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

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.