Newsletter: Sunday, December 16, 2018

New Inquiries

Last week we launched several new inquiries.  As readers, we revisited a strategy we had touched on before, using Post-its to track our thinking as we read a text.  We practiced this with several read alouds and then collaborated as a group to categorize the kinds of thoughts we are tracking.  This was a great strategy to help the kids physically see the patterns in their thinking while reading. Some of the categories included questions, predictions, and retelling events from the story.  The kids are beginning to use the strategies to track their own thinking during independent reading.

We explored money though games and story problems last week.  The kids have become pros at trading in their pennies for nickels and dimes while building up to a dollar.  We will begin to include quarters this week and use these financial skills to budget our money in order to purchase items to decorate our cookies on Friday.

As writers, we explored a variety of poetry books and chose some favorites to use as models for writing our own poetry.  This week we will begin focusing on specific poetry types.

Power has been an intriguing topic to discuss with the kids using children's literature. We are looking at who has power in the story and what it enables the characters to do.  We are also asking how that power might move in the story and what effect does it have?  The concept of power also bleeds over into our conversations about news and our interactions in the classroom.

This Coming Week

This week we will continue our inquiries into poetry and money.  We will also continue examining our thinking as readers and looking at power through children's literature.  On Friday, we will enjoy using patterns and our budgeting skills to decorate cookies. 

Important Dates

December 20         Weather Make-Up Day
December 21         11:30 Dismissal/ Winter Break Begins

January 7               Students return to school
January 17             Our gathering 2:20 (Thursday)

  " Mathematizing Our World" continues as we explore math in the patterns our class has collected.

In writing, we have been exploring poetry and sharing poems we modeled after our favorite selections.

We enjoyed learning a new song with Mr. O that we are planning to share at our next gathering.

We will miss you, Via.💔

Newsletter: Sunday, December 9, 2018

A Busy Week...

Last week we demonstrated our skills as readers through our presentations of reader's theater.  The kids took charge of reading the scripts and creating their own characters according to punctuation, context, and interaction with other characters.  They planned and directed their own performances.

They did a wonderful job, and all of the hard work you have been doing at home to support your reader was evident.

We continued looking at ways to represent data by graphing our totals of food donations each day.  Using the pictures you shared with me, the kids have also continued searching for math in our world. This is an investigation we will carry throughout the year.  We worked with larger numbers to break them down through picture form (base ten blocks) and by looking at the value of each digit (expanded form).  Throughout  the year so far, we have worked many problems together that required regrouping (carrying and borrowing), but recently the kids began trying this independently.  Make sure to include your child when you are doing math such as calculating tips and discounts.  There's no better teacher than authentic experiences.

As social scientists, we continued our inquiry into hunger and homelessness.  The information we  gathered through books, articles and speakers, helped support us in our efforts to gather donations for Passing of the Cans.  Our class was shocked to find that nearly 1 in 5 children in the US faces hunger.  The reality of this hit them when we divided up the class to see 4 of our classmates would face hunger according this number.  Thank you for all of your donations.  The class would like to continue collecting food items throughout the year.  I will deliver whatever is donated this year to Harvest Hope.

                                                             This Week

We will begin new investigations this week.  As readers, we will take a closer look at our thinking while we read.   In math, we will launch our first real inquiry into money.  Poetry will be our new focus in writing.   Our study of homelessness and hunger will flow into a look at power and how it effects our world.

December 12         Gift Card Orders Due for Dec. Pick-up at CFI
December 20         Weather Make-Up Day
December 21         11:30 Dismissal/ Winter Break Begins

January 7               Students return to school

 Here we demonstrated how to write larger numbers in standard, expanded, and picture form using chick peas as our manipulative.

     Readers' Theater:

                                                          The Three Little Elephants

  

Spiderella

 

 Goldilocks and the Three BullFrogs

Frog and Toad

 We enjoyed sharing some new books after our trip to Sandhills Library.

 Passing of the Cans......

                                We broke our record from last year.  Total: 2,312 items!

             We wrapped up our week singing with Mrs. Pender's and Dr. Hass' classes.

Newsletter: Sunday, December 2, 2018

Time Flies When...

I can't believe it's December already!  We returned from break and got back to our routines quickly.  One new routine that we are celebrating is Math Talks.  We were so happy to be able to share this experience with you during Curriculum Night.  As you probably noticed, the kids are able to build off of each other's thinking to grow their understanding of complex mathematical concepts.  The kids often take us far beyond second grade math standards with their contributions during a Math Talk.

Thank you so much for your help in creating math design/pictures with us at Curriculum Night.  We will be using all of these pictures to mathematize our world.  We are realizing math is everywhere;  we just sometimes need a broader lens to find it.  You are helping to broaden that lens.   We hope you will continue these math discussions at home.  Look around in your daily lives. If you notice math in any context, we would love for you to share it with us through email or text.

We continued our inquiry into reading fluency with readers' theater this past week.  Using the attributes we collected with you and in class over the past weeks, we are practicing in groups to perform a play with effective speaking parts.  Guided by our recent study of punctuation, we are rehearsing roles and reflecting on how the written elements guide our reading and speaking.  We will continue practicing Monday and Tuesday and then perform them in class on Wednesday and Thursday.  For the final performances, the kids may bring in props or put together costumes if they choose.  We will work on these in class, but they may also bring things from home.

In social studies, we have been sharing texts dealing with hunger and homelessness.  So far we have focused mostly on homelessness but will move more into hunger this week.  This is leading up to our food drive which culminates in Passing of the Cans on Friday at 1:00.  Please join us if you are able.

This Coming Week

We will continue with our readers' theater project as stated above.  In writing we'll continue publishing our choice pieces that we started on Friday and begin a unit on poetry when publishing is complete.  As mathematicians, we will begin working with larger numbers, looking at place value and computation.  Our unit on hunger and homelessness will continue with the focus shifting to hunger.  We will try to look at these problems from multiple perspectives while examining the cause, effects, and possible solutions.

Please continue to send in food items. 

Here are a few pictures from last week:

           
Recess Investigation: Scarlett shared an amazing geode we were able to crack open and examine.

Amt Hart, our Richland Two social worker, came to speak with us about hunger, homelessness, and the Backpack Program

We had a wonderful time creating mathematical pictures/designs with our family members during Curriculum Night.  Every design you texted to Mrs. Shealy will be used for a math lesson this year!

Here we are displaying attributes of fluent readers while practicing our character roles in Readers' Theater.

Here is our weather data for the last week of November.  Imagine the questions we can answer with this data.

Important Dates

December 7           Passing of the Cans
                              CFI Parents Night Out 6:30—9:30 PM

December 12         Gift Card Orders Due for Dec. Pick-up at CFI
December 20         Weather Make-Up Day
December 21         11:30 Dismissal/ Winter Break Begins

January 7               Students return to school

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