Monday, February 27, 2012

Homework: February 27 - March 2

1. Read for at least 20 minutes each night.
2. Create a poster sharing what you found about our trash production at lunch and suggesting something we could do to reduce our trash. Be sure to support this with the data you calculated.

Example:

Do you love the smell of the lunchroom trashcans?
If not, consider working toward producing less trash. We found that our class
throws away 20 drink containers each day. That adds up to 3,600 over a whole
school year. Wow, that's a lot.
But if we bring a water bottle just one day each week, instead of drinking from
the milk cartons, we can save 720 pieces of trash from going into the cans.
It smells better in here already!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Call for Classroom Visitors

If anyone would like to come in and talk a bit about Ash Wednesday, Lent, World Day of Prayer, Mardi Gras, or any other upcoming holidays and events just let me know. As always, we're hoping for new opportunities to better understand ourselves and others.

Thanks,
Chris

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Student Led Conference

Here is the schedule for our Student-Led Conferences. If you cannot make it in during your scheduled time please let me know as soon as possible and we will find a time that fits both our schedules.

Monday, March 5th
2:15 Connor
4:15pm Chase

Tuesday, March 6th
2:45 Chandler

Wednesday, March 7th

8:00 Micah
11:30 Grace


Monday, March 12th
7:30am Jackson
8:00 Ashley
8:30 Anna
3:00 Trent

Tuesday, March 13th
7:30am David
8:00 Maisy (possibly switching?)
3:00 Tyler

Wednesday, March 14th
7:30am Enock
8:00 Abrianna
8:30 Erica
2:15 Connor
3:00 Laila

Thursday, March 15th
7:30am Ryan
8:00 Jalen
3:00 Kohl
3:30 Ellis
4:00 Jade
4:30 Rachael

Friday, February 10, 2012

Expert Project Rubric

Culture study research is coming home today. The kids need to bring their final projects back in two weeks when we return from mid-winter break.


Monday, 2/27 - Chase, Chandler, Jalen, Abrianna, Ellis

Tuesday, 2/28 - Erica, David, Anna, Kohl, Enock,

Wednesday, 2/29 - Maisy Grace, Laila, Micah, Ashley

Thursday, 3/1 - Ryan, Jackson, Connor, Jade

Friday, 3/2 - Rachael, Trent, Tyler


Culture Study Expert Project Rubric

(Created by our Second Grade Class)

Our projects should have…

· Our writing should have capital letters and punctuation.

· We should have interesting and important facts that we UNDERSTAND.

· We should have as many pictures as possible to help everyone SEE what we’re talking about.

· Pictures should have captions so we know what we’re looking at.

· The project should have a title.

· Any handwriting should be so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so NEAT.

· Our boards can have text (words) to share information OR we can have lots of photos and then use notecards in our hands to remind us what we’ll say.

· It would be fun if we had something for our audience to do (play a game, do a quiz, use a special tool, etc)

· It should make sense.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Newsletter (via Photograph): February 10

Special Guests...



Mr. Moody (from Round Top Elementary) - South Africa.






Jackson's godmother - Dwarfism.





Ryan's grandmother - France.





Mr. H's friend Priscilla - Ecuador





Dr. Mills - Somali refugees





Ms. Breland - African-Americans


Tallying our trash totals from lunch...






Enjoying a good read aloud from Mrs. Simpson...




Learning about Chinese culture from our classmates...






Hard at work putting those culture presentations together...




Conducting research...



Sharing a song...

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Homework: February 6 - 10

Homework this week is to bring home research materials each night and collect information. Use the following as a guide...

Monday:
Have a total of at least 5 research notes to bring back in to class tomorrow.

Tuesday: Have at least 12 research notes completed before tomorrow.

Wednesday: Have at least 20 research notes completed before tomorrow.

Thursday: Have at least four research notes for EACH of your subtopics.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Friendship Day

As many of you may know, next Tuesday is Valentine's Day. Although Hallmark probably does not approve, at CFI we use this opportunity to instead celebrate Friendship Day. As opposed to buying or making Valentine cards for each and every kid in the class (which tends to be an impersonal collection of paper, candy, and trash) I like to have each of the kids create a single appreciation letter for one of their classmates - a letter that is both personal and lengthy. These letters are a great chance to shine some light on a classmate's talents, interests, positive behaviors, and other qualities. These letters can be handwritten or typed and should be aesthetically pleasing with maybe one or two pieces of candy attached. Feel free to help your child think about how this letter might look and sound.

On Tuesday each of the kids will have an opportunity to come to the front of the room, read their letter, and present it to the person they have prepared it for. They will find out who they are writing their letter for on Friday. This will give the kids the weekend to create these letters. They are all more than welcome to take home any materials they may need . I only ask that they bring them back in on Monday so I can make certain we are all set for Tuesday.

To help us celebrate these sincere appreciations we will enjoy some muffins and juice while listening in to the presentations. For this reason, we do not need any cupcakes or candy sent into the classroom.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

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