Globe Trotters

For some of us, spring break is a time for travel. I know that some of you are headed to Florida, Colorado, Mexico, and other destinations. But did you know that your children have already embarked on some far-ranging travels of their own? With passports in order, they have taken off for Egypt, Chad, Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Japan, Brazil, and beyond. As part of our Social Studies lessons, the boys and girls are using an online program called Culture Grams to research a country of their choosing. Culture Grams offers a kids-eye view of 68 nations.

The boys and girls have been exploring topics such as landforms and climate, life as a kid, schools, food, holidays, and games and sports. Some have even discovered how to say common words and phrases in the language of their countries. They will use the notes they collect to write short reports. This new digital research comes on the heels of our virtual tour of the seven continents and text-based activities that had children comparing and contrasting their lives to those of children in other lands all around the globe. It's been a wonderful journey!

Our journey as science writers continues, too. Our latest experiments involve catapults built from Popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and plastic spoons. The boys and girls began by launching ping-pong balls and cotton balls to see which went farther. This led to what we call "further investigations." Some were curious to test how far objects like Legos, marbles. erasers, and magnets might go. Others set up trials to determine whether objects went farther if the catapult was placed on a desktop rather than on the floor. Some of our hypotheses have surprised us! The writing that accompanies these experiments is highly structured and organized. After four or five experiments each, the boys and girls are mastering the form. They'll try transferring these skills and their newfound knowledge about force and motion to a slightly different kind of information writing - science books - when we return from spring break.

Reading goal clubs have been meeting this week at Reading Workshop times. Children chose to focus on stamina, fluency, or comprehension and work with others to practice the strategies that have been our focus for the last few weeks. Our math lessons on time, data collection, and graphing wrapped up with a unit test on Thursday. Those are being sent home with your child today.

Finally, I want to thank you for attending parent-teacher conferences over the last two weeks. It was my pleasure to meet with you. I am grateful for the interest you showed in what I had to share about your child's progress and for your insights about how things are going. I know that our conversations help make me a better teacher.

Happy spring break! Safe travels!

Mark Your Calendars:

Mon., April 10 - We'll have our first of five shorts visits from a Junior Achievement representative.

Wed., April 12 - Early Release Day for students

Fri., April 14 - No school

Mon., April 17 - No school for students

Tues. April 25 - Book Fair and Cake Walk, 5:30-7:00 PM

Fri., April 28 - Field trip to Nicolet High School to see "Alice in Wonderland"

Missing Books:

I am missing two books that I checked out of the Whitefish Bay Library for our character study unit. They are: "Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout" (McDonald) and "Ivy and Bean Take the Case" (Barrows). If the titles sound familiar, please check for these at home and send them back to school. Thanks!

Perfect Timing

Second graders are at a just-right age to learn about telling time. Math lessons about half-hour, quarter-to, and quarter-after times were a snap this week, and even telling time by five-minute increments seemed easy.

I've taught time to younger students. Our district's previous math program covered time as part of the first-grade curriculum - and it was torturous. But Math Expressions rightly puts time in second grade. Seven- and eight-year-olds are ready for this kind of instruction and eager to apply what they've learned to everyday situations in the classroom, and at home, too, I expect. Be sure to give them lots of chances to keep practicing.

In Writing Workshop this week, the boys and girls discovered that learning more science can make their lab reports stronger. Through books and online resources, they got an introduction to physics. They learned about force, motion, friction, and gravity. Understanding a bit about these scientific terms and ideas helped illuminate their writing. They found connections between their new learning and the experiments they had conducted earlier. Then, they tried to share these connections by going back to what they'd written in their lab reports to add explanations. Instead of telling just the "what" and "how" of an experiment, they began to get at the "why."

In Reading Workshop, our pursuit of deeper comprehension had us looking closely at figurative language this week. The very language that can make books such as joy to read - similes, metaphors, puns, idioms and the like - can also be obstacles to understanding. We considered expressions such as "her heart sank," "they drifted off to sleep," "he pawed through the cupboard," and "the angry, bruised sky" - all from books that the children have been reading. With each one of these phrases and more, we worked hard to understand what the author was really trying to say.

The wind storm and power outage on Wednesday were the big news of our week, of course. I was proud of the way the boys and girls took it all in stride. The class was in specials when the lights flickered a time or two and then went out. The boys and girls stayed calm and went right on with their work. Mrs. Wachs gave them a BUG for the way they reacted so responsibly. Back in the classroom, with the sunlight pouring in our windows, they carried on with a regular math lesson until it was time to go home.

Missing out on conferences was the big downside to Wednesday's events. Many of you will need to choose new conference times, and that's not easy with busy family schedules. Please know that I'll do my best to find to find times that work for you, I do have some availability on all of the official days, but I am willing to meet outside these days, as well.

Mark Your Calendars:

Mon., Mar. 13 - Jump rope for Heart event during specials

Tues., Mar. 14 - Assembly - Irish dancers (10:30-11:00 AM)

Wed., Mar. 15 - Parent-teacher conferences (4:00-6:30 PM)

Thurs., Mar. 16 - Parent-teacher conferences (4:00-8:00 PM)

Fri., Mar. 17 - No new blog post today since I will busy with conferences on Thursday night.

Wed., Mar. 22 - Early Release Day for students; parent-teacher conferences (3:00-7:00 PM)

Fri., Mar. 24 - Last day before Spring Break

Writing Like Scientists

Is there another Einstein in our future? This group of second graders seems like a promising bunch. Our new Writing Workshop unit - Lab Reports and Science Books - has had the boys and girls acting, thinking, and writing like scientists this week.

Writing times have been a whirlwind of activity. We began the unit with the question: Will a toy car go farther off a ramp on carpet or bare floor? We formed a hypothesis. Then, the class designed procedures, conducted multiple trials, and recorded results. Finally, we put all this in writing.

The very next day, we were back at it, adding to our procedures sections to make them so precise that our work could be understood and replicated by someone else... someone like a first-grade buddy. We invited Mrs. Hogue's class to visit and read our procedures. Their misunderstandings showed us flaws in our work that we could fix. The first-graders got to try the experiment for themselves. The data they generated gave us more to add to our results pages.

As we moved on, the boys and girls had the chance to revise the toy car experiment and conduct others, changing just one variable. Science lab/writing partners asked questions like: Would a marble go farther off the ramp than a car? How about a ping-pong ball? What if we changed the angle of the ramp? Would a smaller car go farther than the first one we tried? Our experiments with force and motion were all done in the service of writing. The goals is to write detailed and organized informational reports.

If I began this unit with some trepidation because of the potential for chaos in the classroom, it quickly faded. Seeing the children's level of engagement and their willingness to write for an authentic purpose has made a fan of me. A little chaos has been well worth it!

In Reading Workshop, we've gone back to the basics of reading - accuracy, fluency, comprehension, and stamina. And we're asking: What new strategies can we bring to bear in each of these areas as we tackle longer and more challenging books?

In math, the boys and girls took their Unit 4 test on Wednesday. Let me assure you that this was a challenging unit for all of second grade. Most of the children in our class made huge gains from the start of the unit to the end, and though I did not see a lot of 100%s on the test, I am proud of them. We will continue to practice the subtraction and word problem skills covered in this unit. I know that for many these are still somewhat tentative. Our new unit is a short one. The children will learn to tell time in five-minute increments and they will interpret and create various graphs.

It was off to Africa in Social Studies this week. The boys and girls took virtual tours of the Sahara Desert, the pyramids, Mt. Kilimanjaro and Victoria Falls.

I have been working hard on report cards, which will be sent home on Monday, and to get ready for parent-teacher conferences, which begin on Wednesday. The report cards will be our reference points for conferences. I look forward to meeting with all of you to review your child's progress so far and to look at goals for the third trimester. Thank you so much for meeting with me.

Mark Your Calendars:

Mon., Mar. 6 - Report cards are sent home.

Wed., Mar. 8 - First day for parent-teacher conferences (3:00-6:30 PM)

Tues., Mar. 14 - Assembly - Irish dancers (10:30-11:00 AM)

Thurs., Mar. 16 - Parent-teacher conferences (4:30-8:00 PM)

Wed., Mar. 22 - Early Release Day for students; parent-teacher conferences (3:00-6:30 PM)

Fri., Mar. 24 - Last day before Spring Break