to be safe in our homes and knowing when to ask an adult to phone 911.  The children have 'talking homework' tonight, to explain the three things that they felt was the most important that Evelyn taught them today.

This bookmark will be coming home.  Please check out this cool idea that the County has set up as a free service to its residents.  When you sign up through www.strathcona.ca/scalerts you will get messages about severe weather, fire and water bans, significant traffic disruptions and other important information through cell phones and/or e-mails.  Check it out!