A strong finish to 2016 in 2-2!

The children have been hard at work as we tick down the days to the end of 2016!

Here is an update for you!

 The children practiced writing Friendly Letters to the President, including the date, greeting, a friendly message, closing, and signature. They were so excited to address their envelopes to the White House and include their return address in the top left corner. Our fingers are crossed that we will receive a reply!

 One reading skill we practiced during reader's workshop was identifying the mood and tone of the story. We looked for clues in the colors on the pages, the word choice of the author, illustrations, and carefully chosen punctuation. Another skill we worked on was looking carefully at the dialogue in a text to determine what deeper understanding we can pull from it. Sometimes the dialogue will expose the feelings or point of view of a character, or the dialogue could move us through the story by moving us from one scene to another. The dialogue also helps to bring the characters to life!

 Mrs. Wasik stopped in to talk to our class about the concept of Sketch-noting. This is a great way to transfer verbal concepts into drawings that will help us deepen our understanding. She showed us that all we need to be able to do is draw straight lines and curved lines, and the pictures will evolve. The children loved practicing the idea of sketching their ideas to help them build and recall the big ideas we encounter.

 During our writing lessons this week, we moved on from friendly letters to practicing writing invitations. We made sure to include who, what, where, why, and when, as well as any additional information our guests may need to know.

 It was the week of code! The children LOVED coding using the apps Bee-Bot and Light Bot. The children were excited to "plan" the code, and then watch and see if it transpired the way it should! They would cheer when the code was correct! The children kept asking throughout the week when they could code again- feel free to have them practice at home, too!

 The children reviewed briefly for their citizenship test! Here they are sorting the leaders of our town, state, and country government, and matching the groups of people that help them!

 It was Isabella's week to shine as our star student! We were happy to welcome Mrs. Velazquez came in to demonstrate a really neat experiment showing us how baby diapers work. They poured the material that you can find inside a diaper into a cup, and then added water. We watched as the water was absorbed by this material and expanded into a fluffy type of substance. It was clear to see how the absorption of water would help to prevent spills!

 We are so lucky to have such a bright, sweet, caring, and helpful student in our class this year! Isabella is the first person to jump up to help a friend or lend a hand. She brightens up our classroom every single day! You had a great week, Isabella!!

We took some time at the end of the week to reflect on our reading goals. We thought about how our past goals were progressing and rated this progress with a  1, 2, or 3. Some of us have achieved the goal! It was time to also think about a new goal we would like to work on. There have been so many wonderful new skills in reading workshop lately, it was hard to pick just one! It is great to strengthen the children's understanding of their own learning and to give them ownership through this goal setting process. It is amazing what kids can do when you let them try! They often achieve above and beyond expectations!

On the agenda last week: hands-on student learning!

I watched a class full of 2nd graders march proudly and excitedly into school last week holding* (*figuratively speaking, as some were online) their amazing landmark projects in their hands. They were eager and excited to share their learning and their work with their classmates! We used namepickerninja.com to help us randomly select presenters for us throughout the week.  It was fascinating to watch the children take a firm hold of their own learning beginning with the selection of the US landmark that they wanted to investigate and returning their student contract, researching it carefully to answer the essential questions, and then create a report/slideshow/visual representation of their understanding. I recorded the presentations using our classroom iPads, and did my best to post each one on the children's personal Seesaw accounts. One or two of them encountered a glitch while uploading, but I think most of them made it! You can find Seesaw login information in the folder you received back on Curriculum Night. 

Thank you parents for participating in such a valuable learning experience with your children. Three things became obvious to me as a result of the landmark challenge. 1.) The children put a lot of time, effort, energy, and creativity into their work! (Thank you!) 2.) The children could not have completed these projects without the support of their families, making it a shared learning and bonding experience at home. (Hooray! Thank you!) 3.) This type of hands-on learning is something that the children will remember, and cannot be replaced with reading from a text book. Thank you so very much for deepening your child's understanding of citizenship, patriotism, and pride in our country- as well as important facts about a landmark, including reading, researching, investigating, and taking key notes- with this project-based approach!

Here is Isabella sharing her learning about the Statue of Liberty through a Powerpoint Presentation.

Phillip chose to create a model of the White House!

Dawid put together a colorful posterboard full of facts about the White House.

Quin taught us all about the Hoover Dam through his Powerpoint slideshow and a lifelike model!

Mia shared her knowledge- and beautiful photos of the Grand Canyon- via Powerpoint.

Sasha included important details of the Golden Gate Bridge in her model!

Charlie was very excited to teach us about Old Faithful- which he has visited!

During a reading workshop lesson this week, the children reviewed strategies they could use to help figure out the meaning of new words- even if those words were in another language! The children: thought about if they had seen the word before, decided if there were any clues in the pictures, looked for punctuation that might give more information, and looked carefully at the words around the new word for hints about the new word's meaning. Finally, they had to decide what they thought the meaning of the new word was. After working on these strategies as a whole group, the children broke into partners to practice on more of an independent way. The children revisited the story "The Most Valuable Treasure" using the whiteboard, and the partners went through each of these steps together before we shared as a class. Many of these words were TOUGH- but the children did a great job figuring them out!

Here is our "Hall of Presidents!" Another opportunity for the children to take a hold of their learning was in their research in the LMC of one of our earliest US Presidents. The class worked hard to learn biographical information shedding light on the life of their president, and then they created a drawing to go along with their report. The details I noticed of the notable features of each president were really remarkable! These reports were terrific!

Back to our landmark presentations! Aaliya highlighted key facts on her poster of the Statue of Liberty.

Chase created and described a very realistic Arlington National Cemetery!

Max taught us about the Jefferson Memorial.

Gavin built a model of the Jefferson Memorial to go along with his Powerpoint presentation- complete with cherry trees!

An additional element of our citizenship unit has been for the children to participate in a mock election. After holding primaries, a National Convention, and then campaigning for our fictional candidates, it was time to take our election to the voting booth. The children registered to vote and them completed their vote by filling out a ballot. We discussed the concept of "majority rule" as we counted the votes. Congratulations to both of our final candidates, Trent and Clark, for a lively and enthusiastic election! Both students really got into character and played their parts perfectly. Well done!

I should mention that prior to making our final decision, the children and I created a Venn Diagram comparing the major points of each candidate. This helped us to carefully consider which candidate closely matched the characteristics we were looking for in our leader.

Thank you to Quin for these awesome I VOTED stickers! The children were so excited to wear them!

An additional strategy we worked on during Readers Workshop was making connections. The children practiced making connections to themselves, to other texts, and to the world as we shared a short story called "Imogene's Egg." After our workshop lesson, the children were encouraged to read a book independently, marking places in the text that they were able to connect to in some way with post-it notes. Many of the children were able to find multiple places in the story that they could relate to! I challenged the children to find deep connections- events, feelings, situations as opposed to surface/limited connections- numbers, places, etc.

MORE landmark projects! Sydney became an expert on the Golden Gate Bridge!

Chloe created a remarkable Liberty Bell.

While it may appear that the children have fallen asleep in the next series of photos, that isn't exactly the case. As we welcomed the month of December last week along with the winter and holiday season, we started thinking about our favorite family holidays and the warm, familiar traditions that go along with them. Often we go to sleep the night before a special holiday event and dream about what we are looking forward to! Here the children are "dreaming" about their favorite family traditions!

Then, the children practiced their creative writing as they described these thoughts and dreams. The children in our class dream about several different holidays, including Hanukkah, Eid, and Christmas!

A few more landmarks! Kris created a terrific Statue of Liberty!

Scot taught us so much about the Wright Brothers, and their first flight in a series of photos!

Ethan typed a detailed report about the Liberty Bell, and created a beautiful model of it!

Michael taught us about the 4 presidents you can find on Mount Rushmore!

After our class presentations were complete, the children couldn't wait to have our Landmark Fair! We invited our buddy class, Mrs. Schwarz's 4th graders, come in to see all of our hard work! They were a very captive audience!

Thank you to Mrs. Beane for stopping in to see our work!

We were especially pleased to see some of our parents were able to visit- even on short notice! The children were surprised and so happy to see these friendly faces in our classroom and share their learning with them! Thank you, thank you for coming!!

We also invited Mrs. Johnson's 1st graders to come in and take a look around. Its fun to think that these first graders will be in the 2nd graders shoes at this time next year! The first graders were in awe of the 2nd graders hard work and fascinating facts!

We couldn't have asked for a more interested and encouraging audience to share our learning with! Thank you to everyone who was able to spend a few minutes with us!

One more hands-on learning event that the children participated in was an art appreciation lesson with Mrs. Zemla. Mrs. Zemla taught the children about the life and work of Michelangelo. After explaining how he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on scaffolding on his back, the children were challenged to try it themselves! Here are a few pictures of the children trying their hand at drawing lying underneath their desks. They quickly realized what a challenging task this was! Somehow, I don't think Michelangelo giggled as much as we did while he was painting the Sistine Chapel! :)