Brainstorming and Hard Work...

Hello Families!

This week the students spent some quality time on a few key pieces.  The group is finishing up their surveys or redoing them if they realized they had more than 25 tallies in any given area (that's how many students we had!), beginning to graph their findings and are also writing more details on their character descriptions.  Ask your child about the character they have created!  I will add images of their work next week.

Here are some of the new math challenges.  If your child would like some homework, these can be great for practice.  After figuring out the process, and finding the answer, the friends may want to take time to memorize their findings.  With math facts and spelling words, sometimes a few moments a day can make a big difference!  (TIP: when reading multiplication, the kids have been saying "groups", for instance, what is 11 groups of two?)  Make sure to have your child bring in how they explained or depicted how they got their answer to share with the group!

The students have also been working together to solve big challenges.  They are focusing on gaining problem solving skills that allow them to attack any problem.  It is neat, too, to see them figure out how to effectively work as a group to get large quantities calculated and represented in a fast manner.  

The students are trying out different strategies to show how they got their math answers.  Here two students are figuring out a math challenge that Joey brought in for the class.  Essentially his word problem explained that he is 60 pounds and his brother is exactly half of his weight, so how much does his brother weigh?  

The students figured it out quickly, but then how to explain it to others?  Above you can see their first attempt.  They used round balls to represent a group of ten and want to show that thirty is half of sixty.   The two friends plan to edit their work next week because they realized that they are showing the element of half twice with the way they wrote it.  Interesting!  I enjoy seeing the wheels turning in their brains and watching how they decide to explain to the world what they know and their thought processes.  How would you show your answer for this problem?

Friday we spent some time writing our ideas on seven brainstorm lists.  The topics were: animals that do and do not have bones, nicknames, middle names, field trip ideas, ideas for our class name, party theme ideas and suggestions for our baby fish's name.  The students spent the time reading to make sure they new which list they were writing on, writing clearly and in some cases, writing a reason for their suggestion.  This was a creative and social moment where many ideas were flowing.  I will post the lists soon!  (And thank you to Amy, our assistant teacher who comes in twice daily to help us.  She is great!)

Next week we will be continuing our exploration of signs.  Homework:  Please snap any images of signs your child notices in their neighborhood or daily life and email it to me.  We will use these to research elements of what makes an effective sign.  Thank you so much for your help with this!  I'm excited to see what will be coming in.  A second item of homework is to help your child know the spelling of their middle name.  Some friends felt they weren't sure of this and you are the best people to be asking!

Also, keep the poems coming in!  We could use some new student penned songs or poems for this month!

Have a great day, Jennifer