January 14, 2011

Jan. 14 2011

Dear Parents and Friends,

There has been a lot of energy this week with the excitement over the snowfall! Hmmm. Today we’ll channel that by….

In Writing this week, we have finished up our first drafts of our Stuffed-animal short stories, and we have been conferencing with each other. We’ve been giving each other feeback, asking each other questions and responding to each other’s questions to clarify our stories. In the coming days we will be revising them, focusing on strong beginnings, potent words, and dialogue.
For Read-aloud, we are reading Winnie-the-Pooh. We’ve been using each little story (like Pooh’s run-in with bees and ballons to his run-in with Rabbit’s entrance) to look at how good authors introduce settings and characters, present a problem, then let their characters loose to work their way through the problem and usually learn a lesson.

In 2nd grade math, students worked this week on problems like this:
"Pretend that you need to build some new tables for us all to use in our classroom. Your are given five table tops. You are also given 17 table legs. You can make tables with four legs. You can also make tables with just three legs. Make all the tables you can using all the table tops and all the table legs you are given.
Question: How many three-legged tables will you end up with and how many four-legged tables will you end up with for your classroom? Answer with pictures, numbers, and words."

Students are also working hard to learn strategies for getting quicker with their addition and subtraction facts.

In Fundations, 2nd graders are learning to break big words down into their smaller syllables so they can more easily spell those words. They are learning, for example, that the word muffin gets split into two "closed" syllabes: muf/fin. Students now know that when two vowels are split by two consonants (as in this example), you split the word right down the middle between those two consonants. But, if the word is packing or fishing, you can't split up a ck or an sh so, instead, you split them like this: pack/ing and fish/ing.

First Grade Math: “We wanted to give you an update on what we have been working on in math. We are all going on a journey to Antarctica. Below you will find a link to my blog where you can see some cool Antarctica Passports. As part of this unit the students are learning about Antarctica and penguins. So far the students have decorated their folders and we have recorded their height and weight on their passports. They have cut out measurement strips that show their actual height. We have played a game called Journey to Antarctica where the students spend money for various necessities along their journey. Today we talked about the temperatures of the Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic Oceans. The Atlantic and Pacific winter temperatures are 60 degrees and the Antarctic Winter temperatures are 30 degrees. In small groups the students were given a small glass of water and a thermometer. Their task was to get their water sample temperature and change it to be 60 degrees and then 30 degrees. They had hot water, cold water and ice to help them. They were all able to do it and loved it. Check in with your child about this experiment. What can they tell you?
More next week..... Donna”

Have a nice weekend, everyone!
David