Investigating Pumpkins

The students have been patiently waiting to find out what they were going to do with the cute little pumpkins they chose at the Prairie Garden Farms.  Friday was the day....

that they used their pumpkins as the focus of a science and math investigation.

They used a ruler to see how tall the pumpkin was...

and a measuring tape to see the distance around the middle.

It was lovely to see how patient they were in waiting for their turn to use the measuring tools.

The students tried to balance their pumpkin on the scales with snap cubes,

but there were only a few pumpkins that weren't too heavy.  Most students had to fill the one side with cubes and record the weight as "more than..." the number of cubes that they could put into the side bucket.

We learned that these little white pumpkins are called "Baby Boos"!

Do you think that a pumpkin can float?  

Look closely!  It can!

Do you know why heavy objects float?  That's a challenge!

It's all about those bats.....

Every Elk Island Catholic teacher in Grades One to Six is required to show evidence of each child's learning to the parents before the Fall and Spring three way conferences. Gathering evidence of academic accomplishment (knowledge, skills and competencies) is a continual process.  This year I have chosen to challenge myself to use the on line application called Fresh Grade.  My goal is to post a sample of student engagement once a week  This is not the only way that I am bringing assessment alive to you.  I consider this blog as your opportunity to 'see' your child's life in the classroom, to hear how the lessons are bringing the curriculum alive and offer suggestions for you to talk about what is happening in school with your child.  As well, I am sending every 7 to 10 days, a blue folder which is full of samples of your child's work, in truth, the evidence of their learning.  Some pieces demonstrate a review of concepts that were introduced last year.  Others will include your child's own self assessment or teacher feedback.

The Alberta Assessment Consortium says:

Self-reflection is fundamental to developing intrinsic motivation for learning, supports life long learning, and is itself a learning tool (sometimes called metacognition).  

Research shows that feedback has the greatest impact on learning when it is not graded but consists of specific verbal or written feedback.  

I want to share this information now because there will not be a binder of student work coming home in early November.  The evidence has been coming home throughout the two months we have been working on Grade 2 outcomes and will continue throughout the school year.  Please take the time to look at these pieces and read the feedback.  Your child will appreciate your questions and queries on what they are learning during their school day.

This week we focused on bats....the creatures of the night!

We had four full days of reviewing our prior knowledge (schema) of using films, non fiction and fiction text as well as sources on the internet to add to our knowledge and then each student wrote their own 'book' of facts about bats.

Here are some photos of the students sitting in EEKK position (elbow to elbow, knee to knee) as they read non fiction books and shared what they learned.

Earlier in the week, we had wondered if baby bats (called pups) had fur when they were born.

One girl was over the moon when she found a photo that showed that bats are hairless when born.  She was really using her own skills to solve this problem!

We revisited the concept of fact families.  This is a concept that the majority of the students still need practise in.  Most of the students do not yet see the connection between the numbers.  I know this because as they were writing out the four equations (two addition and two subtraction) they were putting down their pencils and counting their fingers to find the solution.  That is exactly the opposite of what this concept is meant to assist them to understand.

Fact families are meant to show that when I know 2 + 6 = 8, then I will know that 8 - 6 = 2

The numbers are related.  They work together.  I don't need to find the answer, because it is there in the family of numbers.

We'll be working on this again next week.

On Friday afternoon, we had an in-school field trip, which means that the presenter comes to us.

The field trip focused on bringing the Inuit culture alive, which is part of our Social Studies program.

The presenter brought her snowy owl, Tundra, with her and discussed

the reason that the Inuit people built Inukshuk.

Thank you to the four parents who generously gave of their time to run the stations within the classroom.

It was a challenge to move the tables to a space that allowed for the four stations but somehow we managed to make ti work!

The students learned about the animals, the language and the Shaman at these stations.

The fourth station was a hand-on experience, in which the children were able to carve their own soapstone inukshuk.

They had reason to be very proud of their hard work!

If you would like to volunteer, we will be having another in school field trip focusing on the science unit of Liquids on Friday, November 4th and four more adults will be needed on that day, presumably in the afternoon again.  Let me know through the agenda or e-mail if you can help out.

Mark your calendars now to avoid double booking, or conflicts with hockey games.  Our three way conferences will be in the evenings of Tuesday, November 8th and Wednesday, November 9th.  Student, teacher and parents will be meeting together to discuss the first part of this school year and set goals for the next few months.  I look forward to seeing you all then.

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Shake and Rattle 'Dem Bones

Friday was all about 'dem bones....and a bunch of bones put in the right order makes a skeleton!

There they all are, dancing around the room!

Each has his or her own personality...

and the students got to create their skeleton in a way

that they wanted....so cute!

They watched a wonderful youtube video of this book which is based on a Negro spiritual.

Why is it that we should be able to tally?  What advantage does it have?

It's important that the small concepts become part of our larger learning.  Friday's lesson on tally marks led to today's math activity which had the students up and interacting with each other, as you can see from this photo:

 Quotes from the Alberta Learning program of studies for mathematics:

Students learn by attaching meaning to what they do, and they need to construct their own meaning of mathematics. 

Students need to explore problem-solving situations in order to develop personal strategies and become mathematically literate.

During this activity the students were able to incorporate this important aspect of mathematics:

Connections

connect mathematical ideas to other concepts in mathematics, to everyday experiences and to other disciplines

What were they doing?

Each student used tally marks to keep track of their peers' answers to the question "Are you afraid of bats?"  After the tally marks were made, the information was transferred into a bar graph.  The students read the bar graph to write a number to represent how many students were and were not afraid of bats.  Finally, they wrote a sentence about something they know about bats.

Ask your child what the word 'schema' means.  It was an important part of our lessons today.

ON FRIDAY, October 21 the Grade Two classes will be participating in a Teacher's Pet in school field trip about the Inuit culture, which is part of our future learning in social studies.  There is a request for THREE parent volunteers per class.  

Our class will be participating in the afternoon.  If you can join us, please let me know through a note in the agenda or an e-mail.  Thanks!

It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween....

We have been focussing on how to add and subtract, what the operational signs mean, putting math facts into our long term memory and this week, what strategies we can use to find the solution.  As a child identifies a strategy, they become the expert and their name is put onto the strategy for our 'Math Wall'  If another student doesn't understand that strategy, I will ask the 'expert' to explain their thinking.  Hearing the idea from a peer demonstrates that others in class can do it and also child language may be easier to understand than teacher language, at times.

Today was all about Frankenstein's monster, and so 'Frankie' shared his strategy with our class.  Fact Families help us know our basic facts because the numbers used are related, like in a family.

(Thanks Amy Lemons for sharing this fact family poster with me)

The students looked around the room for eight cards cards with fact families identified.  They copied them down on their recording sheet and then worked through the 2 addition and 2 subtraction equations that could be created. (Thanks Hope King for sharing this little activity with me)

This should not have been new learning, but for some students, this was challenging.

Seeing that addition equations end with the largest number and subtraction equations begin with the largest number was not easily recognized by all the students.  This will continue to be an area that we practise.

Here's our labelling page (remember labels will be nouns) and then the students again generated adjectives to describe the nouns, which they recorded.

They look great outside our classroom!

I love how each on is full of their own personality.  By the by, those are bolts on the sides of the neck!

Our coat area is never this clean during the day!  Thanks to those who have sent in ice cream buckets.  Those are labelled and put on the shelf so that the mittens and hats for winter can be kept under control.  We share this space with 20 Grade. 1 students!  The bottom ledge is where the backpacks are to be lined up.  The literacy bags are all ready for taking home tomorrow.  I have three families who have not yet signed the contract, so you'll notice empty hooks.  I am sad that those children will not be able to take home bags tomorrow.  Remember bags are due on Monday please.

I have pushed the 'invite' button for all the e-mails on Fresh Grade, the digital portfolios.  Hopefully you'll be getting notice tonight and can look at the little addition that I did last night.