Conferences, Discussion Groups, Rain, and Listening

I can't wait to see everyone next Thursday and Friday for conferences. The students are preparing a series of academic artifacts to share with you that they feel proud of. The kids will step out of the room toward the end of the conference to give us some time to connect privately. Make sure they bring a book or something fun for that time. 

The pictures below are in no understandable order, but I hope you can see the deep thinking, community, and engagement in our room. 

Students are sharing their writing in response to the latest chapter of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Karana's experience of being confronted by tribal superstition about women making weapons was an engaging topic for the class. 

These students are building their first 9-lines for the 3s house. "I put 3 chips in the cup one time and I have 3 chips altogether." "I put 3 chips in the cup two times and I have 6 chips altogether." After we build a house we can start noticing patterns, manipulating numbers, and creating visual images of the math facts for fluency. 

Students are presenting their work on an archaeological survey of a site on the playground. They found three artifacts and explained the context in which they make sense within the site. 

We read an article about the drought in Time for Kids and did a cool, rain-themed drawing project to try and conjure up a little wetness. We also invited Peggy's class to join us for a Mojave Native American-inspired rain dance.

 We've been dedicating ourselves to building our team and connecting with one another in genuine, compassionate ways. It's so important to create a space for kids to try different communication styles and practice listening, and being listened to, with empathy. 

 These essayists are reading an essay about how archaeologists find sites to excavate. They identified the main idea and supporting thoughts/ideas/examples and made observations about paragraphing. 

This is the end of our final small-group discussion about Island of the Blue Dolphins. Students are recording their big ideas about the book's theme and why Scott O'Dell decided to tell this story. 

In those final discussion groups, we worked with these questions and more:

•   After finishing Island of the Blue Dolphins what parts really stuck with you? What are your biggest thoughts about the book?

•   Why do you think Island of the Blue Dolphins has won so many awards? What makes it special? Did you like it as much as other people seem to like it?

•   What is the story really about?

•   Do you like historical fiction? When you read historical fiction, do you want to know which part is fact and which part is fiction? Why?

•   Overall, did the novel seem too sad to you? Do you think the tragedies are important to the story? Some people think it's too sad. What do you think?

•   Is Karana like other twelve-year-olds you know? Do you like or admire her? What parts of who she is do you see in yourself?

FYI

Enjoy your long weekend! No school Friday or Monday.

Thanks for the drivers who volunteered to take us to Bello Gardens next week. We'll be sharing some family traditions with our senior friends and interviewing them about traditions in their families on Thursday, January 23. 

Multiplication, Marine Biology, Archaeology, and Essays

My 1st and 2nd grade Spanish students put on un restaurante for the 

3rd and 4th graders before the break!

Nice work, Team! The students gave presentations of their CA Road Trip projects.

We're always working to build our team. Here, I challenged the kids to use a 

crazy string-and-rubber-band tool to move the cups into a pyramid without touching them directly. 

Look at that concentration and communication! My mom and sister were very impressed :)

Happy Birthday Sara!

I love GGs! Can you feel the excitement in these pictures as we open our grand finale gifts?!

These fabulous mathematicians are modeling multiplication as repeated groups. Tomorrow we'll look at multiplication as repeated addition, then we'll talk about arrays. I always love the beginning multiplication work. There's great energy in the students as they enjoy all those early a-ha! moments. In math, students are working on some of the following:

• concrete multiplication models
• counting the tens and hundreds inside of bigger numbers
• subtraction across zeroes review
• symmetry and congruence
• multi-digit multiplication
• prime and composite numbers
• prime factorization
• elapsed time
• important math vocab review- sum, difference, product, factors, etc. 

Over the break I found myself scheming some awesome Social Studies projects. We're learning about the work of archaeologists. Here, students are investigating a puzzle piece to learn important lessons about making assumptions about an artifact out of context. Then students completed the puzzles, only to find many of the pieces missing. If some of the pieces are missing, can we still come to reasonable conclusions about the big picture? How does this relate to the excavation work an archaeologist might do? Our vocabulary words for the day were archaeology, artifact, and context. I'm looking forward to learning more about our Native American tribes through an archaeological dig activity in the next few weeks!

Another recent highlight for me has been utilizing some of my marine biology background. The character Karana describes a lot of California inter-tidal ecology in Island of the Blue Dolphin.  It's been great to dig into some of her descriptions and learn more about those incredible ecosystems.

We are currently selecting poetry that engages and inspires us to deeply analyze, memorize, and practice reciting. We've been watching videos of inspiring, theatrical poetry recitations and discussing what makes for a powerful recitation. Students have chosen poems by poets ranging from Langston Hughes to Shel Silverstein to Robert Frost to Jack Prelutsky.

I am also about to begin teaching the students how to collect writing that can be developed into essays and invite them to become essay writers. I'll show them that essayists observe the world with care and then think about their observations, recording them in writing.

Happy 2014! I'm excited to be back!