Getting Over the Hurdles

This is a challenging time to be a second grader. A lot is expected of these boys and girls right now. They are  having to put into practice learning that's been building all year. They are writing research reports that are five chapters long! During reading times, they are poring over non-fiction books with complex vocabulary, structure, and themes in search of facts and ideas to support their writing. In math, they are trying to master the many steps involved in successfully adding and subtracting three-digit numbers. Even some of their specials are demanding. In music, they are learning to sing in rounds and in PE they are gearing up to run the mile. Phew!

Some days, it can feel really good to stretch in these ways. I can see the pride in the boys' and girls' eyes; hear it in their voices as they share their plans and their progress with each other. But some days - truth be told - it can be exhausting. As their teacher, I walk a fine line between patience and pushing them to persevere. In the end, I know that they will get over these hurdles - and they'll be better for it. Stronger, smarter, and more ready to take on third grade.

I have never been one to coast to the end of a school year. I like to keep the class busy and engaged. But once over our current hurdles, the last few weeks of second grade will have a less pressured feel, I think. A bit like a light at the end of a tunnel. Looking ahead in reading and writing, we'll turn our attention to the joys of poetry. In math, the boys and girls will be learning mostly about symmetry, fractions, and measurement. These math topics generally lend themselves to a more fun, hands-on approach. As our math load gets a little lighter, we'll have more time for science. We'll finish our work with solids and liquids and then investigate plants and insects. We'll have two great field trips - a walking tour of downtown Milwaukee on May 25 to compliment our social studies lessons and a visit to the Boerner Botanical Garden on June 6 that connects to our science work. I love the idea of wrapping up our time together as a class in these happy ways.

Thank you so much to the many families who helped to put books from this week's Stormonth Book Fair into our classroom library. The Book Fair profits and Coin Wars donations were divided equally among the staff. Add to that gift certificates that some families purchased and I received about $120 to spend on books like the popular Dogman and Owl Diaries series, as well as some interesting non-fiction titles. The class is thrilled!

Mark Your Calendars:

Thurs. May 11 - Visit with author Lester Laminack sponsored by the PTO

Fri., May 12 - PTO-sponsored Special Interest Day (PM)

Thurs., May 18 - Safety Day with the Fox Point Police Department (AM)

Fri. May 19 - Class mini-concert during Music (12:20-12;50 PM)

Wed., May 24 - Early release day for students

Thurs., May 25 - Field trip. Walking tour of downtown Milwaukee. A letter and permission slip will be sent home shortly.

Mon., May 29 - Memorial Day. No school.

Rethinking the 80/20 Split

If you're an average reader, about 80% of the reading you do each day is nonfiction. I found this statistic surprising at first. But when we consider nonfiction broadly and include catalogs, letters, emails, maps, recipes, directions, and online reviews and advertisements, along with more conventional nonfiction texts, it makes sense. Given that nonfiction reading occupies such a large part of our lives, it also makes sense for students to spend more time learning to  read nonfiction. Elementary school reading programs traditionally featured about 80% fiction to 20% nonfiction. That ratio is changing quickly and our classroom provides an example of how.

Nonfiction occupies about one-third of our classroom library - and our collection is growing. The boys and girls read a weekly news magazine. They are regularly exposed to content-area reading in social studies and science. They know how to use computers to tap into information on the Internet. And right now, we're midway through our second nonfiction reading unit. The children are immersed in reading about the biomes of the world. Biomes, especially their animals and plants, are high-interest topics. But our lessons aren't specific to these. Our focus is on gaining an understanding of nonfiction structures and features and a facility with the strategies that successful nonfiction readers use - knowledge and skills that can be transferred to all informational texts.

This week's lessons included a discussion of how readers have two voices: a speaking voice and a thinking voice. The speaking voice is the one that reads the words on a page. The thinking voice is the one inside your head that you use to process, ponder, and question. The message here is that nonfiction readers have big thinking jobs to do; that they are active, not passive. We also studied various text features such as headings, captions, and diagrams to see how readers use them in conjunction with text to make meaning.

Part of what makes this nonfiction reading unit so powerful is its alignment with nonfiction writing. As they read, the boys and girls are learning about note-taking, summarizing, and paraphrasing. They are taking the new information they read, making it their own, and then finding ways to teach others about it through their writing. This is a big step from teaching others about known topics like hockey, gymnastics, or how to ride a two-wheel bike. Each student is using a tabbed research notebook to collect facts and organize them by topics. These topic-based notes then get turned into the chapters of books.

In math this week, the children practiced the challenging work of triple-digit subtraction with ungrouping. We've used to the idea of looking at equations with a magnifying glass to see the tens in the hundreds and the ones in the tens. The boys and girls understand that ungrouping is another way of looking at a number. Its value doesn't change.

In science, our unit on the states of matter continues. We wrapped up a look at solids by building bridges and towers from various man-made solids. We looked at natural solids, too. Now, we're investigating different kinds of liquids and identifying properties such as transparency and viscosity. We're exploring the ways that liquids flow and pour and how they take the shapes of their containers.

Mark Your Calendars:

Tues. April 25 - Book Fair and Cake Walk

Fri., April 28 - Field trip to Nicolet High School to see "Alice in Wonderland." Thanks for returning permission slips and fees.

Fri., May 12 - PTO-sponsored Special Interest Day (PM)

Thurs., May 18 - Safety Day with the Fox Point Police Department (AM)

Thurs., May 25 - Field trip. Walking tour of downtown Milwaukee. A letter and permission slip will be sent home shortly.

Taking on the World

We are the Deep Divers, the Forest Friends, the Desert Experts, the Masters of the Rainforest! We are biome teams! Each team is researching one of the largest regions of world. These regions, or biomes, are complex communities of plants and animals that share certain similarities in climate and terrain. It's exciting work - maybe our greatest adventure yet in second grade. This new unit gives the boys and the girls the chance to show all that they've learned about information reading and writing so far. And it raises the bar.

We began by noticing the ways that writers organize informational text. Whether writing a book or a script for a video, nonfiction writers group their related ideas by broad categories, or topics, and this help readers to see connections and to learn. Determining which of the many ideas from the books in our biome bins are most important is another skill we've worked on this week. The boys and girls learned that asking "what" helps to establish the topic of a page or a section (as in "What's this all about?") and that asking "so what" helps to identify the main idea (as in "So what is the writer really trying to tell me about my topic?")

Laura Witkov, Stormonth's literacy coach, and I are co-planning and co-teaching this nonfiction unit. It is great fun for me to work with Laura in the classroom. She brings an expert's knowledge of elementary reading and writing and a willingness to try new things. Eventually, our nonfiction work will overtake Writing Workshop, as well as Reading Workshop. Each child will be producing a nonfiction book on his or her topic. And to bring out their more artistic talents, teams will create a mini-version of their biomes in the classroom. That's right! A rainforest, grassland, ocean, forest, fresh-water habitat, desert, and tundra right in Room 222!

In math, we're under way with a new unit that is mostly about three-digit addition and subtraction. Lessons this week set the foundation by reviewing important place-value concepts. We'll begin adding hundreds, tens, and ones next week. Subtracting from hundreds will begin the week after that.

We've started a new science unit, too. Called "Solids and Liquids," it takes another look at ideas about states of matter, which students first investigated last year. This week, after some hands-on exploration, they considered the various materials from which solids can made, identified the properties of these materials, and decided which might be best-suited for specific purposes, such as building bridges or towers. Then they got a chance to test their theories.

On Tuesday, Network Photography will be at Stormonth to take a photograph of the entire student body and staff. We'll be positioned on the playground in the shape of peace sign. To make this work, second graders are asked to wear white. The picture will be featured in the 2016-'17 yearbook. Thanks for your help with this. Peace to you!

Mark Your Calendars:

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

Tues., April 11 - All-school photo shoot, 2:45 PM. Please dress your child in a white shirt.

Wed., April 12 - Early Release Day for students

Fri., April 14 - No school

Mon., April 17 - No school for students. Professional development day for teachers.

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." Look for the permission slip that was sent home today.