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

 

Read Across America Day is coming! This annual nationwide event is held the first week of March in honor of local author Dr. Suess’s birthday. This Friday morning we’ll be visited by a local Shrewsbury Firefighter, who will share the love of reading (and we might even get a free fire safety demonstration, too). Then in the afternoon, our class and the Richard class will team up to present a reader’s theatre production of Dr. Suess’ The Sneetches to grades one and two at this month’s school meeting! Exciting!

Thanks for keeping our health supplies stocked this year! We are in need of lots of kleenex to get us through the rest of winter and into allergy season. Please send in a box or two when you can.

Students did a great job this week beginning their research into their choice of famous American for study. After learning how to conduct a search at Britannica Kids online, they examined multimedia files and learned to save an article in their own Google Drive folders on our closed network. This week they will be thinking critically as they read to look for evidence of character traits in their historical subjects.

Our next area of study in math involves understanding and using money. Besides identifying coins/bills and their amounts, students should be able to combine various amounts of both. Consider this example:

Notice how students can best solve this by starting with the larger amounts and using counting on/adding on. Students will also learn to write in dollars-and-cents notation ($1.25) and with words: one dollar twenty five cents. Students will also learn to compare 2 or more amounts of money. This can get tricky if students are still learning coin values and totaling. For example, 7 coins does not make an amount greater than 2 coins if we’re comparing 7 pennies and 2 quarters.

For help with homework, see the resources section of your child’s math homework folder where you will find a variety of pages on everything from coins and counting to vocabulary. If you’re following in the eBook, this is Chapter 11. Although many of us pay for things with cards instead of cash, be on the lookout for opportunities to teach your child to total amounts of coins and bills and to estimate 1) if there is enough to buy something and 2) about how much change is due!

Singing is a great way to memorize new skills! Readeez has put out a truly fantastic collection of learning songs. Here’s one of our favorites in class. You can find others (dimes, nickels, quarters, and much more) at Youtube.com and at the Readeez site.

Here’s some pictures of us in action doing research and on Valentine’s Day having fun!

  

100 Day was a blast! The kids solved problems involving 100, drew arrays and wrote multiplication facts following a story of 100 Hungry Ants (Pinczes), and most importantly learned from each other as they paired up and shared 100 Day projects!

Our CAFE focus now turns to Summarizing. This comprehension strategy is similar to Determining Importance in that it leaves out small details in favor of the big ideas and consequential events in a story or in nonfiction texts. We will learn to summarize narratives in terms of the main characters, problems and solutions, and changes the characters undergo on their journey. As a simple example, in Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss) the main character becomes increasingly annoyed at being pestered to try something he doesn’t want. Then he resigns out of exhaustion and frustration. Finally, he is surprised at his delight with this unusual breakfast. The following site from the VA Dept. of Ed has a terrific collection of PDFs and links you can use to have your child practice this essential skill after doing reading homework: http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/summarization.html

This week students will begin a project integrating reading, social studies, and writing. Using iPads, students will be guided through the Shrewsbury Public Library portal to the Encyclopedia Britannica Kids site, where they will for information about famous Americans they have chosen to research. Students will then explore the multimedia information given, and learn to print their findings–awesome! Students will then apply reading comprehension strategies (Asking Questions and Reading to Find Answers; Determining Importance) to find evidence of character traits in historical figures, and create opinion writing reports incorporating their findings.

The focus of this week’s math is estimating by rounding up/down and using estimation as a way to check the reasonableness of sums/differences. These are VERY important skills that require students to develop and apply number sense as they think critically about math.

At first, students just need to learn and practice the basic skill of rounding to the nearest 10. Next, to check that a sum/difference is reasonable, they will learn to use estimates. Take this example: When solving 67 + 44, I can estimate the sum as 110 (67 rounds up to 70, plus 44 which rounds down to 40). My actual answer therefore needs to be close to 110 (no more than 10 away from the actual answer). If I get an answer of 111, my estimate shows that my answer is reasonable and I likely have it correct. However if my answer is, say, 121 then I better check my work because that answer is too large to be correct. The beauty of using estimates is that they push kids to think of the numbers involved by rounding them into 10s and 100s, which they can ‘hold in their heads’ much easier than numbers like 67 and 44.

Our social studies map work will continue into the next few weeks (see last week’s blog for details). At home, a neat way to review natural features (oceans, landforms, atmosphere, plants, and animals) and cultural features (anything made by people, including farms and borders) is to watch local weather forecasts.The maps show borders of states, towns, counties, landforms, water sources, air flow, etc. See how many you can find!

In science last week, we applied our knowledge of air pressure to devise ways to move water through a system. Students were actively engaged in discussion and experimentation as they found a variety of solutions. Here are some pictures of us in action! (Plus a few 100 Day pix–more next week.)

    

Valentine’s Day is coming! We will exchange valentines in class on Tuesday, 2/14. If your child will be bringing valentines in for classmates, please be sure there is one for everyone. There are currently 22 students in our class. Refer to our updated class list sent home today if your child wishes to personalize valentines with names. Of course, hand-made ones are welcome as well as store-bought! Please be sure no food (including candy) is attached per our district policy, and thanks!

Thank you for helping keep our room stocked with health supplies. We’ve been able to stave off the germs to prevent class-wide outbreaks! At this time we are in need of antibacterial wipes. Please send in a tub when you can.

Our reading comprehension spotlight this week is Understanding Cause and Effect. This is an essential skill for students to own. It helps them analyze storylines and character choices, and so develop a deeper understanding of what is read. As an example, we are reading together Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl). Mr. Wonka shut down his factory then opened it to a lucky few. What events led to his actions, and how did they affect the town in which Charlie lives? How do the choices made by Charlie and the other children affect the outcome of the narrative? For more on Cause and Effect and using it at home, check out Reading Rockets: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/cause-and-effect

Our study of Opinion writing has wrapped up for Term 2. Here are some great examples from 1) Naomi, on why Emma shows the character trait “determined”; 2) Martin, and 3) Alana, on why dogs make the best pets; and 4) Prisha, on why animals should be allowed to be put in zoos: 1) First, Emma never gives up. When Emma struggles at something and is getting frustrated, she tries harder and gets it. 2) In addition, dogs like to lick you. When a god notices you’re sad, it will come over and lick you. 3) Last, you can do tricks with them. Some tricks are giving the paw, playing dead, and rolling over and sitting. 4) Last, when animals get hurt, they should have someone to come and rescue them. If there weren’t zoos, no one would come. Super! We will end the term with a deep dive into Informative Writing.

This week’s math focuses on relating difference to subtraction, and learning mental math strategies to subtract. Since subtraction is the inverse operation of addition, we make a connection to last week’s strategies. To find the difference when only the ones place changes, we simply subtract and don’t mess with the tens and hundreds: 267 -5 is the same as 7 -5–just remember to put back the 260. To subtract in your head when only the tens place changes, just count back by tens: 267 – 50 should sound like 257, 247, 237, 227, 217. And the same applies when only the 100s place changes: 267 – 100 = 167.

To quickly subtract 7, 8, or 9 in our heads, we can subtract 10 instead and count up 3, 2, or 1. For example: 432 – 7 is the same as 432 – 10 (422) + 3 (425) since -10 +3 = 7. And 432 – 8  is the same as 432 – 10 (422) + 2 (424), and 432 – 9 is the same as 432 – 10 + 1.  These tricks can really work, and show a real fluency with numbers. It is important, therefore, that students try them out repeatedly if they are ever to own them or use them when it suits them to do so.

In Social Studies, students are learning to identify natural features (landforms) and cultural features (borders, cities, man-made things) on maps. These two things combine to help us quickly find places and learn information. Students will then make atlases by creating their own maps of the 7 continents by: 1. searching for maps of their own using iPads 2. Drawing, coloring, and labeling features of each continent 3. Comparing their maps to their classmates’ 4. Refining their thinking/drawing to improve their information and presentation.

Our weather study continues with a look at what air pressure is and how we can use it to predict weather locally and nationally. I’ve been using surface maps and temperature maps daily with the kids from The Weather Channel at weather.com. To help them make meaning, we are doing investigations with pressure that teach us 1) how air can be compressed, and 2) how pressure can be used to manipulate a system–cool!