Action Takers over Presidents' Day weekend... In Mandarin Lin Lou Shi shared this years Chinese Gala for the Chinese New Year Celebration. Andy got to share her culture with us and hand out her Caring Cards since she was out sick. A great idea as we head into I Love to Read week-Heart Shaped Bookmarks! More Action... This was the last page of Mari's CIS book. I love that she ended with such a powerful quote and how it started a great conversation during our Morning Meeting. These are daily conversations we have before our Daily Read aloud through the Wonder Quote book we read each day. I also love how she wrote where she heard it from! This week we have been researching different landforms by writing their definitions and then describing and illustrating them. We ended our week with more ACTION and I love how two students took action based off of another student who shared in the beginning of the week because that's what IB students do!
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K-2 MORNING MEETING: BALANCE AWARD This weeks morning meeting activity was to share their CULTURE POSTERS to Connect with our Central Idea: Geography and culture shape our communities. Part of every day students are involved in Reading Stations where students get to read books on their level, practice target skills, work on writing, explore an inquiry station based on our planner, practice grammar and spelling word patterns, and meet in small groups based on reading level and skills needed with the teacher. Here are some independent learners: Students love to share books whether they connect to their current Black History Project or from a recent family trip. Even this small act is considered Action at this age. They want to share their learning with others and I'm always happy to let them share:) STEM Project Students were to build a mailbox using recycled materials, it must stand on its own, hold 5 standard cards and a candy box and have a door that opens and closes easily. They got to choose their own group of 3-4 students and each person needed to have a Job and participate in the building of the mailbox. They needed to build only one design and be willing to try other student's ideas in a limited time period.
Students started by coming up with their own ideas during Brainstorm time. Planning Time... Building Time... Finished projects... Test and Present... This week we had a Pre Show workshop for our next play. Students got to explore creating sounds and movements to go with characters and settings. We had a wonderful Caring Day healthy treat social down in the Cafe with all or our 2nd grade friends. Thank you parents for sending in treats. They had so much fun handing out their Caring Day cards and treats in the classroom. Then we came back to our room and played a Caring Day activity with Rose's mom where we got to find out more about our friends. When they were done they were very excited to get to read their cards from their classmates. Yamini even made a Caring Day card for our Mandarin teacher which was very Caring as it included Year of the Dog pics too:)
Action takers for the week This week students began researching for their Black History Project. They brought in books and articles to find information they could use in their report. They used highlighters and computers to look for specific details they could use in their reports. They also put together their own file folders and brought them home to begin filling out on their own. Their enthusiasm for this project really shows their love for learning and enthusiasm and open-mindedness. On Friday we started our day with an inquiry into the 2018 Winter Olympics. We looked at the final results from the 2014 Winter Olympics. We went over all of the Participating Countries We went over the flags because we noticed they show them during the games and it helps you recognize the country they are from. We discussed keeping data on how many medals each country wins by using a graph. They also got to choose 5 countries they are interested in keeping data on over the next couple weeks. We also connected this math activity to Unit 5 that we just started. We read an informational article on the 2018 Winter Games that we will be using in class next week and then we did a Reader's Theater with a classmate on The Opening Ceremonies that they also got to bring home on Friday. In Math we started Time using analog and digital clocks. We learned what the short (hour) and long (minute) hands represent. They made connections to skip counting by 5's in our Daily Math Warm Ups.
We started our week with the All School Morning Meeting. We got to hear students play music in between listening to all the students who have been taking action. As soon as we got back to our classroom we started a fun day filled with tribal maps that had challenges for the tribes! Students counted off and soon found their tribes for the day. They got to come up with their tribe name, create a tribe poster that was posted at their new home for the day and wear a colored bandana if they wanted to. Students participated in 4 math and geography challenges: USA Rocks!, Chain Reaction, Super Sundae and Marshmallow Madness. They worked together and cheered each other on. We even had many of Mr. Morris students in our room for the day and they included them in and made them feel like a part of our community. Take a look into our day... In Mandarin they played a matching game with recent vocabulary. Michael and Shane chose to do the presentation option to share their knowledge of How We Organize Ourselves through the Central Idea: Economic activities depend on goods and or services. The rest of the students chose posters or brochures to represent their knowledge. They were given a rubric and exemplars were shared so they knew what was expected from them. You will get a chance to see them in March during their Student Led Conferences. On Wednesday we talked about their Black History Month Projects and they got to choose their own person to research. On Thursday students already brought in some books to help with their project. When students finish their assignments or tests they are allowed to get in their Idea Notebooks and journal whatever they are being inspired to create. They were so excited after recent ideas that we spent some time sharing them. This week we started our 4th Planner: Where We Are in Place and Time. We spent time discussing the concepts GEOGRAPHY and CULTURE. They watched videos and did S.O.L.E.'s to gain some new knowledge. I'm hoping they shared what they learned with you and I'm excited to see what action they take as we continue to learn about maps, landforms, culture and geography throughout the next 6 weeks.
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AuthorMrs. Humphrey
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