December: I can't believe it is the middle of the month!

It has been way to long since I have updated.  I have been working on our School Improvement Plan with Mrs. Teer and Ms. Zahul.  This is another part of my job at Kinloch, so I was attending meetings recently for our school.  Every school must have a  plan to assure student learning.  We were recently visited by the State Department of Education to audit and review what we are working on at Kinloch.   The review went well and we have some minor changes to make.  Kinloch is a Title I school because of the number of free and reduced lunches at our building.  We are given federal funds to help assist the students.  Mrs. Teer and I write the plan for materials and professional development for our building.  This is how our school is able to get all the technology you see in our building.  I plan on giving more information on the Title I program on the website at a later date. 

Here is what has been happening in the classroom:

Math:
We have completed Chapter 3 on subtraction.  Our class average was 87%, but I had 2 students absent on the test day so this will change.  After a test, I usually pull the students who did not make 80% during our choice time and review the math concepts with them.  I then give students the opportunity to take another test and average the two test scores. 
     We started chapter 4 today which will cover both addition and subtraction in story problems.  This can be a difficult concept for kids to be able to think through the words and how the numbers are related in a problem.  We will focus on key words in problems and making sense of the information given.  At the end of chapter 4, we will have an accumulative test on chapters 1-4.  We will prepare in class and I will provide review work in the homework.  I will be sending home a math packet for the winter break. Try to do 10-15 minutes/day just to help your child keep fresh....you would be suprised at what kids will forget in 2 weeks.

Reading:
     I am in the process of DRA2 testing.  This test is performed one-on-one with me.  Students must read a book to me with both 96% accuracy and in a certain amount of time.  If a child is reading too slow, they may not pass the test.  The second part of the test is on comprehension.  The student must retell the story in order with sufficient detail.  You can have your child practice this by having them retell you what they read in their nightly reading.  Students must also identify the lesson learned and talk about a connection they made while reading.  Connections can be to another book they read, a movie they saw, or a personal experience.  A connection happens when a reader reads something that jogs a memory for them.  Our class is doing very well as of now and students are making good progress.  I attribute this success to the great amount of reading students do daily in the classroom during read to self.  Keep reading at home with your kids, make sure they read daily, this is the most important way to help your child be successful.

Science/Social Studies
    We are continuing to work on our Power Point slides on landforms and our community.  This is another challenging area to complete.  I chose to make this an opportunity to teach students how to find facts and take notes on the facts.  We are then taking the facts and writing a short summary on the topic.  I work with each pair of students to finalize their writing and their slide.

November 18, 2011

Science:  We have started our new unit in science which covers landforms and Earth's water sources.  Students are working in pairs to research either a landform or water source.  Students have learned how to read a book and find facts about their topic and write it in their own words.  Students have several books on their topic to read and write down information.  We will then take the information and learn how to write it in a summary.  The summaries will be put into a Power Point presentation and a picture will be added .  We will then have a presentation created by the whole class.   We are also learning about the water cycle using the words evaporation, condensation and precipitation.  Students will need to label a diagram using these words and showing which direction the water is moving.  If you happen to see condensation on your windows or mirrors after a shower/bath point it out to your child.  We will try to create condensation on a glass in class as well.  Below are some pictures of students working on their research together.

 

November 11, 2011

We have been very busy in class with many exciting things.  Your kids are doing great with adding 2 & 3 digit numbers with regrouping.  We started with using base 10 blocks then moved to paper pencil.  I love how this math program offers plenty of practice.  We use whiteboards with the Smartboard to begin lessons and when most students have concept, we move on to workbook pages.  I will start sending home the workbook pages home on Friday so you can see the work they have been doing.  The pictures that are posted are of our partner work.  A majority of the class is very good about working with different partners.

We began Analogies and Compare/Contrast charts this week as well.  These are both two skills that research has shown to boost student success.  We are working on word analogies that are either antonyms (opposites) or synonyms (words with the same meaning).  The kids did great today for the first time.  Look for this work to come home every 2 days.  An example of an analogy would be:  hot is to cold as up is to____.  Students have to recognize if it is an antonym or synonym in the first pair.  In a compare contrast chart students must organize how 2 items are alike and different.  We started by comparing a cat to a bird.  Students will then learn to take the information in the chart and organize it into a written summary. 

Please watch for a math review to come home next week.  The review will be completed and checked in class.  Students can take it home and study it to prepare for the test.   Students will be prepared for the test if they are completing their daily classwork, homeowork and participating in class. 

I am currently working on a document that will be sent via email or a link on the website where you can access your child's grades.  I will not be using student names for privacy purposes.  You will be given your child's student ID number and you can view grades using the ID number.  I hope to have this soon, we do not have a program like the middle and high school, but I'm trying to help keep you informed.

Fabulous Friday

Wow, I don't know where the week went!  We were very busy with our apple investigations and making applesauce.  This morning we completed part of our Apples to Applesauce science investigations sheet.  We learned how to write a procedure using transition words. We also hypothesized how solid apples turn to liquid sauce.  Our discussion also led to how matter changes states by changing temperature.  We discovered that we used 3 single substances to create our applesauce mixture.   After our great discussion we finally started the crock pot and smelled apples all day.  Our afternoon was short because we had a practice evacuation drill that took a good 25 minutes.  Our class did very well by the way.  We were not able to have library checkout due to the drill, so I will have kids check out throughout the day on Monday.  We have started our new math book and are looking at ways to write numbers to 1000.  We are having to write numbers in words which is a new skill for second grade.  The students are doing pretty well.  We will talk about expanded notation on Monday.  I will be putting new math homework in next week's packet that comes from the new program.  Enjoy the pictures from our tasting of applesauce!

Marvelous Monday

The students had a substitute this morning while I met with the representative from our new math program.  I sent home a note about the new program in your child's mail today.  I'm excited about the parts to the program.  Hopefully the student workbooks will arrive tomorrow.  I will be sending home the old math book and students can use it for extra practice. 

Zaher thinks this: Today we go new math books, they're very cool!  They have very nice pictures. 

Last Friday we used our observation skills and compared  the attributes of 2 different types of rocks.  Our classmate Hassan Z. brought back lava rocks from his trip to Hawaii.  They were perfect for practicing observing attributes for our science unit.  Attributes include: size, shape, texture, weight, color.  We used balance scales to compare weight.  

Hassan wrote this for our science lesson:

Today in science we told the difference between a lava rock and a regular rock.  We looked at them with a magnifying glass.  I loved it and so did the class.  The lava rocks were so cool.

In writing, students are working on writing books.  Some students chose to write nonfiction, others chose fiction.  Our focus was punctuation.  We discussed capitals and ending punctuation (Punctuation Takes A Vacation) by reading stories on the topic.  Students are also illustrating  their work.  These stories may become a narrated video later on.  

Elissa writes: Today in writing we learned about periods, exclamation points, question marks, commas, colons and capitalization.  We wrote stories using some of these marks.

Terrific Tuesday

We started science today by observing some sage leaves I brought in from my garden.  Students used their senses to describe how the leaf looked, smelled and some even tasted the sage.  

In reading, we started talking about the features of non-fiction text.  We also discussed the purpose of these features and how they help us read the text.  Students looked through non-fiction books and then discussed how they are different from fiction.  The features we found so far are:

1. Real pictures: The purpose is to make it more realistic and help us see things we might not see in our life.
2. Sub-titles:  Sub-titles help us to get ready for what we will read.  It is important to read the sub-titles.
3. Fact boxes:  Fact boxes offer more facts about the topic.  It is important to read the information in these boxes.

We will continue this discussion for the rest of the week.  Our read aloud was with Mrs. Barion today.   She will visit our class every Wednesday.  Students benefit from hearing fluent readers read to them.

Math: We are working on addition right now.  I will get trained on our new Math program on Monday, October 10.  We will start it on Tuesday.  Check back for regular updates.