Week in Review 10.23 - 10.27

Math — Monday, October 23rd

Today in math we learned about name-collection boxes. Students were first introduced to name-collection boxes in 1st grade. At the beginning of the lesson we brainstormed all the different ways we could make a number: tally marks, equations, ten frames, money, arrays and so much more. Each student posted a mystery number to their Seesaw blog, can you identify what their mystery number is?

Week in Review 10.16-10.18

Wednesday, October 18th

We had a very exciting day in Room 6 on Wednesday.  In the morning Mr. MacAuley came to help us clean out our garden beds for the winter.  We called it putting the beds to sleep for the winter. We pulled up the plants from this summer and put them in Mr. MacAuley's truck.  Mr. MacAuley then took the plants to the compost. A huge thank you to Mr. MacAuley for his continued support with our garden beds. 

In the afternoon Mrs. Klien and Mrs. Mulac came in for 4-Winds.  The overall theme for 4-Winds this year is structure and function. Our 4-Winds lessons focused on spiders. A fun fact that we learned was that daddy long legs aren't actually spiders -- who knew!?

Below are photographs from our activities.

Writing -- October 16

We had a very exciting day in Writing Workshop! Today we focused on organizing our Writing Folders. After our Writing Folders were all cleaned students selected one piece that they are ready to publish. Students began the publishing stage by completing a writing checklist on their piece. After the writing checklist was complete students began illustrating (and coloring) their pieces. Students were VERY excited to color their pieces. We will continue the publishing stage on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Week in Review 10.9 - 10.13

Friday, October 13

Yesterday during Math Explore we sorted dominoes based on the number of their dots being odd or even. Be sure to check our Seesaw accounts to see our great thinking around this activity. Later that afternoon we read the book, One Cool Friend. We talked about the different character traits of Elliot and his pet penguin. We also shared the different character traits we have learned this week while reading in our guided reading groups on Seesaw. We have shared lots of exciting learning this week on Seesaw and hope you are able to check it out.

Water Basin

Today we had a guest teacher in 2nd grade. We had Ms. Stephanie Larkin from the ECHO come in and teach our class about the Lake Champlain Basin. Ms. Larkin brought in a replica of the Lake Champlain Basin. Together we discussed what pollutants are around the lake such as fertilizer, dog waste, oil leaking from cars, manure, sand/dirt, etc. We polluted the replica with different food items (sprinkles for the dog waste, cinnamon for dirt, etc.). After our replica was all polluted it rained! Students were amazed as to how the fertilizer from a farm runs down the mountain, into a stream and then into the lake, along with many other pollutants. By the end of the demonstration the lake was rather dirty. Students learned that what we do at home and in the community has an impact on Lake Champlain. Now that we have learned how the lake is polluted we are going to learn how we can help protect and clean the lake.

Math -- Tuesday, October 10th

Today in math we reviewed odd and even numbers. To practice, each student grabbed a handful of coins and recorded whether the number was odd or even. Then each students' partner grabbed a handful of coins and recorded whether their number was odd or even. Students then joined their coins together to find the total and whether the number was even or odd. After students practiced writing tun around facts!

Week in Review

Estimation Machine

As many of you know we have a new addition to our classroom – the Estimation Machine! Estimation is an important skill for our second graders to develop and it's one they will continue to revisit through the years. The Estimation Machine is a really fun way to bring that skill to life in the classroom.

On Friday morning each student took an estimate.  Students were estimating how many warm fuzzies were in the Estimation Machine!  A big thanks to Hanna our winner last week for filling up the jar with warm fuzzies from home! Later on in the morning, we went through and counted how many warm fuzzies were actually in the Estimation Machine.  We brainstormed possible ways to count all the fuzzies: group them in 2s, 5s, 10s, etc., grouping by 5s was the strategy that won.  Ms. LaRose pulled popsicle sticks with students names on them, if your name was called you went to the center of the room and took 5 warm fuzzies  We ended doing two rounds of counting.  We had 169 warm fuzzies in the container.   

When we went through our estimates, Charlie was the winner with an estimate of 155 -- way to go Charlie! Since Charlie was closest he has taken home the Estimation Machine to fill for next week.  Next week the student whose estimation is closest to the actual number will take the estimation jar home to refill with a new item. This cycle will continue throughout the school year.  Some suggestions for items to put in the Estimation Machine are:

-       Animal cookies

-       Beads

-       Beans

-       Bolts

-       Bottle caps

-       Crayons

-       Cotton balls

-       Corks

-       Drinking straw halves

-       Erasers

-       Gumballs

-       Goldfish

-       Macaroni

-       Marbles

-       Marshmallows

-       Nuts

-       Paper clips

-       Pasta

-       Puzzle pieces

-       Rubber bands

-       Seashells

-       Stickers

-       Sunflower seeds

-       Toothpicks

-       Washers

Wednesday, October 4th

We have had a busy few days in Room 6.  In math yesterday we worked on creating our own addition number stories. Today in math we practicing our addition double facts.  In Reading Workshop we continued to read in the Pinky and Rex series.  Below is an anchor chart for our mini-lesson. 

 

Sent from my iPad

Our Favorite Characters

We had a wonderful first day in our Character Unit of study.  During our mini-lesson each student shared out their favorite character (see the class anchor chart below).  We discussed how characters can be animals and/or people.  In addition, we talked about characters can be from movies, TV shows, books, etc. After the mini-lesson students worked with Ms. Kelley and brainstormed character traits from A-Z.  Students talked with Ms. Kelley about what different character traits meant and students even acted out certain character traits.  Tomorrow we will begin reading in the Pinky and Rex series where we will pay close attention to Rex, Amanda and Pinky's character traits!

Lino

Lino is a new app that we are using during our guided groups in Reading Workshop. Lino is an online web sticky note services that we are using to document our thinking while we read. The wonderful thing about Lino is that each guided group works off of the same canvas allowing students within the same group to see their group members' post-it notes. Once the post-it notes have been generated we can organize them into categories (changing the post-it notes color), leave new post-it notes answering a group members questions, ask a question about a post-it note, etc…, the possibilities are endless. Lino is also available for parents to see at home. Just ask your child what guided group they are in (what book they are currently reading and click here). Our username and password are both ppslarose. You can access Lino on your desktop or download the free iPad app.

Week of Sept. 25th - 29th