It's that time of year when children get excited about passing on to the next year level. It's also time for packing up our classroom and wishing everyone a great holiday ! As we head into our last week of school, I would like to thank all parents for supporting their children this year as well as entrusting me with your child! For me teaching year 2 was a great opportunity to follow some of the children I had taught in year 1 and to watch them grow for a second year. I equally enjoyed getting to know newer members of our year 2C class and observed their growth as well. Different challenges and experiences is what made my year in 2C an exciting one! It was a dynamic year watching the children develop their academic skills as well as their social skills. I remember that at this time last year the children were perplexed as to why they couldn't jump rope and do'tricks' with the skipping rope the way the Year 2 children could! I told them that year 2 would be a special year because it was magical and in Year 2 things children can do things you couldn't do the previous year. Not only can they now hop, skip and jump over the rope but they have become more skilled in reading, language and math!! No matter how many years I have been teaching, I always marvel at how children develop and progress over the year. That's the wonderful aspect of teaching children! Watching them blossom!
I would like to wish you an enjoyable summer and wish you and your children the best in the next academic year. I have enjoyed Portugal. It's a beautiful country with an interesting history and wonderful places to visit. I would love to hear from the children next year, please feel free to approach me for my email. If you are in Japan, drop me a line!




Here is an update for the week: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is free dress day.
Mr Thompson has informed us that children may borrow books from the library over the summer.Parents and children may come to the library and check them out. Please be aware that if your children take books out , they need to return them when school resumes in September. Check on costs of lost books!
School ends at 12.00 (noon) on Friday. There is no after school supervision that day!

So on this note, I end the year 2C news blog! I take with me fond memories of my years at St.Dominics, my classes and the children that made my stay special......Thank you...Muito Obrigada!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to apologize for updating my blog a little later than usual. It seems each time I go towards the computer to edit my blog, I am distracted with end of year events and responsibilities as well as moving distractions.
Sports Day was a great hit and the children thoroughly enjoyed the event! The weather was cooler than anticipated so it was perfect! My camera was not working so I could not take pictures.If you have pictures please send them to me so I can put them on our blog.
It's the end of the year and we are spending time reviewing concepts in maths, reading and language. We are writing alot of creative stories, reviewing all vowels and working on comprehension! We are going to be playing more games as part of our review and the children will enjoy ending the year in a fun way! In maths, we investigated area last week and will also play games to review numbers!
The children have enjoyed our unit of inquiry 'Prove it". Our investigations have centered around air, color and now the children have shown an interest in the stars, sun and planets! We explored shadows and this led us to a discussion on heat !We will continue doing simple experiments this week.
This will be the last week for at home reading and sending home readers. Please return all reading books on Monday June 28, 2010 at the latest. Encourage your child to read throughout the holidays.

Sports Day takes place on Tuesday June 8, 2010. Please put sun screen on your child before coming to school. Don't forget the hats and an extra bottle of water!

Our new unit 'Prove It' is off to a great start. The central idea is :Science explains why or how natural events occur. The chidren brainstormed the meaning of science and matter. We discovered that matter is composed of liquids, gases and solids and set out to explore 'air'. We made kites and windsticks and explored air and its properties. The chidren discovered that air takes up space and explored/discussed the direction and movement of the wind as well the strength,weight and pressure of the wind. We then recorded our observations and drew conclusions about air. Next week we are going on a mini-field trip to the science labs in the senior school. The mystery question is 'What will we see?'

The children enjoyed the unit 'Listen Up' and some children asked if we could continue working on the unit. The children enjoyed learning about folktales around the world and valued our performance assessment immensely. Unfortunately my camera was not working properly and I wasn't able to take pictures. If you have pictures of the assessment, please send them to me so I can add them to the blog slideshow. The children did a great job with their performances! It's not always easy to remember the words and act on a stage!

The children keep extending their knowledge of long vowels and are exploring /th/wh/sh/ch as well as r controlled words /ir/er/ur/ar/ when reading short text and writing creative stories. We have some budding authors in class who will surely be writing books in the future! After our unit 'Listen up', the children are motivated to read and write. Some have extended their knowledge from our last unit, to ask me if they can write stories with embedded lessons and morals!

This week in maths the children reviewed time and reading time on the hour, half hour and quarter past. We reviewed counting by 5's to 100 and reading time at 5 minute intervals up to 30 minutes past the hour. Asking your child for the time will help them practice telling time. Practice using an analog clock and then a digital clock. The children are grasping the concept of place value and partitioning and becoming confident with their skills.

Portfolio Day was a successful time for the children to share their learning with their parents. The children were quite proud of their growth throughout the year and had alot to show in terms of progress and interests developed this year. Take a look at the pictures taken on Portfolio Day!!