On the "move" in 2-2!

The children worked together cooperatively this week to achieve a lot of great learning! We hit a bit of a rough patch earlier in the week with some undesirable behavior choices, but after a class discussion about how we would like our classroom to function this year, there was a huge shift in our approach with each other and our behavior in the classroom. During our class talk, the children shared that they would like to see our class be supportive, quiet, respectful and they want for the kids to work nicely together. I jotted down all of their great ideas down on some chart paper and we have it hanging as an important reminder for us! After our discussion, I watched the children putting their ideas into action. I watched happily as they reached out to help each other pick up belongings from the floor, remind each other to use a whisper voice,  bring lunch boxes to friends at their desks at lunch time, and help each other put their chairs up at the end of the day! It was so nice to see the shift in our classroom and I am so excited and hopeful to see it continue! Thank you so much for your support and for helping to reinforce this message at home. It is so much appreciated! :)

Additional events of the week include:

1) The children buddied up to quiz each other on their fact families using fact triangles

2) We did some quality buddy reading of nonfiction texts in order to review the reading strategies we have been tackling throughout the week

3) The kids partnered up to find a clever way to get a toy car to MOVE during our science unit on motion! 

Individually, the children worked to choose an appropriate first reading goal for themselves the year. We considered all of the areas that we could - or would like to- grow throughout the year. These ideas included: choosing "good fit books," increasing their reading stamina, expanding the genre of texts that they are reading, and monitoring their comprehension while reading. They documented these goals in their reading notebooks, as well as some ways that they plan to achieve these goals. 

 During math, the children learned about fact families and quizzed each other for a few minutes to strengthen the recall of their basic facts.

 During our motion lessons this week, the children focused on the direction of the motion, the path of the motion, and the speed of the motion. We conducted time trials of various motions including: jumping forward, walking backward, and crawling in order to measure (in meters)  how far they could travel in each of these ways in 5 seconds.

 It was a beautiful day for our motion experimentation!

 Joana was our star student of the week! We were happy to see Mrs. Petrova in our classroom to visit. Joana did a fascinating experiment that got us thinking about how submarines work. She raised and lowered a water bottle in the bowl by increasing and decreasing the amount of water/air in the bottle!

Joana shared one of her favorite stories with us, Llama Llama Red Pajama! We loved the rhyme in this book!

What a great picture of Joana and her mom! You had a wonderful week, Joana! Thank you for being such a sweet, hardworking, and enthusiastic student in our classroom!

The children enjoyed hands-on explorations during our science lessons this week! With partners, the children investigated ways to make their toy car move. They were provided with various materials including cardboard tubes, rubber bands, rulers, books, their desks, etc.

The kids stretched their thinking and activated their imaginations in order to come up with some innovative ways to move their car!

The children were very eager and excited to gather and share the results at each other's stations!

A reminder for next week:

Please help the students remember not to wear green on Tuesday! Mrs. Fuglestad will be doing some work with the green screen and we don't want the kids to disappear. :)

Have a nice, long Columbus Day weekend!
Kelly O'Sullivan