Nov. 25 Curriculum Update

Student led conferences were a success.  Students were proud to bring you into the classroom and to share some work they were proud of.  They also enjoyed setting some goals for improvement.

In math, this past couple of weeks we have been introduced to polygons.  We read the book The Greedy Triangle which was a funny little fiction story about a triangle who enjoyed his life as a triangle being roofs on houses, instruments in a band and fitting into place when people put their hands on their hips.  As he bored of being a triangle, he wanted another side and another angle to become a quadrilateral.  Although enjoying new life doing new things as a quadrilateral he continued to become more and more dissatisfied asking for more sides and more angles.  He turned into a pentagon, a hexagon, a heptagon, an octagon. a nonagon and a decagon.   We had a lot of fun creating these shapes on our geoboards and with pattern blocks.

From brainstorming ways to describe polygons we realized that we were missing some vocabulary and ways to describe them.  We then explored parallel lines and made an analogy to train tracks that will NEVER cross.  We made parallel lines on our geoboards, on our whiteboards and then built shapes and identified parallel lines within various shapes.

In Science, our grade two students built a mealworm hotel as we chose our own mealworms to take care of.  They are studying the life cycles of their mealworms.  They read a procedural text about how to set up a habitat for a mealworm so that all of their basic needs would be met.  We used the word metamorphosis to describe a BIG change in a life cycle, similar to a butterfly.  Our worms will go from larvae to pupa to beetle.  Luckily in our batch of mealworms we had some in each form to observe.

In science, we also went on a virtual field trip to Indonesian to a Borneo Rainforest.  We got to digitally link up with scientists who are using innovative new technology to check the health of a rainforest and to protect the animals and plants there.  We linked with 430 other classrooms around North America too!  Can you believe that out of all of those students and all of those questions that students have, one of our student questions was chosen to be read and answered by the scientist.  Our question was about the roots of the trees in the rainforest and whether they grow shallow or deep given that the island was made of volcanic soil.  Great question!!!!!

Many student partners have also been presenting their projects on the adaptations of plants and animals in various biomes.  Students learned to use Google Slides as a presentation tool.  We have a couple more presentations next week to listen to! We also had a presentation in the gym by the Earth Rangers whose mission it is to protect the habitats and animals that are in danger due to the impact of human activity on the environment.  They had powerful messages, brought interesting animals and taught us a lot about some animals that they are currently working to protect in Canada.

In language, we have been working on retell as a comprehension strategy.  We graphed the data from our CASI assessment (assessing retell, main idea, inference and application/connection skills).  We graphed our retell data and students quickly interpreted the graph and determined that we had some work to do to do more effective retells.  As a class, we made a plan for how to improve those skills.  We then tried out a new graphic organizer and new format for generating ideas to determine what is important to retell and what is not important to include in a retell.  Using the book, The Lorax, students wrote a retell of the story followed by an art piece of a scene from the story inspired by the artwork of author and illustrator Barbara Reid.
We finished our read aloud of The Blizzard of the Blue Moon in the Magic Treehouse series.  Many students have been interested in the series and missions of the main characters, Jack and Annie and are now reading some of them independently both at home and at school.  Our next read aloud was going to be one I have been excited to read aloud to them, however, as usual, they had other plans!  Many students have asked if we could read some Geronimo Stilton together aloud so that they could see what those books are about.  I know how much many children love both Geronimo and Thea Stilton books and there are many who have not read any of them yet!  I will read one or two aloud in class in hopes that students will then choose those independently to read both at school and home.

We are working on developing our writing skills as usual.  This week we talked about a number of aspects that make up good writing: Ideas and Content, Organization, Voice and Conventions.  We defined each of those and gave examples of them in things that we have written together.  This week, we worked specifically on the organization of our ideas in writing.  We used some questions from our Earth Rangers presentation and a fiction book we read together as a basis to organize our ideas in our answers.  We did some more shared writing together to model great work and then independently wrote a few samples to try it out!

To end the week, we had some GREAT math thinking that we did around The Handshake problem.  We generated many, many problem solving strategies and had students show their strategies to others in our math debrief.  There were such great representations of strategies on posters that students created, they asked if we could leave up for display.  Our boards were all full!  The whiteboards were full, the bulletin boards were full, the walls were full--we have so much great work up to use daily that we had no space!  Students got excited and asked if we could be like Leonardo DaVinci and display our work on the ceiling!  We did!  I am sure we will not be able to leave it up for long but for now, when you walk in our portable door, you will be amazed and inspired by the mathematical thinking of this class displayed on the ceiling--just like Leonardo DaVinci!

What a great, inspired and engaged group of children you have!  It is a pleasure to come to school each day and see where our learning journey takes us.  Thank you!

Nov. 11: Curriculum updates

Report cards came home today.  I look forward to meeting with your next week to work together with your child to review strengths and areas of needs in order for us to set some goals for the upcoming months.  Your interview time slot is inside the envelope with the report.

In math, recently, we have been working on number patterns.  We are working on generating number patterns and extending number patterns.  This is an extension of our work with growing patterns using math tools we were doing last week. In order to help your child, you can choose a starting number and ask them to generate a number pattern by a predetermined amount (i.e. start at 17 and add 5 each time).  Ask your child what they notice in the pattern  and ask them to determine the nth term in the pattern such as the 12th term in the pattern, etc.  We have been using hundreds boards to visually see patterns created as well as whiteboards, spinners and paper and pencil.  Number patterns are an extension to skip counting from previous years.  It is important that your child be able to easily skip count from various starting points by 2s, 5s, 10s, 25s and 100s. If that is easy for your child, expand into other numbers such as by 3s, 7s, 12s etc.

This week, we used cuisenaire rods to begin to look at fractions.  We used words like halves, thirds, quarters, fifths.  We chose a block, called it a whole, and found other blocks that would represent it's half, it's third, etc.  We continued to do this to explore the idea of whole and parts of wholes.  Our spelling group points this week have fraction points so we need to know how to add them up to find our weekly group totals!  Big thinking and big skills for this point in the year in both grade 2 and 3 but with math tools, a real purpose and an understanding of what half or quarter actually means, we can do BIG things!  This is laying the groundwork for significant work and understanding of fractions that we will develop over the course of the year!

We have read many types of text this week around the theme of Remembrance Day.  Grade 2's created a poppy artifact that has been added to their celebrations around the world portfolio for use later in the year when they create a timeline of importance celebrations and festivals celebrated around the world.  See Seesaw for a photo of their creation.  We read newspaper articles written for children this week about animals in war.  Our purpose was to read and highlight important information in the text.  We then practiced answering questions using evidence and examples from the text. We also read a graphic text about Remembrance Day, which was sent home with your child this week along with the newspaper.  This text provided us with information about the 4 wars that Canada has been a part of, giving us an opportunity to use number lines and figure out how long ago each war was and how many years each war lasted.  Great math opportunity!  We continue to work on reading non fiction text, highlighting main ideas and supporting details.  This is an important skill that will continue throughout the year.

In science, we finished up researching the plants and animals in our chosen biomes as well the adaptations that they make in order to survive and thrive in their environment.  We read many books on adaptation and generated ideas about some ways plants and animals adapt to extreme climates like the desert or the arctic.  Students are creating Google slide presentations to present their findings to the class.  These are almost finished and we look forward to the presentations next week.  We will post these presentations in Seesaw for you to see at home.  Students in both grades 2 and 3 are becoming very adept at putting together digital slide presentations!  A useful way to present information.
Grade 2 students also looked at animal defenses this week and chose 2 animals to write about how what special features each uses as a defense against predators.  We read the book, What Do You Do When Something Wants To Eat You.

Next week, we will work together to look at the environmental impact that is made by humans and the effects on plants and animals.  During our nutrition breaks, mostly on rainy days, we have watched the movies THE BEE MOVIE and THE LORAX.  In the classroom, we have read The Great Kapok Tree and we will read Dr. Seuss' The Lorax as well as some non fiction text on deforestation.  Students will compare these various texts and use these texts to gather evidence.  Students will begin a persuasive writing piece arguing either the positive or negative effects of cutting down trees, using pesticides and other human actions and their consequences.

We have continued our coding activities in the Innovation Studio.  Coding has huge implications and effects on many other aspects of our math program as well as our logical thinking and spatial reasoning skills.  Many students have worked at home to complete many other Hour of Code themes and have earned themselves many certificates.  Once students completed their Hour of Code levels, they have moved onto coding our robots named DASH and EV3.  This will continue and we will complete coding challenges that will integrate with our understanding of polygons, angles and other math skills we will be introducing soon.

Our portable construction crew was at it again this week!  A few weeks ago, they built us a shoe rack to hold the indoor shoes neatly and safely out of doorway, creating a safer space for getting our coats on and off without the hazard of tripping on shoes in our small space.  However, we noticed that the shoes kept falling through the racks and were still a MESS!  This week, our crew used rubber, non skid rubber to measure, cut and duct tape rubber, non skid shelves between the bars to, hopefully, hold the shoes on the rack.  This group had to measure the shelf lengths, measure the rubber fabric and cut the appropriate lengths.  Lots of math opportunities, again, in the REAL world!  Let's see what happens!

Another couple of great learning weeks in our classroom.  We are gaining amazing skills, becoming leaders in our school and great citizens and friends to each other!  It's a great place to be each day.  We look forward to you joining us on this journey next week at student led conferences.
As always, please let me know if you have concerns or questions about anything that is student, school or learning related!