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

Germ fighter’s report: Thank you for keeping us healthy by teaching your kids good hygiene and sending supplies! At this time we’re in need of antibacterial wipes for our tables so we can stave off winter’s illnesses. Please send in a tub or two, and thanks!

Valentine’s Day is coming! We will exchange valentines in class on Thursday, 2/14. If your child brings valentines in for classmates, please be sure there is one for everyone. There are currently 22 students in our class. Refer to our class list sent home 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!

In writing this week, students will learn about the heart of writing narratives: the Main Event. This is where the young author should really stretch out the action and take the reader step-by-step through the event.

Consider how a good writer would tell about the following video. Instead of this: “I picked up the bat. The pitcher threw. I hit it,” good writing should sound more like this: “I grabbed the long, wooden bat and swung it up to my shoulder. The pitcher went through his warmup, smacking the ball in his glove to try to shake me. I dug my white high-tops into the dusty ground to show him I meant business.” See how the latter puts the reader in the picture? Try making up your own narrative to go with the video!

Solving real world problems with measurement is the focus of this week’s math lessons. Consider the following problem. Kids are being asked to think about distance as a quantity expressed in units of measurement–but the process of problem solving remains the same (Understand; Represent; Solve; Check):

In science, students are learning to define a problem, create models, test and review ideas, and refine their thinking! We are designing solutions for how to keep a house from blowing away during a windstorm. Here are some shots of us in action:

We’re halfway to the end of the year! This is a good time to reflect on our journey, and to thank you for your efforts as partners in your child’s education. It’s remarkable how much growth the kids have shown, from learning skills and critical thinking to their growth as caring members of our learning community. To foster self-reflection, try asking your child to compare how s/he is different now from the start of the year. What things can s/he do now that s/he couldn’t before? What things does s/he still want to learn (goals) and how do they think they can they get there?

Of course, this means the 100th day of school is two weeks away (at this time, Friday, Feb. 5)!  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 (and/or multiplying) by 5s, 10s, 2s, etc., with accompanying multiplication or repeated addition sentences
• bar models using the number 100
• create real-world problems with 100

Click here and scroll down for a look at the creative ways that one class took on this challenge. There is also a plethora of projects and ideas on Google and Pinterest and across the web!

 This week’s new comprehension strategy is predicting. Always, the #1 thing we want students to do when they read for meaning is to think about the text. When we do that, we can’t help but make predictions–predictions about where a story is going next; predictions about what language or vocabulary we will likely encounter next; predictions about answers to our questions that arise when we read. Equally important is to check our predictions, or guesses, as we read on, and adjust our thinking accordingly. It’s what helps us learn new things and it makes us engage with text, building our lifelong learning skills. Here’s a short article on predicting with ideas for making connections to science at home: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/making-predictions

This week’s math introduces students to a new concept in measurement: the broken ruler. Check out the example above. Here, students are being taught to develop an understanding of length that goes beyond lining up a ruler at “0” and reading the number at the end. You will see examples of it on this week’s homework. Students need to count the centimeters when measuring and comparing in order to understand what the numbers involved mean in terms of length. We will also be learning to represent lengths using bar models. For a reminder, see the bar modeling section of the homework packet from chapter 4.

In science, we are using winter’s many topics to Ask Questions; Design Models; Conduct Investigations; and Develop Explanations. For instance: after learning about temperature, we predicted what might happen to bubbles if we blew them in the cold weather. While some burst in the wind, to our surprise some flew away, while those that made it to the ground froze, leaving a bubble shell behind.

Several of our topics come from an awesome online program called Mystery Science, and it’s companion series, Mystery Doug. The latter, I believe, is available for home use merely by signing up online. If anyone tries it, please confirm with me that this is the case! Truly engaging, inquiry based learning.

Our Term 2 Social Studies focus is on learning character traits and applying that knowledge to understand famous U.S. and world figures and their contributions. What makes these historical leaders worth remembering? How did Lincoln’s honesty, Cesar Chavez’ determination, Harriet Tubman’s bravery, and Susan B. Anthony’s patriotism affect the lives of others and forever change our understanding of America? These are the kinds of questions we will attempt to answer by analyzing biographical texts and media.

This week, we will analyze the life and achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) and learn to assign character traits to him based on evidence from biographical texts and video. We’ll then use this evidence to create an informative writing piece. Check out this great video from Brainpop. Then consider these traits: determined; hardworking; patriotic; creative; honest; responsible; brave. Which words best apply to MLK? What is your evidence?

This week we begin chapter 7 of Math in Focus, the goal of which is to make students proficient with linear measurement (especially meters and centimeters). To begin, students will learn the importance of standard units of measurement and be introduced to content-specific vocabulary (width; height; length; meter; etc.). They will next develop a sense of how big meters and centimeters are. Then they will learn correct methods for estimating and accurately measuring and talking about measurement (more than, less than, about, exactly). And as always, they will be asked to solve real-world problems that require analysis and application of skills learned. Consider the following problem from this week’s lessons. Notice how it requires students to think about space, length, multiplication/repeated addition, and subtraction to solve it:

Using the NGSS Science Standards as a guide, we designed and carried out an investigation to see if other liquids evaporated like water does.We used water as a baseline and compare it to solutions of salt water and water with food coloring. Using the skills of inquiry, students asked questions; made predictions; used scientific tools (petri dishes; droppers; magnifiers); made observations; and drew conclusions. You can try a variation on this at home with this idea from Shirley’s Preschool Activities.

Here’s us in action taking a Mindful Moment from Go Noodle (free) and learning the meaning of odd and even in a hands-on way:

 

sdobie via Compfight

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were full of cheer and good memories to cherish. I got to catch up with family and friends and recharge! Onward…

Our CAFE focus this week is on Inferring, which is a strategy we use all the time to help us understand what we’re reading. When we infer, we use our schema (what we already know about something) and combine it with clues from the text to understand something new. Consider these lines from Eloise Greenfield’s poem Things: Went to the beach/Played on the shore/Built me a sandhouse/Ain’t got it no more. My schema tells me that at the beach we build sandcastles, which is what she likely means, and sometimes the ocean comes and washes them away–that’s why the speaker “Ain’t got it no more.” Kids and grownups infer all the time in real life, for example: Snow is in the forecast. When the phone rings at 5:30 AM we can infer school will be delayed or cancelled! It’s smart to catch it when it happens and ask “How did you infer that? What were your clues?” Here is a site that, while designed for teachers, has lots of great info and links on inference: http://www.minds-in-bloom.com/2012/02/tips-for-teaching-inference.html

Chapter 6 of MIF focuses on learning multiplication facts of 2s, 5s, and 10s by teaching the connection between skip-counting and multiplication, and using that understanding to solve problems. To solve 8 x 2, for example, we want students to count by 2 eight times. It is a way of learning the meaning behind the numbers involved in multiplication instead of just memorizing facts (which has value, too, just not on its own). One way we teach this is to have students count pairs of objects. Next is counting on fingers while counting aloud by 2 (1 finger up gives you 2, or 1 x 2; etc.). Students will then be introduced to dot paper, which for this chapter shows arrays of 2s, 5s, or 10s. The example below shows 4 x 2. On homework, students should use dot paper by counting down the rows by 2s, then naming how many rows they counted. In this example, they should say “2, 4, 6, 8; I counted 4 times; 4 times 2 is 8.”

As we continue our exploration of weather, students will conduct daily observations of temperature, clouds, and weather type over the next month. We will then analyze the data, look for trends, evaluate methods for presenting data (e.g. bar graphs vs. pie charts for example), and draw conclusions of winter weather in Shrewsbury. In addition, this week we will conduct an investigation around evaporation to answer the question “Where does the water go?”. We will also learn to identify cloud types and use that to predict the weather. Weather Wiz Kids  is a fantastic site for learning more about and all things weather. And here’s a  favorite, Bill Nye the Science Guy, teaching about how clouds are formed.

And here’s us learning to make a cloud in a cup by trapping water vapor and observing the results: