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

Despite the snow and indoor recess, we had a busy and fun week before vacation! The 100 Day posters that students created were impressive, creative, and filled with evidence of learning. Thanks for helping at home! Students acted as math experts, presenting the information in their projects to peers in ways that showed their understanding. Kudos to them!

We ended the week by celebrating our classroom community with valentines and kind words. Coming back fresh from vacation provides us with a good opportunity to re-focus our efforts on building and maintaining a supportive atmosphere by saying and doing expected things in the classroom and building. We will spend some time reviewing and practicing these in the weeks ahead.

 Our CAFE reading work focuses on the Comprehension strategy Determining Importance. When reading text, especially informative text, there is a Main Idea and supporting details. Learning to recognize interesting details and differentiate them from important information is key to good understanding. Think about how we read a magazine article as adults. We look at the title and headings, and as we read we are always thinking about how the information relates to the topic. This helps us to disregard unimportant facts so we can retain essential ideas. To try this with your child at home, go to http://www.timeforkids.com/news. Choose an article to read together. After each section, talk about the interesting ideas and then decide on one main idea for each (often the headings are big clues). What information was important, and what was merely interesting?

Having learned strategies for multiplying 2s and 5s (skip counting; finger counting; dot paper), we now apply them to multiplying 10s. In addition, we will review the commutative property (e.g. 10 x 2 = 2 x 10) while stressing the need to model these correctly when solving problems. We will then learn to use multiplication of 2s (repeated addition of groups of 2) to learn odd and even numbers. Students will be taught to group objects by 2s and if there is none left  over then it is even; otherwise it is odd. Learning it this way helps students to understand the nature of odd and even as opposed to only applying tricks (e.g. it’s even if it ends with 0, 2, 4, etc.).

Our social studies map work continues with an introduction to natural features (oceans, landforms, atmosphere, plants, and animals) and cultural features (anything made by people, including farms and borders). A great way to see many of these at once is to watch local weather forecasts. The maps used show borders of states, towns, counties, landforms, water sources, air flow, etc. See how many you can find!

We have become experts at observing and identifying weather, clouds, and temperature these past two months to help us answer the question, How does weather change day to day and over time? As part of data collection and analysis, students will be evaluating graphs (pie chart, bar graph, area graph) to select the best format for presenting their data collected on daily temperature. They will then enter data and create their graphs using online software at http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/. Finally, they will analyze the data using graphs to look for trends and anomalies, and to draw conclusions. Try the graphing software yourself using any data from home (homework minutes each night; minutes spent getting ready for bed; etc.). The results are really cool!

Our lessons on random acts of kindness and paying it forward culminated with our February School Meeting. Students and grownups shared thoughts, feelings, and observations around the importance of recognizing kindness in our lives and making life better for others. Our celebration included singing, dancing, and watching the cool video below. We will keep the kindness going by exchanging valentines this Friday, February 13. Children are welcome to borrow materials from school (colored paper, markers, etc.) if they wish to make their own. There are 21 kids in all; see our class list if you wish to personalize them!

Snow or no snow, we’ve made it to the 100th Day of School! We are officially 100 days smarter. To prove it, students are invited to bring in their poster or project with smart math work around the number 100 (not just bring in 100 items). For ideas, check out our past blog post. Students will be teaching us about the math involved in their project, so I’ve reminded them to ‘prepare to share’!

Next Thursday marks Lunar New Year, celebrated by some Asian Americans nationwide. We will learn a little about Chinese New Year customs long ago and today (history); our place and that of China in the world (mapping); and the ways in which people celebrate this holiday similar to those in Europe and North America (culture). My home town of Boston puts on a great display in and around Chinatown, including parades, food, and family-friendly events. Alternatively, there are lots of fun and interesting events happening all over the state for kids and families: http://www.eventbrite.com/directory?q=chinese+new+year+festival&loc=Boston%2C+MA

This week students will be researching an important figure in U.S. history. Integrating reading skills, writing, and social studies concepts, students will use biographical texts (including books and internet articles) to analyze and report on the character traits that their subject displayed while doing important things for our country and its citizens!

 This week’s math work challenges students to apply their knowledge of the number 100 and patterns found therein. They will also continue to learn and practice strategies for skip-counting to learn multiplication facts of 5 and 10, and to apply these when solving multi-step problems. Try this one yourself: Tom made valentines for all the kids in his class. One week, he made 5 valentines each day on Monday and Tuesday. The next week, he made 3 valentines each day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Then he was done. How many valentines did he make in all? How would you solve this? What models would you draw, and how would you organize the information on the page with pictures, labels, and numbers so it showed how to solve the problem completely?

 

We are becoming proficient at observing and recording the weather, including: reading and writing temperature and calculating daily changes in temperature; naming types of weather; identifying clouds and how they impact our weather; and interpreting how the weather affects us daily. Here are some pictures of us in action, and a video of the water cycle which is this week’s science focus.

   

Our blog will be taking a break for February vacation next week. I wish you safe journeys, and thank you for all your efforts on behalf of your child. It’s amazing how much they have grown!

This week students and teachers across Floral will participate in our second All School Read! This is where we all read and analyze the same book in order to deepen students’ understanding and promote our school’s core values. The book is called One Smile (McKinley, 2002), and its theme is that random acts of kindness can change people’s outlook in ways that result in ripple effects, which ultimately can change our community for the better. Students will be introduced to the idea of ‘paying it forward,’ and called on to invest in improving the positive atmosphere at school. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has a great site for families:  And check out this awesome video for inspiration!

Integrating writing and social studies, students will finish opinion pieces about Rosa Parks. They will then choose a biographical figure to research on their own using critical thinking skills (analysis, determining importance, summarizing and synthesis), and state their opinion with evidence for why they think the person was important in history. This is a great example of college and career readiness as promoted through the Common Core standards. When you think about it, the nature of this writing is the underlying structure to most college and professional writing, and it all starts here!

Math work centers around learning x5 math facts, including what it means to multiply (initially, skip counting) and using previously taught methods of finger counting and dot paper. As a reminder, the dot paper is in the homework folder in the resources section and it’s used by counting rows of objects in that array. Note: one of this week’s homework pages asks students to draw arrays. Drawing them correctly is essential to appropriately modeling problems (e.g. a 2 x 3 array is used for modeling 2 groups of 3 things, like 3 boxes of Girl Scout cookies sold for 2 days). For a primer, see last week’s blog!

In science we have learned that when a heat source is applied to water, it evaporates; then condenses into droplets when it cools; then precipitates if it is in a closed system like a jar or even our planet. This week we will answer these questions: Do all liquids evaporate like water? If not, can water evaporate out? What then is left behind? We will use water as a baseline and compare it to solutions of salt water and water with food coloring. Using the skills of inquiry, students will ask questions; make predictions; use scientific tools (petri dishes; droppers; magnifiers); make observations; and draw conclusions. Here’s a link showing how to do one such investigation at home: http://www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com/salt-solution-experiment.html. I encourage you to try other solutions (e.g. water and ???) and send us your results!

 Valentine’s Day is coming! We will exchange valentines in class on Friday, 2/13. If your child will be bringing valentines in for classmates, please be sure there is one for everyone. There are currently 21 students in our class; refer to our class list if your child wishes to personalize valentines with names.

The 100th day of school is nearing (at this time, Feb. 6–but every snow day will push it back)!  I will set up a “100 Day Museum” to show off student projects and learning. I encourage children to create a poster/collection/display/etc. that somehow represents 100. Instead of simply collecting 100 things in a bag, I’m challenging students to think more deeply about number. They could bring/show something that displays an understanding of number, patterns, and/or the math we’ve done so far, such as: grouping objects (stickers/pennies/etc.)  on a poster that shows counting by 5s, 10s, 2s, etc., possibly  with accompanying multiplication/repeated addition/division explanations; bar models using 100; create real-world problems with 100. There is also a plethora of projects and ideas on Pinterest and across the web!

Reference: McKinley, C. (2002). One Smile. Bellevue, WA: Illumination Arts.