Thank you so much for all of your support with student-led conferences this past week. I was really proud of the way your students took ownership of their learning, everyone did a fantastic job.
Important Dates -Monday October 24 Tualatin Hills Nature Park fieldwork (we will be using parent drivers, thank you to those of you that volunteered!) -Tuesday November 1 Portland Bridge Tour (we will be using a bus and will need some chaperones, if you are interested in helping out please let me know by Wednesday 10/19) Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes! -Math Home Connections: A math game called Spin & Add will be coming home that you can play as a family. *I just set up Biblionasium accounts for each student and you will be receiving an email with a unique random login. Once you login, it will allow you to merge any previous accounts your student might have had in second grade. Math This week we did our best to solve some word problems without any teacher help as a form of another assessment. We used a lot of our math periods this week to brainstorm and discuss strong math goals. Math was also used a lot during our bridge strength testing this week. We quickly added the weights being used in our heads and calculated the total costs of our bridges. Ask your student how much weight their bridge held Listen to your student explain what method they use to solve word problems (words, pictures, or numbers) Extend the learning by discussing how you can help them achieve their math goals at home Literacy Since it was a short week for goal-setting conferences, much of our time was used practicing for student-led conferences. We also had the chance to listen to a video presentation on Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) and a lot of students got really excited about reading! Many of us are really invested in our new read aloud book and we took some time on Tuesday afternoon to soak up some sun and did our read aloud outside. Ask your student if they are interested in participating in OBOB Listen to your student describe what more happened in "The One and Only Ivan" Extend the learning by reading or writing together as a family Expedition This was a really exciting week for expedition because it was our first bridge strength testing! We met as a large group with the second grade class and watched our bridges be put to the test. It was a great learning process for everyone, because now we know for next time that we will need higher tables to test our bridges, since many maxed out the weight capacity when the bucket hit the floor. Our next steps will be to learn all about bridge structure and the history of the Portland bridges to help inform our next strength testing. Ask your student what they might do differently when we build our next set of bridges Listen to your student describe the name, cost, and story of their bridge Extend the learning by looking up pictures of bridges around the world to compare with their own bridge Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!
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Important Dates
-Student-led conferences (Wednesday Oct 12 and Thursday Oct 13) Click here to sign up/check your time! Please let me know if you're having technical difficulties and I can help you out! -Monday October 24 Tualatin Hills Nature Park fieldwork (we will be using parent drivers, thank you to those of you that volunteered!) -Tuesday November 1 Portland Bridge Tour (we will be using a bus and will need some chaperones) Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes! -Math Home Connections: A math game called Spin & Add will be coming home that you can play as a family. Math This week we explored patterns in a subtraction table. We learned the definitions of "sum" and "difference" and then talked in table groups about different strategies we used to add or subtract in our heads. It was really interesting to see that there are many different strategies to getting to one answer. In our subtraction table we found patterns called zero facts, counting back, doubles, and half facts. Ask your student what to explain what a sum and difference is Listen to your student explain what one of the patterns in the subtraction table means Extend the learning by practicing basic addition and subtraction problems in your heads Literacy In literacy, we continued to read to self and others--our new reading stamina is at 11 minutes! We started a new read aloud book called "The One and Only Ivan," which has become a great mentor text for showing your readers details instead of tellingthem about it. We also worked on a writing project where we finished one of our favorite stories "Stuck." Last week, as we read the story, we noticed that the ending was a cliffhanger. We used this as an opportunity to grow our writing stamina and let our imaginations flow as we created unique endings for this book. Ask your student to summarize the book "Stuck" and what their ending included Listen to your student describe what happened so far in "The One and Only Ivan" Extend the learning by reading or writing together as a family Expedition We have finally kicked off our bridges expedition! We learned about the engineering process and began to go through our own steps. First we did a gallery walk where we looked at bridges in Portland and around the world. Using these observations, we began to draw sketches of what we thought a strong and stable bridge might look like. We collaborated with a partner on finalizing a design and then began to build! This week we will be doing strength testing, which will begin our process of learning from failed prototypes--a crucial step in the engineering process! Ask your student to explain the steps in the engineering process Listen to your student describe the shape of their bridge and why they think it will be strong and sturdy Extend the learning by watching this video on the engineering process together and discussing it https://youtu.be/fxJWin195kU Hello Crew Families,
Important Dates Student-led conferences (Wednesday Oct 12 and Thursday Oct 13) Click here to sign up/check your time! Please let me know if you're having technical difficulties and I can help you out! **Looking for a Crew Parent!** The role of a crew parent is vital to a successful crew. Your job would be to assist with fieldwork planning and coordinating (such as helping organize parent drivers) as well as other special events or projects. Please let me know if you'd be interested in taking on this role! Crew parent will be selected through a lottery process if there is a lot of interest. Thank you! Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes! We are going to start off logging our homework on paper and I hope to have our biblionasium accounts set up within a week or two. Thanks for your patience! Math This week we looked at patterns visually and numerically. We worked with linking cubes and tile squares to finish a pattern and learned that our classmates were able to come up with many different patterns! We tracked our patterns in a t-chart and discovered that writing down the patterns numerically led us to find even more patterns! Ask your student what their linking cube or tile square pattern looked like Listen to your student explain what a t-chart is and the different components ours had Extend the learning by finding patterns around the house or in nature Literacy In literacy, we continued to build our reading stamina and model good procedures for reading to someone. During read aloud we finished up the second Boxcar Children book and worked on predicting what might come next in the story. Quite a few of them had really accurate predictions! Ask your student whether or not their prediction for the Boxcar children was accurate Listen to your student retell their favorite book from this week Extend the learning by choosing a best fit book to read together as a family Expedition We used expedition this week to practice the skills of creating multiple drafts and critiquing each others work. Our project is creating a class puzzle--each person has a puzzle piece to decorate and we will put it together to represent our class. We watched a video called "Austin's Butterfly" that modeled for us what creating multiple drafts and critiquing someone's work might look like. Our feedback for each other aimed to be specific, constructive, and gentle! Ask your student what strong feedback for a peer might be Listen to your student explain what they added to their puzzle piece Extend the learning by watching Austin's Butterfly together and discussing it further https://vimeo.com/38247060 Important Dates
9/26 - Picture Day (tomorrow!) 9/29 - Back to school night (parents only - 6:30p) Math We took a baseline math assessment and discussed that this would help me know how I can best help them as mathematicians. Then, we made glyphs to represent our feelings and attitudes toward math. We brainstormed different categories to sort the glyphs into and took notes on the data shown from the assortments. We made a prediction on the data (I predict that there will be more people who like to work on math alone rather than in groups) and made comparison statements (There were 3 more people who enjoy working on math alone than people who enjoy working on math in groups). . Ask your student what their glyph looked like and what each component (hat, eyes, nose, and mouth) represented Listen to your student explain how we grouped the glyphs Extend the learning by creating comparison statements about items around your house Literacy In literacy, we became experts on reading to ourselves and reading to someone. Students modeled what reading to self/someone does and doesn't look like, then we worked on building our reading stamina. We got to 8 minutes and 40 seconds without anyone becoming distracted or stopping their reading! In writing, we wrote about what kind of scientist we would be if we could be any kind in the world. Ask your student what was their favorite book to read this week Listen to your student explain what it does and does not look like to read to self and someone Extend the learning by choosing a best fit book to read together as a family Expedition We used expedition this week to work on our scientific inquiry skills. We drew pictures of what a scientist is or might look like. It was interesting to see that most of us drew similar looking pictures--a man with glasses, a lab coat, and tools to mix chemicals with. We then watched a video and discussed how scientists can be anyone and we are in fact scientists! We also practiced our observational skills by drawing out a detailed sketch of a puzzle piece. Then, all the puzzle pieces got mixed up, we traded sketches with a partner, and found each others' pieces! Ask your student if it was easy or how to find their classmates puzzle piece. Listen to your student explain what it takes to draw a detailed sketch or observation. Extend the learning by going out in nature to observe and sketch something! Important Dates
9/26 - Picture Day 9/29 - Back to school night, 6:30p (parents only) Math This week, we took the time to do math activities that allowed students to explore different math concepts. We watched videos that explained the importance of making mistakes in math, incorporating visual thinking into mathematics, and exploring patterns in Pascal's triangle. Ask your student what patterns did you notice in the visual representation of numbers or Pascal's triangle? Listen to your student explain why it is beneficial to make mistakes in math Extend the learning by exploring the youcubed.org website, which is where we found the math activities to start off this school year Literacy For literacy, we discussed picking a "good fit" book for ourselves. This had me bringing a bag full of shoes to school--we discussed that picking the right book is similar to picking the right shoes. Just like I would never wear rain boots or sandals to play soccer, we need to pick books that are serving the right purpose for us. Additionally, just like it would be very uncomfortable to wear shoes that are too big or too small, we should not be picking books that are too easy or too hard. We have also been really enjoying listening to the Boxcar Children for our chapter book read aloud! Ask your student what book genre is the most interesting to you? Listen to your student discuss their favorite part of the Boxcar Children Extend the learning by choosing a best fit book to read together as a family Expedition We have been using our expedition block to build classroom community, apply for classroom jobs, and learn about growth mindset. Classroom jobs were assigned and I am very proud of those students who did not get their first (second, third, or even fourth!) choice. The crew showed a lot of excellence by looking at the positive aspects of all jobs! We also did a paper puzzle activity that led us to understand that we can change our attitudes to have a growth mindset. Videos from class dojo explained to us that anyone can learn anything, it is simply a matter of persevering and changing your mindset! Ask your student what can you say instead of "I can't do this" or "this is impossible?" Listen to your student explain how our brains are like muscles Extend the learning by watching the class dojo videos linked below and discuss them as a family (the class really enjoyed watching all five videos!) https://classdojo.com/bigideas |
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