9.27.15

“Today at Choice, I was playing Magnetiles. Then, I cleaned up a little bit and went to art. I made part of a book for my mom and dad,” reported Marley.

“Today at Choice, I played Legos. I built a ship. It looked kind of like a plane and kind of like a motorcycle,” reported Max.

“Today we started learning about immigration. Immigration is when people move from a country to another country. People move to new places for many different reasons.”

What a big week we had! We started learning about immigration via the essential questions:

1. Who came and who comes to the United States?

2. How and why did/do people come?

3. How did/do immigrants change the places they moved to?

4. Why is it important that we study immigration?

We looked through our theme books and wrote the titles of the books that contain information that might give us ideas about how to begin answering some of these questions. Job partners read to each other from the books; younger readers described pictures and more experienced readers read headings, tables of contents, and some text. Next, we read a book about how every family is different and that evidence of a ‘typical’ family is hard to find. We learned the Continent and Oceans song, but we’ll need more practice before we’re ready to perform it for the rest of the school at Community Meeting!

Next week, we’ll draw pictures of a memory of a family tradition or event and write a short paragraph to go with it. When the Family Heritage Questionnaires are returned, we’ll use the information to help up make Trees of Life, in the Mexican tradition, for showing the members of our families. Here are some fancy trees of life; ours might include names of our family members or symbols to represent them. 

 

We will also learn about one way that immigrants change the places they move to (EQ 3) by reading folk tales from China, Mexico, Russia, West Africa, and Ireland.

We are super excited about our field trip to Angel Island on Tuesday, October 20. This trip, including riding the ferry and a tour of the ‘immigrant-processing center’ offers students a full immersion simulation of some of the challenges thousands of Asian immigrants to California experienced in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. This trip is taxing on the students and adults who attend, but ‘walking in someone else’s shoes’ is a very effective means of gaining empathy, acceptance, and compassion while learning about the places and American multi-culture that we all share.

In next week’s blog, I’ll go into more detail about our goals and activities related to Writers and Readers Workshops. In the meantime, here are the plans for September 28 to October 2 in the Sea Classroom.

Bonus: scroll to the end of more great photos of your students learning to be scientists!

Monday - September 28, 2015

Morning Meeting

Theme:

1. Read Family Pictures

2. Brainstorm scenes with your family

           See how the drawings fill the paper; We will do this drawing in steps

Communication Workshop:

10:30-10:35 Agenda and agreements

10:35-10:45 Writers ML1: have you been thinking about your writing goals? write your writing goal on this special paper and tape it into the front cover

10:45-11:00 Writers ML2: "use graphic organizer to write your special people." model step by step process- WW pg 15

11:00-11:15 Writing time: you do it!

11:15-11:25 Read aloud

11:25-11:35 Readers ML-show rotation of literature groups and how to record then read, how to summarize, and discuss.

11:35-12:00 Readers rotations-How will your group decide on how many pages to agree to? Agree to an in-between number of pages?  Vote? Majority? Rotate getting to choose how many pages?

Practice: What worked well?

Math Workshop:

12:40-12:45 Review agreements

12:45-12:55 ML: today we are going to do some sorting. What are some things you can sort?

We are going to write our names on these cards. 2 min

Come back. Discuss attributes of my name. Students write post its of 3 attributes of their names using the writing on the white board.

1:35-1:45 What went well for you today?
Class Meeting

Choice

   Blog: Maya

   Cards: Montesino

Tuesday - September 29, 2015

Morning Meeting

Theme:

Continue family portraits

Communication Workshop:

10:30-10:35 Agenda and agreements

10:35-10:45 Writers ML: today we get to start writing in our Writers Notebooks! Use your special person and notes about what happened to start your story!

What's a good way to start? I remember one day...

10:45-11:15  Writing time: start your first story! 

11:15-11:25 Read aloud-first person voice

11:25-11:35 Readers ML-show Goals for RW; - teach recording sheet and rotation schedule

11:35-12:00 Rotations-all read

Math Workshop:

    Read agenda and agreements

ML: today we will sort our names.  2nd grade math page 26

Citizen Science:

Think of the two ways you collected data. Which one seemed to work best, and why? and why? MLM create a sentence stem to scaffold this talk and writing to fit in science notebook; add under line of learning if possible

CQ: How did you include someone today?

Wednesday - September 30, 2015

Morning Meeting

Citizen Science:

9:00-9:30 Try a third strategy of recording biodiversity

9:30-10:00 PE
Library

Capoeira

Community Meeting

Thursday - October 1, 2015

Morning Meeting

Theme:

Read folk tale

work on family portrait and paragraph

character

setting

plot

Communication Workshop:

10:30-10:35 Agenda and agreements

10:35-10:45 Writers ML:  compliment your writing with an arrow sticker! What does the writing show that good writers do?

10:45-11:15 Writing time:

11:15-11:25 Read aloud/author share

11:25-11:35 Readers ML-teach an open sort

11:35-12:00 Rotations-all read again

Math Workshop:

agenda and agreements

CGI JRU with blocks on floor (tools not toys; use them as long as they are respected) 10 min. extension- write a problem on the back after solving all three number sets.

Ask someone to show their strategy on board (w/block and w/ equations)

ML: teach the Adding and Subtracting Game

Play with a partner

Share "What math skills did we practice today?"
Class Meeting  
Choice

Blog: Naima

Cards: Navarro

Friday - October 2, 2015

Morning Meeting

Theme:

9:00-9:40 Continue family portraits

9:40-10:00 PE

Communication Workshop:

10:30-10:35 Agenda and agreements

10:35-10:45 Writers ML: MLM WILL ADJUST TO FOLLOW THE STUDENTS’ LEAD RE: IS IT TIME TO INTRODUCE A NEW SKILL OR MORE PRACTICE

10:45-11:15 Writing time:

11:15-11:25 Read aloud/author share

11:25-11:35 Readers ML: punctuation as road signals -  reread a section of a special book

11:35-12:00 Rotations

Math Workshop:

Agenda and agreements

Dot talk with 10 frame multiple equations

ML: How to play Sweet 13

play with partners

What did you notice about the game you played?

Friday Courses: First Friday courses

Blog: Nicholas

Cards: Pasquini

Biodiversity counts using different methods: 

count within a hula hoop or 12 inch quadrat, 

walking around, or sitting in one spot. 

Which is the best for the job?