Newsletter: February 3, 2012

Dear Families,

Since moving to Fairfield County we are now responsible for transporting our trash to the collection center located about seven miles from our house. I make this run every other weekend. Loading up the back of the van with two weeks' worth of trash cans and recyclables over the past half-year has really forced me to think about the amount of trash our eight person household creates. There are some trips where I have only one or two trash bags yet others where I have four or five. Which of our habits change to cause us to double the amount of junk we throw out?

We spent a couple of days this week conducting a bit of research to begin similar queries in the classroom. On Monday we collected all of our lunch trash, sorted it, and counted it. The kids worked in small groups to move from trash pile to trash pile tallying the number of Styrofoam trays, plastic products, drink containers, and pounds of food waste. All other pieces of trash were put into the "Other" pile. After each group collected their data we compared our findings. While some categories proved to be easy to count (7 Styrofoam trays) others did not. Our five groups, when counting the number of plastic items, came up with answers of 21, 29, 29, 31, and 33. I drew a quick graph showing these numbers and asked "Which should we use?"

Everyone agreed that 21 should be tossed out. This, I explained, was an outlier. The group responsible for this figure explained that they ran out of time. Others voted for 29 because it was the mode (the most). Some of the kids said 31 because it fell in the middle of the three closest answers. One person said we should use 33 because they were the first group to count the plastic pieces of trash and some of the trash may have blown away while they were cleaning up meaning that all the other groups didn't have the full collection available to them. What a great discussion! A class vote helped us settle on the mode - 29.

Next we returned to the pounds of food thrown away in one day (2 pounds) to figure out how much food we would throw away in an entire school week. Some added five-2s. Others multiplied 2x5. We all came to an answer of 10 pounds. Considering there are 36 weeks of school in a school year I posed the problem 10 x 36. Adding a 0 to the 36 allowed us to see that we would throw away 360 pounds of food by the end of the school year. 360 pounds. In our one class alone. We'll continue looking at our data, calculating what this would mean for a full year, and thinking about actions we could take to reduce these numbers. I hope to continue similar mathematical explorations into trash and share our findings this spring at our final Gathering.

And now a note from Mrs. Simpson...

I don’t know if your child has told you, but we have been doing book clubs in the classroom. It is a fantastic way to not only read their chosen book but to discuss it with their literacy partner. You would be impressed with their conversations! They are engaged and contributing to one another's ideas. Each pair negotiated the number of pages they thought they would be able to accomplish each day in the classroom, so it varies from book club to book club. As negotiations were made, they agreed to hold up their end of the bargain by catching up at home if there were any unread portions.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin is a fantasy, chapter book we are reading together in class. I don’t think it would be redundant if you were to get a copy from the library to read along with your child at home. It’s that good! Here is one quote, “As they walked, the patterned stone pathways gently massaged her feet and the sun seemed to disappear like a closing flower.” We have 140 pages remaining and I think the kids would be perfectly content to finish the book all in one day!

It’ s neat to see these second graders involved in what I am learning about at USC, the “fish bowl strategy.” This is when a few students will be in the center of the class circle modeling a book club discussion. We observe one another and get to see how other literacy partners are engaging in their dialogue. Having conversations at home, whether written or oral will help support this learning process of taking what they are reading to a higher cognitive level.

I love working with your children! We all have so much of which to be thankful.

Have a great weekend,

Chris and Ashley