classroom detailsWhat are we doing all day? Reading Workshop - Students are learning specific strategies to decode new words and figure out the meaning of tricky words. - Students are reading independently and building their stamina toward 30 minutes. (We are at 15 right now, before a few students start to lose focus.) - Teachers are conferencing with individual students to hear them read, talk about books, and custom design personal reading strategies for each student. Math Workshop - Several times per week, we use the Cognitively Guided Instruction approach for math. See our September 11th blog post for details about CGI. -The other days our focus is on routines and games to practice new skills, and open ended activities to explore new concepts. -This week we explored the math concept of "groups of". When we write 3x4=12, we say "three groups of four equals twelve". This allows students to explore the concepts of multiplication and division without getting stuck into memorizing their times tables, or thinking that they have to know multiplication. Many of them are using cubes, and counting by 2's, 5's and 10's, etc. Writing Workshop - We have been writing instructions for our games. Using mentor texts from other games, and the help of our experts last week, students have been writing How-to-Win, How-to-Setup, and How-to-Play their games. - This upcoming week we will focus on bringing our ideas together as a group, and publish our instructions using Google Docs and Google Drawings to look professional. Reading Groups Reading Groups started this week. Each student is in a group of 3-5 students based on their reading level. Students reading below grade level are in a teacher-led group using Fountas & Pinnell's Level Literacy Intervention (LLI), while students reading at and above grade level are in student-led groups reading and responding to literature through discussion and writing. Game DesignThank you. Several parents and grandparents helped our classrooms on Wednesday for our Game Assembly Day. Students painted their game boards, made game pieces using loose parts, created spinners, and designed playing cards. It was a productive session, and we have continued working on our games all week, and will next week. Thanks to those parents that responded to help build our Gaga Court in Engineering. Escaping the Heat
Finally, your moment of Zen
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CritiqueKind, Helpful, and Specific.
Experts from USAopoly We were so lucky to have three experts from USAopoly visit on Friday. They came for 2 hours! They presented a game that they produced, and answered all of our questions. Then they spoke about the challenges and importance of writing instructions, and then stayed to meet with every student and help them with their writing. We like to make games that bring people around the table and play together Sportsmanship We have been looking at various photos of children and adults displaying various degrees of sportsmanship. Our students are making personal connections, predicting what caused the action displayed in the photo, and how to "turn it around" or change bad sportsmanship into good sportsmanship. We will continue this important work.
Game Board CreationMike Amarillas, a teacher at our high school and father of Miles in Ms. Drain's Kindergarten class, has volunteered to help us laser cut our game boards. Amazing. We are extremely grateful for his help and awed by his enthusiasm to help. Thank you Mike. Students used rulers and compasses to created final game board designs... then a sharpie. Then Mike created vector images and set up the laser printer. Then the laser burns the wood. Mesmerizing. Finally, the magic!
Thank you for attending Student Conferences.Students shared highlights from their year, work they were most proud of and areas that they want to improve. Then they shared their games, and many were able to play with their families, a true highlight of the conferences. Lots of smiles and laughs. Prototypes are complete (mostly)The prototypes are ready to be playtested next week. We have guests joining us to play and offer their kind, specific and helpful critique. Then we will begin the process of creating our final designs. If you have talents in the areas of arts and crafts, wood working, digital arts, etc. we would greatly appreciate your help in the final phase of creating our games. Please let us know as soon as possible. Thank you. 2nd Grade Team TimeYou may have heard about Team Time. Throughout the week we gather all of the second grade on the turf and play games together to promote positive sportsmanship, cooperation, outdoor play and fun. Games vary from an assortment of tag games to capture the flag to soccer.
Literacy/ Math Family NightThank you to those that could come. We hope it was helpful. Handouts from all the sessions are available here. We look forward to talking more specifically about your child's learning next week at conferences. ConferencesSchool dismissal will be at 12:45 next week. And then there is no school on Friday (October 13th). 2nd grade conferences will last 20 minutes. The first half will be led by your child. He or she will share some highlights of the year so far, including their game prototype for feedback from you. And he or she will share a goal or two that they are going to work on this year. Here are some suggested questions for you to ask: Academic
Social/ Emotional (Work Habits)
The second half of the conference will be just between the teacher and adult family members. The teachers will share some highlights and areas of concern. Please feel free to ask any questions about your child's education at this point. Field WorkWe made new friends. We exchanged pen pal letters, learned how to play GaGa, and then played. Also, we measured the court to help us build our own at High Tech Elementary. Writing WorkshopThis week we drafted our pen pal letters, and then made final edits to give to our new friends on Friday's field work to Calavera Hills Elementary. Another copy will be sent to a school in Oceanside - more details to follow. Reading WorkshopStudents have been working on decoding strategies: using ones they know, and adding new strategies to their toolkit. One of the big ideas we had was that good readers use multiple strategies to figure out tricky works. After students read independently, they have been sharing their tricky words and their strategies with the class. |
Upcoming DatesAll School Exhibition: Wednesday, June 6th (5:45pm- 6:30pm) Archives
June 2018
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