Music of Dolphins

Today we started a new novel, Music of Dolphins. This piece of fiction tells the story of a young feral girl, Mila, found swimming with her dolphin family in the ocean near Cuba. Once "rescued," she is brought back to the states and placed in a university hospital ward where researchers use her to study the part that language acquisition plays in socialization. While Mila begins very eager to please she slowly becomes more and more depressed as she longs to return to the sea to her family.

We will use this book for a character study. We will begin by working to figure out who is telling this story, who the characters are, and what we learn about each of them. From there we will pay close attention to how the author reveals these characters (description, actions, dialogue) and the changes that occur within each of them over the course of the story.

As with all class novels, we share responsibility for the reading. I will read many of the chapters aloud as the kids follow along in their own books. Other chapters will be read independently in the classroom. All chapters will be discussed in partnerships, small groups, and as a whole group. We will use what we learn about characters in this book to support book club discussions in the coming weeks. These book clubs will present an opportunity for each of the kids to select a book that really appeals to them and read and discuss it with friends.

Homework: January 31 - February 4

1. Read each night.

2. Interview someone to find out what they know about the American Revolution so that we can share this information out. The kids will begin with the question: What can you tell me about the American Revolution? From there they'll ask a few follow-up questions that occur to them as they listen. They are to take notes that, while not complete sentences, provide enough that they are able to recount the highlights of what they learned. (Due this Thursday)

3. Multiplication packet. (Due next Monday)

The Best Laid Plans: Multiplying 2-Digit Numbers by 1-Digit Numbers

We started this week by revisiting our multiplication time tables. The kids worked in partnerships to take a closer look at one particular table and find patterns and strategies that might benefit the rest of the class when solving these problems. For instance...

The tens always have an answer that ends with 0.
The fives always have a answer that ends with either 5 or 0.
The sevens are like touchdowns in football - 7, 14, 21, 28....
To multiply by 8 you can multiply by 4 and then double it.

There were many, many patterns and strategies to be found. Following this study I attempted to teach the kids a strategy for multiplying a two-digit number by a one-digit number. As always I had carefully thought about what I would say and how I would lead them into "discovering" how this type of problem works. The plan was to begin by teaching them to solve a problem such as 48 x 5 by multiplying 8x5, then 40x5, and then adding these two together. However, exactly three minutes in everything fell apart. I looked around and noticed wrinkled foreheads and blank faces. It was clear that it was not going well.

Working the crowd I quickly found out that I hadn't given them all they needed to be successful. They were really good when multiplying by 10 but didn't know how to multiply by 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, or 90. Oops! We quickly backed up and addressed this. So Wednesday and Thursday were spent learning how all we know about multiplying by ten works with other multiples of ten as well. After some time working these problems the vast majority of the kids were far more comfortable and ready to tackle those problems from the beginning of the week.

We're now working on these problems and will continue to do so into next week. Once we feel comfortable enough to move on Mrs. Mayer will be launching us into an exploration of Geometry. There will be lots of fun "hands-on" activities designed to help the kids construct new knowledge and understanding of lines, shapes, and angles. We can't wait!

Homework: January 24 - 28

1. Read each night.

There is no reading log again this week. In fact, we won't have any more logs this year. We will, however, have a few reading reflection sheets from time to time.

Motion Experiment Presentations

Thanks to everyone for helping the kids with their experiments at home. The presentations were amazing. Mrs. Mayer and I had a great time listening to the kids explain how they worked to control as many variables as they could, record their results, and explain their findings. We heard all sorts of great scientific vocabulary coming back from home- hypothesis, force, thrust, variable, gravity, and on and on. Some were new to us. That's one of the great parts of teaching - learning!

It occurred to me as I listened to their results that with all the work we've been doing around graphs that we should we should have created graphs to share the results of our experiments - whether in terms of linear measurements or time measurements. Ah, something to consider next time.

Our study of motion will continue into next week and then we will transition into an exploration of sound.

Hi! I'm Mrs. Mayer

Greetings:

My name is Mrs. Mayer and I am the M. A. T. this semester. I had a great experience in Mrs. Pender's second grade classroom last semester and I feel right at home at CFI. I got a chance to meet most of the students in Mr. Hass' class before the break and was honored to be at their song recording session. This class has a lot of talent and a lot of great things happening. This week I am getting to know each student as a reader, writer, mathematician, and scientist. I have really enjoyed hearing about their motion experiments and I look forward to learning and growing with them for the rest of the school year.

I am a Columbia native who graduated from USC with a B.A. in Media Arts (photography) in 2002. I have had a passion for teaching since being a Teacher Cadet in high school and before. However, I knew I wanted to travel and have some life experience before entering a career. I have visited some cool places, seen some neat stuff, found a great husband, and picked up four dogs and a cat on the way. I am now ready to embark on the greatest professional path I believe there is and become a teacher. Mr. Hass and his students have already made me feel welcome, and I know that I will learn great things and that they will keep my on my toes! I am ready for the challenge and I can't wait to see how much they will teach me.

I look forward to meeting everyone in our extended classroom community and hope to work with the students every day so that we can generate innovative ideas together!

Homework: January 18 - 21

1. Read each night.

2. A small graph packet will be coming home on Wednesday. It is due back on Monday, 1/24.