Important dates:
Friday, April 8 - Mid-year report cards go out April 11-15 - Spring Break Monday, April 18 - Whale PBL Kick-off Hi families, With the end of PBL and the start of spring, we began three new units! Writing: Powerful fiction - We are revisiting our narrative writing skills, exploring more nuanced master author craft moves and growing our writing stamina! Reading: Fiction book clubs - We've discussed why do people have book clubs and how do you form book clubs. Next, we'll dive more into how to hold a book club, specifally how much to read, using evidence from the text and crafting opinions about authors' literary choices. Science: Liquids - Students compared water, oil and corn syrup, making observations and using words to describe the differences in each substance. In other news: If anyone has any specific requests about what they would like to see or read about in the newsletter, I am open to suggestions. It would be helpful for me to craft my newsletters so that they are most helpful and informative for you. Let me know. Thanks!
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Important dates: Monday, March 21 - World Water Day Tuesday, March 22 - ParentNet Wednesday, March 23 - Early release @ 1:40pm April 11-16 - Spring Break Hello families, First of all, I apologize for not writing last week. There was a lot of important news, and I did not get it out on time. Thank you for your understanding and I will get out important news to you in the future. With that said, this was an exciting week! We celebrated our hard work with a PBL gathering on Thursday night. Thanks to all the families that helped out and participated! I enjoyed discussing water and the PBL process with you all. For those who weren't able to make it, I will work to make sure your student's project is visible on SeeSaw (it will most likely be next week :) ). SeeSaw: I spoke with some families last night that didn't have access to SeeSaw. SeeSaw is a new program for students, families and teachers to share and discuss work, learning and choice time creations. Your child will have his or her own learning journal, and you can get notified when your child adds new items. It's completely private -- only you can see your child's journal outside of class. Click on https://app.seesaw.me/s/011-355-975 to sign up -- it takes just 30 seconds. Once you sign up, you can download the Seesaw Parent app for iPhone or Android, or access your child's journal on the web. Thanks! I have also sent home the QR code for you to use on your phones. Look for them today! Quick update on the week: Reading and writing: Water PBL! Next week we will begin Powerful Fiction in writing and book club conversations in reading. Math: Measurement - Metric - We have so far investigated measurement with non-standard units (finger, hand, books, etc) and centimeter and meters. Next, we will look into customary measurement, comparing measurements, and plotting data from items we have measured. Science: We will start our Liquids Kit next week. Look for more on this next week. Important Dates: Thursday, March 17 - Water PBL celebration (@ night TBD) Monday, March 21 - World Water Day Wednesday, May 11 - Aquarium field trip Hello families, Water PBL: As we bore deeper into our water project-based learning (PBL), one of the main goals of this first PBL is to learn how to work together as a team. We are practicing compromising, problem solving, planning and presenting. As you can imagine, these skills can even be difficult for adults! Our students are working hard researching and communicating. Today (Friday), we played some games to lighten the load and really discuss some of the ways we can improve our team work. Here are some of the ways the students came up with to work well together: Cleaned up well! Here were some challenges: -Time management - Sharing - Assigning tasks - Compromising It is clear that there are many challenges to group work! We will continue working and building as the project continues. Bar Model Math I have received some confused and even frustrated faces from my students about this new concept in math. Bar models! Here is a quick run-down on bar model math: Originating from Singapore math and now used in Math In Focus, it is a strategy in math students can use to help figure out word problems and which operation would be best to solve the problem. It can be used as a part-part/whole format or as a comparative format. Click here to find out more (see bar models helping solve fraction problems!) This strategy does not, per se, solve the problem for students. However, it does help students visualize and conceptualize the problem. Run down of the week: Reading: Research for water PBL (note taking, looking for main ideas, asking questions to guide reading) and spring ORF (1 min reading assessment) Writing: Writing for PBL and opinion letters (why we should choose our own seats in class)
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Ms. ThibautOne of the second grade teachers at QAE. Read this blog and stay up-to-date on classroom activities. Archives
March 2017
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Ms. Thibault's 2nd Grade | Class Blog |