Using Facts We Know

Instead of students rotely memorizing facts, we are working very diligently to build number sense. The more students talk about numbers and understand how they can be put together and taken apart, the better number sense they will develop. As they become more automatic with their facts, they will be able to use facts they know to solve other problems. Having students explain their thinking using math vocabulary is crucial as well.  For example, when solving 7+8=15 students may show their work like this: 

7 is 5 and 2. I know 8 and 2 is 10. So 10 and 5 is 15. 

It's important to use facts we already know to help solve new facts.  Fact families prove that if you know one addition fact, then you really know 4 math facts:

5+2=7 so 2+5=7 so 7-5=2 and 7-2=5

We've spent a lot of time practicing double facts, because once those are mastered, we can apply them to near doubles.  Doubles +/-1 and Doubles +/-2 are facts you can master once you know doubles.

And finally, if you know your single doubles facts facts, then you can apply that to your double digit numbers.

Since Double 2 is 4, we know Double 20 is 40.  So we can easily solve Double 22 because 20+20=40, 2+2=4, so 40+4=44.

Nonfiction Writing

We have another writing teacher in Room 207...Gail Gibbons!  We've spent the whole week reading some of her books and learning about her as a writer, illustrator and person.  We've learned that she is a curious person who wonders about everyday things, cares about nature, and draws realistic pictures.  We will continue to study her writing to help us write our own nonfiction books!

Week in Review

Happy Friday everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts this week, it's been so busy!! Here are some of the topics we covered this week:

Measurement
We wrapped up this part of our unit this week!  Student practice measuring in inches and feet.  They should be able to explain something as 15 inches and 1 foot 15 inches.  We also spent a lot of time comparing different measurement and calculating the difference. This can be done with addtition, subtraction, counting on, or counting back. 

Geography
We began our new social studies unit! There are many ways to describe our location.  We are going to learn about all the ways to describe where we are located.  The first lesson introduced absolute location (exact - like an address) and relative location (comparison - next to, in front of, behind). Now we are moving on to wider locations... See the flowchart below:

house > neighborhood > community > city > county > state > country > continent > planet

Punctuation Takes a Vacation.
Encourage your kiddos to write in complete sentences using correct punctuation or else things may get confusing...

Balloons Over Broadway

This is my favorite FALL book! We were able to identify so my nonfiction components! The genre is Literary Nonfiction.  It is told in the format of a story, but its about a true person/events.  The nonfiction text features inside are labels, diagrams, and an author's note.  The text structure is chronological because the events were in sequential order, with temporal words and dates.  If you're looking for a new book to add to your library at home, I highly recommend this one! Tony Sarg didn't just stop when he created the "puppets" of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  He continued questioning and improving his work, which we all enjoy watching to this day.  I know I'll be looking for the newest floats this Thursday!

Salutations and Closings

We have been reviewing capitalization rules the past couple weeks! Students wrote me letters to practice capitalizing salutations, closing, beginning of sentences and proper nouns.  I responded to all of their letters and shared with them on Google Drive.  When we get back from Thanksgiving Break the kiddos will learn how to log in to Google Drive, read a shared document, create their own document, and share it!  While you're out and about this weekend have kiddos find capitals and explain the rule for capitalization... Here's a cheat sheet for you =)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Kid President has got the right idea! I too, am thankful for clouds in the shapes of things and dancing. Here is our school newscast from today :)

How do Magnets Push and Pull?

Number Sense and Measurement

We have been very busy mathematicians lately!  The past few weeks we have been reading and writing 3 digit numbers and locating them on the number line.  If you're looking for something to practice at home, students can count by 10s all the way to 1,000.  This will help them understand the place value of hundreds, tens and ones.  Some of the ways we can represent 3 digit numbers are:

372 = 300 + 70 + 2 = 3 hundreds, 7 tens, 2 ones = three hundred seventy-two

We began our study of customary units of length measurement this week!  We began measuring with nonstandard units (cubes) and transitioned into inches today.  We tried to estimate objects that were about 1 inch and student were able to check their work and explain if the object was more than or less than an inch.  We will continue to study feet and yards and comparing units of measurement.

Nonfiction

We began our study of nonfiction by reviewing 3 different types of nonfiction: Biography, Reference and Literary Nonfiction. Here is a chart describing the different genres:

When reading at home, students should be able to identify the nonfiction books they are reading by these criteria.  They should also be able to explain how they know.

Nonfiction is everywhere!  Books, magazines, newspapers, articles, menus, recipes, cereal boxes, you name it!  One of the major component of nonfiction reading is text features.  They are everywhere!  If students skip over text features when reading they will miss out on a lot of important and interesting information that will help deepen their understanding of nonfiction.  Here is a chart with a lot of examples of special features author's include to make their texts more informative and interesting:

Go on a nonfiction scavenger hunt and try to find as many of these features as possible! 

What Do Objects Move?

What happens to the motion of a ball when you blow on it?
Motion: When an object is moving.  When a dog is moving, it is in motion.

Happy Halloween!

In case you missed the party and parade...here's a little inside look!

Writing Process

We have been very busy writers lately!  We were immersed in texts by amazing writers who have taught us a lot about the writing process. Many of them struggled in writing as students, but they all agreed that the best story comes from our heart.  We spent a couple days gathering ideas by recalling some of our memories (both good and bad...ask your kiddo about my entry I HATE WINTER, haha) and people and places that are in our hearts.  Then we spent a day selecting an idea we want to explore further.  Either something we had more to say about, something we thought would be interesting for our readers, or something very close to our hearts.  Then we began collecting more information about our topics.  We thought about ways to make words more exciting in our writing, and we visualized and drew a detailed picture about our topic.  Later in the week we will focus on collecting vivid verbs and similes to help enhance our writing.  Drafting will begin next week  followed by revising, editing and we will be on our way to our first published piece.  It's been such a fun process!

Telling Time

What can you work on at home? Telling time!  Students should be able to tell time on the whole and half hour.  A good tip for students who confuse the minute and hour hands is the word "hour" is a shorter word/shorter hand and the word "minute" is a longer word/hand.  Students should also practice reading time as "half past" the hour (for example "seven thirty" can also be read "half past seven").  Showing students the relationship between the clock and fractions is helpful too!  30 is half of 60, which is why say half past the hour. We have also been practicing telling time in 5 minutes intervals.  The trickiest part about that is 45, 50 and 55 minutes past the hour.  Many students want to say it's an hour later then it actually shows because the hour hand is so close to the next hour...but it's not there yet!

Reader's Workshop

We have been such busy readers lately I haven't even been able to post about it!  During reader's workshop, we all come together for a read aloud and mini-lesson and learn or review a strategy to help become a better reader.  During this launching unit we have really focused on reading behaviors including keeping track of our titles and genres, recommending books to other readers and setting and working on reading goals.  Some goals are self selected and some are suggested by me.  After the lesson students have independent reading time to try new strategies and work on their goals.  During this time I meet with students to learn about their reading strengths and challenges.  This helps guide my instruction.  Our goal is for students to be engaged in reading for long period of time many times a day.  Not only does this look like eyes in a book and sound quiet, but it should look like students responding to their reading in their notebooks and trying new strategies on sticky notes and graphic organizers. It can also sound like students working on their reading fluency and accuracy quietly, After our independent reading we come together as a reading community and share our new learning, strategies, and efforts made as a growing reader.  It's really a great part of the day!

Representing Addition

We have spent the last couple weeks learning many different strategies for representing addition.  It is important students understand how to break two digit numbers apart into 10s and 1s.  For example, 26 is 2 tens and 6 ones and equals 20+6.  Knowing that will help students show what they know about addition using a hundred chart and a number line.  We always start with the biggest number, then add the tens, then the ones of the second number.  We also practiced adding the ones, then the tens of the second number but decided we preferred adding the tens first.  Our goal this year is for students to be able to represent numbers in MANY different ways, not just to memorize rules about adding and subtracting.  The more students work with breaking numbers apart and putting them together, the more fluent they will become with addition and subtraction.

Pushes and Pulls

We started our first science unit this week! Students will understand that forces make things move.  Throughout this first chapter students will answer, "What are pushes and pulls?"  They will look for examples in books, around the classroom, on the playground and even visualize pushes and pulls in places they cannot see to help understand how things move.  Students demonstrated that a push moves away and a pull moves closer.  We will continue to investigate motion and the affects of intensity, speed, and direction changes when objects start and stop moving.

Writer's Notebook

If you are looking for some inspiration for decorating Writer's Notebooks, here is mine!

Empathy

Last year we saw 5 episodes in the Class Dojo Series about Growth Mindset.  This year, Mojo and his friends are teaching us about EMPATHY! This ties in so nicely with Mrs. Hopes lessons and the Zones of Regulation! For updates on Mrs. Hopes lessons, check out her website:http://www.lz95.org/classes/thezonesofregulation_rhope/  
 
Here is Episode 1 in the Empathy series:

Community Helpers

We wrapped up our culture unit with a focus on Community Helpers.  Our goal was to understand and be able to explain how different workers help our community.  We learned that a community requires A LOT of different workers! We read about a variety of different workers and helpers on MyOn.

Count On Strategy

Our Big Idea in math right now is "Representing numbers in different ways helps combine and take away numbers." We are asking ourselves "How can we use facts we already know to solve other math problems?"  We have been learning about turn around facts, fact families, and count on facts for both single and double digit numbers.  For example we know 7+3=10 by counting on 3 from 7.  So we also know the turn around 3+7=10. Since we know the parts 7 and 3 make the total 10, we also know the rest of the fact family 10-7=3 and 10-3=7.  We can extend the count on strategy to double digit numbers.  For example we know 2+5=7, so we know 20+50=70 and 21+50=71.

Writer's Workshop

Yippee!! We kicked off writer's workshop this week and it's going great!  We learned that authors can be any age, have ups and downs, need revisions, and should keep their writing and ideas in a special place.  We also started recording our memories in our writer's notebook and folder.  Many students chose to write about customs and traditions which tied nicely into social studies!  I figured I would take a picture of our learning goals for today so that you can continue those discussions at home.

Number Puzzles

Today we combined all the tools and concepts we have learned so far!  Students had to use what they knew about place value, comparison, and odd/even to help solve number puzzles using a hundreds chart.  Students were having great math discussions!  Here is an example...

I am between 50 and 60.
I am an odd number.
I am less than 55
The sum of my digits is is 8.

Answer below ;)

53

Sticky Note Strategies

Sticky Note Strategies have been introduced!  Our Reading Goal for the entire year is to understand that good readers stop and use thinking strategies to deepen their understanding of the text.  We will be learning new strategies to achieve that goal all year. Another goal we have been working on is to develop good reading habits, such as: choosing a good spot, choosing good fit books, reading a wide variety, and being able to explain why they liked or didn't like a book.  Thinking while reading and developing good habits will help our students become better readers.  Sticky notes are a great way to document thinking while reading, but they can be over used.  These are the strategies we decided to try first.

Citizenship

Our first lesson with Mrs. Hope was about expected and unexpected behaviors. This tied in great with our social studies lesson.  Students understand that they are a part of many communities: home, neighborhood, school, reading, classroom, basically anywhere they are a part of a group.  Communities have laws to help citizens stay safe.  We spent a lot of time discussing many ways to be a good citizen in our communities.  And we realized that they were all expected behaviors!  Being a part of a community always feels better when rules are followed and citizens do their part.

Monitoring Comprehension

Here is a pretty great summary of our learning today!

It's very important for students to be self aware when they are reading. They should stop every so often to make sure they can figure out new words, retell in their own words, picture the story in their mind and/or make meaningful connections. In 2nd grade we are transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn. Lots of great reading and thinking strategies to learn this year!

Two Digit Numbers

Students should now be experts at reading two digit numbers and number names! Next up we will be discussing relative position on a number track and number line. Students will be able to locate numbers on these two tools and discuss how the numbers compare to each other. When discussing numbers at home ask students questions like "What ten is 33 closers to?" Or "How far away is 47 from 50?" 

Culture

Our first social studies unit is Culture. Our first lesson focuses on rules we follow at home and school. We noticed a lot of similarities! We also decided that rules are meant to keep us safe. They also encourage us to be responsible and respectful. We will often use Myon for read alouds. Today we read Fair Play. Throughout the unit students will learn that they are a part of many communities and what it looks like and feels like to be a good citizen in those communities. 

Curriculum Night Presentation

In case you missed it!  

Math Stations

To help build independence with math stations we have been practicing a variety of activities. Our first two are Number of the Day  and The Addition Table Game. 

Reading Life

I'm reading through the homework from the other night "My Reading Life," and I'm really enjoying the responses!  It sounds like our students love a variety of books and places to read.  What you may not realize, is how many students favorite reading memory is one with their parents or family members.  This shows what an impact your reading habits at home have on the kiddos.  The key to becoming a better reader is to find what and where you love to read, read a variety of texts and read often! They are transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn.   I'm really excited for the kiddos to learn lots of new reading strategies and be exposed to lots of new texts and genres this year.  

Whole Body Listening

Today we read a story to help us learn about Whole Body Listening! It is important to listen with our ears, eyes, mouths, brains, hands, bodies, hearts and feet. 

Mingo

Just playing a little Mingo to get the first day started! Sounds like every one had a fun and busy summer!

Welcome!

Hello Room 207 Families!  I'm Ms. Bonadonna, and I cannot wait to work with the wonderful kiddos of Room 207.  Follow me here for all the fun activities and learning we will do this school year.  Looking forward to meeting everyone soon!