October Happenings

Math Skills - We are continuing to practice basic addition and subtraction facts, as well as word problems.  We've also become quite proficient at reading, creating, and answering questions using various types of graphs.
Plays Galore - We've been able to see 3 plays this month!  Ramona, The Yellow Brick Road, and various Merry-Go-Round mini-plays. 
Student Teacher - Miss Mason started this week in our classroom.  She'll be with us until the beginning of December. 
Tech Progress - Tumblebooks, Spelling City, Type to Learn Jr, GlogsterEDU, Math EduPlace, Storybird, Brain Pop Jr, RAZ Kids, Graph Club, and many more tools and sites.  We'll now start learning how to use more Web 2.0 tools.
Reading Strategies - Predict, Evaluate, Summarize, Monitor and Clarify, and Question are our strategies of focus.  We've been practicing them in whole group and small group settings.  Keep on reading at home!  Students have been doing a nice job on their weekly reading assignments that are done with a parent.

Reminders will be coming home in the next newsletter regarding Parent-Teacher Conferences.  I look forward to meeting you again and discussing more of your child's individual progress!

Problems Solvers at Work

Earlier this month we completed our first of hopefully many math exchanges.  We'd been learning about addition and subtraction, as well as using these operations to help us solve math word problems.  Students worked together in small groups to create word problems together.  Then they used the draw a picture strategy and wrote the number sentence that would solve the problem.  But, we stepped it up a notch and turned this into a collaborative global project and worked with Mrs. Goodwin's students in Indiana.  During our first Skype session, her second graders shared their problems.  During the second Skype session, our classes shared our created problems.  During each call all students worked to solve the problems on their dry erase boards.  Finally, a student shared the solution with the other class.

Autumn Poetry

• Click to view my story.
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Open House 2011 Video

Animals on the Move

We've been learning about migration.  We've been using various modes of both print and digital resources to assist us as we learn about different animals that go on journeys.  For the above activity, students worked together during centers.  They read books from our school library about migration to find information to add to the web on the SMARTboard.  The above web was created by all of the four groups each taking a turn and contributing to the web.  

For a fun-filled, high-energy activity on our science theme, we migrated outdoors and went on a Geocaching hunt. During our Autumn Adventure, students worked together in teams to use hand-held GPS units to navigate to various "caches" or treasures. After finding all the items, we returned to the classroom to piece the puzzle together. Be sure to ask your child more about this event. We learned about re-sizing images and importing photos as we created our Glog poster below together.

We also had our first Skype call.  Students learned how to use the webcam and snowball microphone to communicate on the topic of migration.  We Skyped with Mr. Griffith, both Mrs. Griffith's husband and a bird enthusiast.  He shared with us more information about the hummingbird and the canadian goose's migration.  Each student was able to interact during the call by either asking a question, answering a question, or introducing themselves.  The students were impressive communicators and we look forward to working with other classes in the near future through this format.

Morning Math Madness

Friday mornings our classroom is transformed into Morning Math Madness.  Every week we'll be getting into concepts, topics, and strategies that'll we'll explore further.  We'll be using tech tools, as well as manipulatives.  Many of the projects will involve cooperative team work.  This week, we created a graph together on our birthday months.  We also used manipulatives to solve addition word problems.  Stay tuned for more news on our math projects and get your thinking caps ready.

All Sorts of Spelling

Spelling.... all the ways to practice those weekly words!  We'll not only be focusing on learning the words of the week and the pattern or rule, but also how to use these words when we write.  So far, we've learned how to use Fridge Letters, Spelling City, SMARTnotebook magnet letters, The Office center, our journals, our dry erase boards, our spelling lists, wordle, and more ways to practice are yet to come.  Can you guess the spelling pattern of the words above?  Ask your child how each of these helps them practice.  Many of these modes can be used at home as well.  This week we'll be getting writing pals too!