Classroom Wish List
- glue sticks
- playground balls
- colored copy paper
- paper towels
- HP Ink 950 and 951
- Heavy Duty Pencil Sharpener (Teacherpro Xacto brand)
As we return to school students can look forward to learning about cycles in nature, the civil war, and people who fought for cause including Martin Luther King, Jr. whose birthday we celebrate this month. In math, we will work with adding and subtracting within 100. We continue to work on our math facts. By now students should know their addition facts to 20 and be working on subtraction facts. We will be writing more expository pieces and learn about research and presentation skills. Classroom Wish ListHere are a few things we need for the classroom as we start 2017:
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In the last weeks of December we learned about place value of hundreds, tens and ones. By this point, students should be able to understand that 100 can be seen as 1 hundred, 10 tens, or 100 ones. We have been working on activities involving how many more are needed to get to 100. We practice solving these problems mentally and discuss our thinking as a class so we can benefit from each others' mathematical thinking. For example, I have 74 pencils. How many more pencils do I need to get to 100? Ask your child how he or she would solve this problem. Some students will count on by ones from 74 to 100. Other students will suggest adding 6 to get to 80 and then adding 20 more. Another strategy students will use is to add two tens to get to 94 and then add 6 to get to 100. Some students will add 30 to get to 104 and then take away 4 from 30 to get to 26. All of these methods show students have a good understanding of the place value system. A common error student make is to say the answer is 36. They know that 7 +3 = 10 and 4+6 is 10. When students make this error it is a sign that they need more work on understanding tens and ones. It is important that students solve math problems accurately in ways that make sense to them. At home, have your child explain his or her mathematical thinking to you.
We finished our unit on Westward expansion of the United States. We learned about the Pony Express, the transcontinental railroad and buffalo hunting. We made quilt squares to cover each topic we read about during the unit and put together a poster with 9 quilt squares. In our Scholastic News we read about how beavers solve problems in their environment. The students used non fiction text features to cite evidence about beaver facts. Also in another Scholastic News issue, we learned basic economic concepts of budgets, goods, and services. We performed a reader's theater play called "The Hat" for our other second grade friends and watched them perform their own reader's theater plays as well. We ended our year with a thorough cleaning of our desks and work folders. Our plan to return in 2017 with a fresh start on a new year. We participated in National Computer Science Education week by learning to code. While we use technology in the classroom on a daily basis, this week the lessons focused on learning to program a computer to make something happen with technology. We learned important vocabulary such as algorithm, program, and debug. If you walked in our classroom during the programming time you would have seen students collaborating with each other to make their programs work. And, you would hear students saying things such as, “I know how to do that, let me show you.” Students were able to write a program to animate their own name on Scratch and stretched themselves by trying out programming using JavaScript. Take a look at the web links on this website for Code.org and Scratch. In math, we continue to engage in math problems and activities related to place value and number sense. This week we played a math game called “roll a square.” As students played the game they had to figure out problems involving how many more cubes they would need to make a multiple of ten. This led to a discussion of the different strategies that students use to solve mathematical problems. Our project cornerstone volunteer read Don’t Laugh at Me by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin. The book helps students learn more about the importance of having tolerance for others. Students discussed their feelings and emotions after hearing the story. In addition, they were challenged to perform intentional acts of kindness to help make Nordstrom a school where all students share a sense of belonging and safety. Look for the letter from our Project Cornerstone volunteer in your child’s Friday folder for more information. We read about a group traveling westward on the Oregon Trail in the mid 1800s. It took these families about six months to make the journey with all their belongings in a covered wagon. Along the way they faced many hardships. Next week, we will read about the Pony Express and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Looking Back We continue to learn about the Westward Expansion of the United States in the 1800's. This week we read The Story of Sequoyah. We learned that Sequoyah was an important man in the Cherokee tribe. He cared about his people and his Cherokee culture. In the early 1800's, European settlers were trying to replace Native American customs with their own customs. The Cherokee people had a spoken language they used to communicate, but they did not have a written language for reading and writing. Sequoyah created a writing system for the Cherokee. It was a long and difficult process, but Sequoyah knew that writing was a way to keep the Cherokee strong. Sequoyah had to go back to the drawing board after all his hard work was lost in a fire. Tell your child about a time you had to go back to the drawing board and start over on something. Shortly after Sequoyah invented the Cherokee writing system, the Cherokee were forced to leave their land and move west. In the 1830s gold was discovered on Cherokee land in Georgia. The Cherokee were forced by the white men to leave their land and move farther west. Many Cherokee died on the journey, which is called the Trail of Tears. In class we discussed how the Trail of Tears and other forced movements of Native Americans are some of the saddest events in the history of the United States, but that is why we need to remember them. It’s important to remember the sadder parts of history to prevent them from happening again. We have completed our geometry unit in math and started working on place value using two and three digit numbers. Students were introduced to the Sticker Station, a store that sells stickers in singles, strips of ten and sheets of 100 stickers. You will hear more about the Sticker Station in the coming weeks. Also, We finished our Art Smart project on the California Quail. Remember, we are collecting canned and dry goods for needy families. Please send them in with your child by Friday, December 7. Looking Forward: Computer Science Education Week Dec. 5 to 11 Next week we will begin learning computer science fundamentals in recognition of Computer Science Education week. Students will learn that computer science is a theory and practice that allows people to program a computer to make something happen with technology. They will learn valuable problem solving skills as they work to make their program do the functions they want. We will use a curriculum created by Code.org to learn about computer science and the critical thinking, logic, persistence and creativity that is necessary to excel at problem solving in all subject areas.
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AuthorHello, I am Renee De Villez. This page is about the activities going on in my classroom. My audience consists of the parents of the students in my class. Other parents and teachers are welcome to read it as well. Archives
May 2017
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