4/24/2018 0 Comments Mayer Memo 4-27-18Writing Workshop
The students chose a piece of realistic fiction from their collection of work they wanted to published. They fixed up and fancied up this piece and shared it with their classmates and our first grade LEAP buddies. The children took the end-of-unit assessment and have really become wonderful story tellers! This week, the students began writing poetry. They learned that to say things in new ways, they need to look at things through a poet's eyes. We looked at ordinary objects such as a pinecone, candle, paint brush, shell, and seeds, and the children imagined what else these items might be. We also talked about listening for line breaks to help their writing look like poetry with stanza and verse. We even wrote our first poem as a class: Pinecone Hotel A hotel with many floors. For ants and insects and more. Gathering, storing all their food. Tucked inside for winter. Reading Last week and this week, we continued reading poetry and looking for the seven tips: It sometimes rhymes; has rhythm (keeps a beat); it says things in new ways (metaphor, simile, alliteration, adjectives, adverbs); it repeats important ideas; has shape; expresses feelings; and it ends on its best line. The students are becoming quite the experts on poetry, and have begun selecting poems they will include in an anthology of poetry they are creating. Social Studies New Theme: Citizenship We began a new social studies theme this week about how our government is structured. We watched some videos to support our learning. We discussed how voting allows citizens to choose their leaders, and the students had a mock election to choose a mascot for our class. There were several good candidates, and the Black Panther won! Math We finished Unit 6 -- linear measurement -- last week. The students took the assessment for the end of the second investigation and the results were sent home last week. Please give your child things to measure using standard inch/foot/yard and centimeter/meter units. They could all use more practice in this area. We started Unit 7 which is about partners, teams, and other groups. This unit's first investigation provided students with the opportunity to investigate even and odd numbers and create a working definition for both concepts. They took the assessment for this investigation, and you should have seen those results on Thursday. In the second of this unit, students work with two contexts—buildings with the same number of rooms on each floor and pattern blocks covered by copies of a single shape—to explore sums of equal groups. They create tables that display the multiplicative relationships and consider why some tables look the same even though they represent different contexts. About Math Fact Fluency By the end of second grade, students should fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies, and know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers. This is an expectation according to Common Core State Standard 2.OA.B.2. Throughout the year, your children have brought home math pages that show six addition or subtraction facts they are working on. Although the example shows the answer to the equation, these pages show the equation WITHOUT an answer so your child can use the page to practice. Please note the clue line on which students are to write an equation they know which helps them solve the equation. You can support your child at home by cutting out the facts "cards" and quizzing your child with them regularly. I am attaching a blank "Practicing the Facts" page here if you'd like to have your child make more of these cards for practice at home. If you have questions, please let me know. Word Work Last week, the students learned a rule for words ending with -ch. They discovered that short vowel words that end in -ch are spelled -tch such as match, stitch, fetch. Long vowel and other vowel words are spelled -ch with this pattern, such as beach, couch. If there is an l, r, or n before the ch, those letters are heard and used in the spelling of the word, such as gulch, porch, bench. This week, we discussed a rule for words that end with y. The children discovered that when a word has one syllable, the y says the long i sound as in cry, shy, why. If there word is greater than one syllable, the y says the long e sound such as family, baby, treaty. Erin's Law Presentations Coming Erin’s Law, House Bill 6193 was signed by Governor Pat Quinn on January 24, 2013. This law requires schools to implement an age-appropriate sexual assault and abuse awareness and prevention curriculum for grades pre-K through 12. District 90 researched best practices and programs for delivering this instruction. We reviewed several recommended programs and visited several area school districts to observe programs in action. We are very pleased to share that Victor Pacini will be visiting Lincoln School on May 2 to deliver his program entitled, Be Seen and Heard©, a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program. Below is a link to information regarding his presentation. Please contact Mr. Godfrey if you have other specific questions or if you prefer your child not participate. https://www.victorpacini.com/peace-of-mind/
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
We are the Mayer Black Panthers
Mystery State!Mystery state for June 1 Did You Know...New evidence links handwriting and educational success.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. "When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain. And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.” Parent's attitudes about mathematics affect their kids!
"A 2015 study showed math-anxious parents who frequently helped their elementary schoolers with homework saw their kids learn significantly less math by the end of the year than kids whose parents didn't express an aversion to math." (Heidi Stevens, Balancing Act and Chicago Tribune) According to Jennifer McCray, Principal investigator at the Erikson Institute's Early Math Collaborative, "Statements from parents are extremely powerful in terms of helping a child decide, 'Who am I going to be relative to math" How should I feel about math?'" If you're a math-averse parent, the article linked above has great tips for addressing this! Archives
June 2018
|