We launched our first project on Tuesday with a special visit from a guest. The guest and Ms. K shared a little bit about their heritage and family background. Second Grade students seemed to enjoy hearing the stories that were told with a slide show and a suitcase of artifacts. After the presentations, all kinds of conversations were sparked among students about their own family stories and the countries their families were from. Students will be digging into their own roots to discover more about where their families came from with an assignment in the next couple of weeks (Details to follow).
On Friday’s students have the opportunity to participate in Community Open Work time for the last hour of the day. COW time aims to allow students to try new opportunities/activities and teach them new skill sets that are applicable to a subject that interests them. Every 6 weeks 5 new activities are introduced and students make independent choices about which activity they want to do. This last week some students chose to participate in an activity that encourages creative thinking, teamwork, problem-solving and other skills necessary to be successful in school, work and life. Teams of 2-4 students worked together to solve a challenge of using a bag of various items to build a model of a museum. Students are learning how to work towards a group goal in a limited amount of time. Strong groups have members that show sensitivity to the ideas of others and group members that stay on task. In math, we have started working on our math facts with a program called Factswise. FactsWise breaks the addition/subtraction facts up into nine goals, progressing from more easily-learned facts to the ones that provide more challenge. It is important that students are fluent with their math facts. By fluency, we mean being able to automatically recall the facts, quickly and easily. Knowing their facts by memory helps them focus on more complicated math processes later rather than basic calculation. We use an abacus, unifix cubes, number lines, and ten frames to help the students learn their facts. These manipulatives help students build a mental image that will help them become faster at solving facts (and eventually memorizing them). We are seeing an improvement in the skill and confidence levels of our second grader students already! Hoot-Hoot Hooray for second graders! |
"Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand." Archives
June 2016
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