Miss Emmons has begun teaching the Motion part of our unit. Above is a graphic she made as a pre-assessment activity with the students. Students brainstormed all the words that they thought were associated with motion.
Students are being introduced to an Artists'/Writers' Workshop model to support descriptive writing. Art teacher, Mrs. Jacques and I are collaborating and co-teaching to provide this extended Art and Writing experience. During an extended Art session students are exposed to painting techniques based on quality children's literature. They apply these techniques to create their own masterpieces. During Writers' Workshop students use the same text to explore rich descriptive vocabulary and rhythm of the language. They then apply this learning as they brainstorm vocabulary and create their own text matching their artwork. Here is an example of a class created painting and writing piece. Please continue to check out individual student blogs to view their artwork and read their writings. Soft, shining moon
glowing in the glassy lake a gentle breeze blends twilight colors with the mountains beyond. We welcome Katie Emmons to our classroom. we are so fortunate to have this talented student teacher from UMF joining us. Now we have two teachers to support learning!
We are in the process of adding to our historical timeline as we read and learn about historical figures and events. I have been really impressed at how often students refer to it, question each other and independently apply math skills as they answer their questions.
"Would Chester Greenwood have known about Snowflake Bentley's inventions and photographs?" Would Snowflake Bentley have been alive when jellyfish rained on the people in London in 1894?" Today Mrs. Stevens dropped cubes all over the floor. We wanted to count them in an efficient way so we first counted the ones into towers of 10. Then we took 10 towers and put them together into a bag. This made 100 cubes. Then we stacked 10 bags on top of each other. That made 1,000 cubes. We had 4 bags and 3 towers and 4 cubes extra. All together Mrs. Stevens dropped 1,434 cubes on the floor! (on purpose!!)
As you can see from posts on the student blogs children have beginning to share entries from their Writers' Notebooks. Before writing in them we brainstormed possible topics that they wanted to explore. Next we discussed "I Can.. statements." These are second grade standards. Students can use their entries to prove that they are working on these standards. Copies of these are taped in the front and back of their notebooks to help remind them of our discussion and to refer to.
We have begun our Inventors and Inventions unit. We are beginning our study with some famous inventors but will be focusing on local inventors. During the late 1800s the Farmington area was home to over 100 inventors. Chester Greenwood wasn't the only one!
Thank you for all of your donations for Helping Hands. Our class gathered 162 items to help area families.
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AuthorHi! My name is CIndy Stevens. This is our class blog. I hope that this gives you a window into daily life in the classroom as well as special events. Archives
June 2015
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