Learning To Go Mr. Avery's Class on the Web 

RAZ Kids is ready to go! Please see the note sent home today. It provides information on the site and you’ll find your child’s password attached. Students may begin using it tonight for homework or just because it’s fun and smart. To get started, click the button on the right menu of our blog under “Student Resources,” and type “kaveryf” in the teacher name box.

Also sent home today is the permission form for our field trip. Please return it with payment this week. If you choose to pay with cash, please note that we cannot make change. All potential chaperones must have a current CORI with the Town of Shrewsbury. Please visit the office with a valid ID to have that taken care of as soon as possible.

Fall Festival is coming on Friday, October 31! At Floral, we opt for a fun day of fall activities instead of Halloween parties and costume parades. In the morning, we will participate in craft activities; in the afternoon, we will be square dancing in the gym at Floral’s own annual hoedown! Students may wear cowboy/girl attire to school that day to join in the fun–grownups, too!

I need 4 parents to come in and run the activities that day, from 9:30-11:00. The crafts will be ready, and I’ll demonstrate them for you. If you’d like to volunteer, please contact me: kavery@shrewsbury.k12.ma.us

 This week, our classroom update is all about the math we’ll be doing in class. It involves strategies likely none of us learned in second grade, and my aim is to try to clarify it.

This week’s homework introduces students to 3 strategies to help them add and subtract within 20 fluently. On Curriculum Night I mentioned that a big part of math learning, is becoming fluent with numbers. Initially (meaning in K and Grade 1) kids should develop a sense of number. They should inherently know that 3 is made up of 2 and 1, and so on up to 10. Kids will need to rely on that knowledge this year to make and break numbers and see their relationships for the purposes of addition, subtraction, and more. If your child is not there yet, know that we’ll be working on it in class, and if you scroll down the blog, you’ll see resources you can use at home in the form of what we call 10 frames.

I’m spending a good chunk of time on these strategies now, because in order for students to have them at their fingertips when choosing strategies in the future, they have to have had repeated practice with them throughout the year. Keep the plastic sleeve, dry erase marker, and templates that came home in today’s purple folder handy as needed for homework. They do not need to come back to school.

Watch this video I created for a brief tutorial on how to use these strategies for homework whenever it’s called for this year.

For students learning to recognize numbers of objects and “what makes 10”, we’ll be using something called 10 frames. Kids will be playing games to “build” numbers, with the goal that they see a row of 5 boxes and immediately recognize 5 (the same goes for all other numbers). Boxes are always filled in from left to right, top row then bottom. In addition to showing number, kids should see that the empty boxes in a frame represent the complement of 10 (e.g. 3 boxes filled in shows 3, and 3 + 7).

You can print flash cards for your child to memorize first the number and then the complement of 10. There are also songs from Youtube (search number bonds to 10), and online flash games to help:

Cards:http://teachmath.openschoolnetwork.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/10frameflashcardsdots.pdf

Game: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3565

Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpoFxwKBwE8

As always, hit me with any questions so I can further clarify! <“)

Reading homework starts this week! Students must fill out the homework log from the purple folder completely, and bring it to you to sign each week. The log is due every Friday for credit. If your child loses the log, simply write down the same info on a piece of paper, sign it, and send it back.

Every night, students should read for 20 or more minutes for enjoyment and to learn. This week, they will bring home books that are on or just below their independent levels. Reading aloud to you the whole time is no longer a requirement in grade 2; however, it is a good idea to have your child read a passage aloud. This helps them practice fluent-sounding reading, and allows you to prompt them to use reading strategies (Does that make sense? Does it look/sound right? What other words do you know that can help you read that word?) when stuck. Use the suggested reading comprehension prompts sent home in the Curriculum Night packet to check for understanding. As I mentioned: last year we learned to read; this year we learn to read–very exciting! Next week students may begin reading from Raz Kids–more on that to come.

Fall Festival is coming on Friday, October 31! At Floral, we opt for a fun day of fall activities instead of Halloween parties and costume parades. In the morning, we will participate in craft activities; in the afternoon, we will be square dancing in the gym at Floral’s own annual hoedown! Students may wear cowboy/girl attire to school that day to join in the fun–grownups, too!

I need 4 parents to come in and run the activities that day, from 9:30-11:00. The crafts will be ready, and I’ll demonstrate them for you. If you’d like to volunteer, please contact me: kavery@shrewsbury.k12.ma.us

Volunteers must have a current (e.g. within 3 years with the Town of Shrewsbury) CORI background check. If you need one, simply stop into the front office with your ID as soon as possible–it takes just a few minutes to apply for. This is especially important if you wish to apply to join us on our Field Trip on Oct. 10th, since the CORI takes some time to process and the date is fast approaching.

In case there are more volunteers than spaces available, consider coming in to help us during literacy times (mornings before 11:00 for 1/2 hour) on a weekly basis. I will post a link to an online signup board at the beginning of November for you to choose a time and day.

This Week’s Learning:

 We continue to learn about recognizing personal connections to the texts we read. Young children may say they have no connections to a story (about, say, the first day of school). This just means they’re still learning to become aware of how situations in text relate to their lives. When reading with your child, help her/him see the way characters and plots are similar to people and events s/he knows. The next step is to teach kids to see why this is meaningful: when they make a connection to a text, it helps them understand better, make predictions, and follow the choices made by the characters. More info on the different types of connections we encourage students to become aware of, as well as good prompts for adults to give: http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/making-connections-30659.html

In math, we are nearing the end of chapter 1. This week will be spent finishing work, practicing and extending skills, and summarizing learning. Students will take their first test, which will be scored and sent home. In addition, you will receive the chapter 1 wrap up (skills expected to be mastered) and chapter 2 overview in paper form. We will also spend time this week on problem solving (see the Standards for Mathematical Practice in the Curriculum Night packet). Our focus is less on the correct answer and more on helping children to develop the kind of thinking necessary to perform multi-step actions requiring mathematical thinking. See a parents’ guide here: https://www.sandi.net/cms/lib/CA01001235/Centricity/Domain/217/MPS%20PARENT%20Guide.pdf

 Our writing focus this week is on opinion writing. The ultimate goal for college and career readiness is for students to clearly state and justify opinions (academic and otherwise) using facts from research. We begin at this age by learning the difference between facts and opinions. Then students will analyze pieces of opinion writing, and learn to write their own using the Opinion Pillar as a guide (see Curr. Night packet).

 The goal of social studies is to use critical thinking skills to understand the world and our place in it by examination from the points of view of history, geography, economics, civics, and culture. This week, we will analyze biographies of a historical figure from Massachusetts: Johnny Appleseed! We will compare life long ago with today, and learn to separate historical facts from tall tales. Kid friendly info and games can be found at: http://www.bestapples.com/kids/teachers/johnny.shtml This week we will also continue map studies by developing a sense of 3-d space by building models of our classroom, and of 2-d space by drawing representations of places around us.

 Our science focus this term is on biology.  Specifically, we will use the topic Frogs and Toads to explore characteristics of living things. We will learn to ask scientific questions and research answers, and to make scientific observations with accurate drawings, labels, and descriptions. We start this week by classifying living vs. nonliving things; asking questions for research; and identifying elements of habitats. For online learning and games, try: http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/gamesactivities/plantsanimals.html

Welcome to our classroom blog! I’m very glad you are here. On this site you will find weekly updates to curriculum; links to websites for students and parents; classroom information and requests; and upcoming events. This blog IS THE MAIN SOURCE OF INFORMATION FOR OUR CLASS, taking the place of a newsletter and most written communication home from me. It is updated every Monday afternoon, except vacation weeks. If you prefer to receive a paper copy (or are unable to access the blog electronically), simply let me know and I’ll send one home each week to you!

Some features of our blog to note:

• Subscribe: You can receive alerts when the blog is updated. Simply use the “Subscribe by Email” widget at the bottom of the right sidebar. It really is spam-free!
• Student Resources (sidebar): Links to sites recommended for use by students and families for homework, practice, and enrichment. You will receive in paper form your child’s password and access code for Raz Kids and Xtra Math. The teacher name to sign into Raz Kids is “kaveryf”, which can also be seen by hovering the cursor over the link in case you forget. More information on using these sites will be forthcoming when we begin using them next month.
• Parent Resources (sidebar): Links to sites for creating math facts quizzes, finding just-right books for your child, and getting information about our grade, school, and district.
• Learning (sidebar): Links to sites to learn more about the processes and content taught in school, including tips for helping your child at home (updated throughout the year).
• In addition, links will be periodically added to each week’s posts to provide more information and opportunities for having fun learning at home.

This week’s learning:

We’re off and running! So much of our success depends on building our classroom community of learners right. As a school, we are committed to developing Social Thinking in children. This means teaching kids how to recognize and monitor their emotions and behavior, and how to interact with others. Besides the above work, school psychologists Ms. Demoga and Dr. Margiano came in to teach us about Whole Body Listening. This means using our eyes, ears, hearts and minds to understand what others say and mean. We’ll be exploring the concept further this week as we practice what it looks like and sounds like. For more info on Social Thinking, visit this site and explore its links: https://www.socialthinking.com/what-is-social-thinking

 Our Daily 5 CAFE focus this week is on activating schema and making connections when we read (part of Comprehension). These are huge strategies for young readers. Schema is what a reader understands about anything in life. We have schema about topics like making friends, seasons of the year, and so on. We also have schema for how to solve problems, and how we approach reading. Sometimes our schema is correct and sometimes it contains misunderstandings, which we learn to correct by reading and thinking. We therefore teach young readers to recognize what their schema is telling them and to use it as an access point to understanding what is read by making connections to it. Questions to ask your child during reading (either aloud to him/her or when s/he is reading): What do already know about ____ and what do you wonder? What does that remind you of in your life? This kind of thinking can help students understand characters, plot, and information better. More info is at Reading Rockets, a terrific literacy site for teachers and parents: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/29200/

The math focus this week is all about numbers: how to understand them using their place value; how to recognize and identify them in standard, word, and expanded form; and how to compare them by understanding the value of each digit. It is especially important that students develop an understanding of the hundreds, tens, and ones involved in these numbers. They will engage in various activities with base ten blocks, base ten pictures, and with written numbers. Using the cutout base ten block pictures in the homework resources folder at homework time can help fill in the gaps for your child when needed. You can also use virtual base ten blocks on a computer or tablet. Go to this site, select “Manipulatives” on the left, and select base ten blocks: http://www.glencoe.com/sites/common_assets/mathematics/ebook_assets/vmf/VMF-Interface.html . And here’s a base ten game for online fun and learning: http://www.abcya.com/base_ten_fun.htm 

In addition, this week we will begin science lessons by exploring what science is and what a scientist does. We will also begin social studies lessons by learning how maps show places (with a focus on pictures and labels). Finally, we will learn the elements of good writing: Interesting Ideas, Organization, Author’s Voice, Good Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Correct Conventions. Off and running, indeed!