Wow! What a week in grade 2 Dynamite! We really had a learning explosion! This week we began researching the countries the boys selected as part of our cultural diversity inquiry. They really put their thinking caps on, and I honestly have been listening to the sound of their "wheels" turning since Wednesday. We started taking notes using Culturegrams, which are information files and images about a country. Our goal is to get 2 facts under each heading. Once we have all the research done, we will make mini-books about each country so we can all learn more about the cultural diversity in our very own class. The research process is a challenging one for grade 2 students, but the growth in their skills over this last week was nothing short of remarkable! Many of the boys are already becoming confident with finding facts and recording them. We also spent some time in the computer lab selecting some of the images we will include in our mini-books. The boys dragged images from google into a word document and shifted them around on a page so they will be able to cut them and add them into their mini-books.
In art, Mrs. Buchanan read the boys a wonderful non-fiction book about what it means to be an artist in different parts of the world. The boys had lots of connections and were so thrilled to see so many of their "origin countries" in the book. This led into their next art project, which is making papier mache calabashes. We were very sticky and gooey!
In math, we put our data collecting hats on and compiled all the countries that we all come from. We then sorted them by continent and made bar graphs to represent the results. We learned that collectively, we come from 5 different continents, and that we are a very diverse group.
Finally, we began rehearsing a short play about diversity that we will present next Friday morning (Oct. 2) for Friday Morning Live. It is "taking shape" quite nicely. You'll know what I mean by "taking shape" when you see us next Friday!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
We are officially through our first full week of school, and the boys (and I) had a great week!
This week we continued to build our understanding of the concept of diversity. They boys are becoming quite skilled at identifying different aspects of diversity and have a greater appreciation for their own individuality. One of our highlights this week was an activity that involved the boys drawing a picture of a garden. On one side of the page, they were instructed to draw a garden/nature scene with only 1 black crayon. Although some of the drawings were quite lovely, something just didn't seem right. "Why are we only using black?" Conor asked. "Just trust me, we're going somewhere with this...you'll see," I replied. Once we finished our "black" drawings, I then asked the boys to draw that same scene on the other half of the page, but this time with all the colours in their crayon box. Soon, the pictures turned into colourful, vibrant scenes. Marcus noted, "In my grey picture there is just a tree house. In my colour picture the tree is an apple tree with leaves and apples." "Hmmm, funny how the colour seems to help us imagine more," I responded. Once we finished the drawings and debriefed the boys completed their own reflections, including "diversity is like a box of crayons because..." Here are some of their responses:
The world would look black and it would be plain and uninteresting (Ben F.)
The world is filled with colours (Sahaj)
It's coloured. It's beautiful (Sebastian)
Everyone is different (Michael)
Each color is like what makes us who we are (Olivier)
Today we moved on to begin making the connection between diversity and communities. The boys generated a great list of places, services and people that are part of our community. Some of the boys even wanted to keep the list running right into centers time! Their little minds were just whirling with connections that they wanted to share. They even noted that a community has to respect diversity because lots of different people live in a community.
In art, we had fun making aliens out of our names with Mrs. Buchanan. We were very creative thinkers adding symmetrical shapes and colour layers to our aliens.
In math we learned the difference between even and odd numbers, worked on our skip counting, and started our math journals. Our math journals will be used to record responses to mental math as well as to track growth in understanding of math concepts.
We also spent some time talking about what it means to be at thinker. The boys surprised me with the creativity of their responses - they recognized that they are even thinkers when they are playing tag and have to come up with a strategy on the spot to avoid the tagger. I thought that was quite a connection, and shows that they see that thinking is not just a skill for school, but for life in general!
Learning is such an adventure, and as our week draws to a close I am pleased to say that we had a week full of great adventures in 2 Dynamite!
This week we continued to build our understanding of the concept of diversity. They boys are becoming quite skilled at identifying different aspects of diversity and have a greater appreciation for their own individuality. One of our highlights this week was an activity that involved the boys drawing a picture of a garden. On one side of the page, they were instructed to draw a garden/nature scene with only 1 black crayon. Although some of the drawings were quite lovely, something just didn't seem right. "Why are we only using black?" Conor asked. "Just trust me, we're going somewhere with this...you'll see," I replied. Once we finished our "black" drawings, I then asked the boys to draw that same scene on the other half of the page, but this time with all the colours in their crayon box. Soon, the pictures turned into colourful, vibrant scenes. Marcus noted, "In my grey picture there is just a tree house. In my colour picture the tree is an apple tree with leaves and apples." "Hmmm, funny how the colour seems to help us imagine more," I responded. Once we finished the drawings and debriefed the boys completed their own reflections, including "diversity is like a box of crayons because..." Here are some of their responses:
The world would look black and it would be plain and uninteresting (Ben F.)
The world is filled with colours (Sahaj)
It's coloured. It's beautiful (Sebastian)
Everyone is different (Michael)
Each color is like what makes us who we are (Olivier)
Today we moved on to begin making the connection between diversity and communities. The boys generated a great list of places, services and people that are part of our community. Some of the boys even wanted to keep the list running right into centers time! Their little minds were just whirling with connections that they wanted to share. They even noted that a community has to respect diversity because lots of different people live in a community.
In art, we had fun making aliens out of our names with Mrs. Buchanan. We were very creative thinkers adding symmetrical shapes and colour layers to our aliens.
In math we learned the difference between even and odd numbers, worked on our skip counting, and started our math journals. Our math journals will be used to record responses to mental math as well as to track growth in understanding of math concepts.
We also spent some time talking about what it means to be at thinker. The boys surprised me with the creativity of their responses - they recognized that they are even thinkers when they are playing tag and have to come up with a strategy on the spot to avoid the tagger. I thought that was quite a connection, and shows that they see that thinking is not just a skill for school, but for life in general!
Learning is such an adventure, and as our week draws to a close I am pleased to say that we had a week full of great adventures in 2 Dynamite!
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Dynamite First Week!
We're off to a great start in grade 2D! The boys are settling into their new routines and expectations. Even in these first few days of school, we've accomplished quite a lot! In math, we explored number combinations to 10. We brainstormed all the ways we could make or show 10. When we shared our ideas, we had a total of 33 different ways to show/make ten that included: adding, subtracting, multiplying, patterns, symbols, counting, tallies, groups...and more! We were amazed that there could be so many ways to show just one number! As we were brainstorming John said, "This is easy and it's hard." The rest of the boys agreed, and they were challenged to come up with "out of the box" ideas to show ten.
We began our first unit of inquiry today. We will spend the next 5 or so weeks exploring diversity within communities. Our central idea is, "Respecting the differences between people helps to build an open-minded community." Today, after reading a story (No Two Snow Flakes are Alike, by Sheree Fitch) and then comparing ourselves, we learned that diversity means differences, and that differences are good. When I asked the boys if they would like it if I snapped and they all became exactly the same, Sebastian remarked that he would run away. When asked why, he explained that it would not be fun to be the same, "being different makes us who we are." A pretty significant "A ha!" about diversity!
This morning we started learning our class chant. I think some of the boys might be singing it in their sleep tonight. It will take a while for them to remember it, but they seemed to have fun learning "our song".
We've also established our agreements for a dynamite year. The boys worked in collaborative groups to complete a large t-chart showing what the best class would be like, and what the worst class would be like. Each group presented their drawings and ideas to the rest of the class. We all agreed that we would not like to be in the worst class. So, we came up with the following agreements to help us try to be the best class:
1. Do the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
2. Listen to the speaker.
3. Raise your hand and wait.
4. Do your best work.
5. Solve problems in positive ways.
6. Learn.
7. Have fun and be balanced!
Thank you to all the moms, dads and grandparents for your efforts to make this such a positive start to grade 2! I hope to see many of you at our curriculum night, on Tuesday, September 15 at 7p.m.
We began our first unit of inquiry today. We will spend the next 5 or so weeks exploring diversity within communities. Our central idea is, "Respecting the differences between people helps to build an open-minded community." Today, after reading a story (No Two Snow Flakes are Alike, by Sheree Fitch) and then comparing ourselves, we learned that diversity means differences, and that differences are good. When I asked the boys if they would like it if I snapped and they all became exactly the same, Sebastian remarked that he would run away. When asked why, he explained that it would not be fun to be the same, "being different makes us who we are." A pretty significant "A ha!" about diversity!
This morning we started learning our class chant. I think some of the boys might be singing it in their sleep tonight. It will take a while for them to remember it, but they seemed to have fun learning "our song".
We've also established our agreements for a dynamite year. The boys worked in collaborative groups to complete a large t-chart showing what the best class would be like, and what the worst class would be like. Each group presented their drawings and ideas to the rest of the class. We all agreed that we would not like to be in the worst class. So, we came up with the following agreements to help us try to be the best class:
1. Do the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
2. Listen to the speaker.
3. Raise your hand and wait.
4. Do your best work.
5. Solve problems in positive ways.
6. Learn.
7. Have fun and be balanced!
Thank you to all the moms, dads and grandparents for your efforts to make this such a positive start to grade 2! I hope to see many of you at our curriculum night, on Tuesday, September 15 at 7p.m.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Less Than One Week!
Our classroom has undergone a major transformation this summer in order to become Grade 2 DYNAMITE...where learning EXPLODES! When you arrive next week you will see lots of explosions, especially on the walls! I am looking forward to seeing all of the familiar faces again, and meeting the new members of our class, Ben and John.
I hope you enjoyed a wonderful summer. Wasn't all the sunshine fabulous? I spent lots of time at the beach and the park with my kids, Elija, Rowan, and Jonas. My family went camping at Miracle Beach, near Comox, B.C. for five days. It was a beautiful spot! There were lots of tide pools to explore in the morning, and I saw colonies of living sand dollars beneath the water. I have never seen a live sand dollar before. They look much different - they are black and have hundreds of tiny "hairs" called villi on their underside. It was hard to walk in the water without stepping on them, so we had to be very careful.
I am very excited to be your teacher this year, and I can't wait for our learning adventure in Grade Two to begin. I am wondering what you did this summer, and look forward to hearing all about it next Wednesday!
We're in for a DYNAMITE year in Grade 2D! Are you ready for your learning to explode???
I hope you enjoyed a wonderful summer. Wasn't all the sunshine fabulous? I spent lots of time at the beach and the park with my kids, Elija, Rowan, and Jonas. My family went camping at Miracle Beach, near Comox, B.C. for five days. It was a beautiful spot! There were lots of tide pools to explore in the morning, and I saw colonies of living sand dollars beneath the water. I have never seen a live sand dollar before. They look much different - they are black and have hundreds of tiny "hairs" called villi on their underside. It was hard to walk in the water without stepping on them, so we had to be very careful.
I am very excited to be your teacher this year, and I can't wait for our learning adventure in Grade Two to begin. I am wondering what you did this summer, and look forward to hearing all about it next Wednesday!
We're in for a DYNAMITE year in Grade 2D! Are you ready for your learning to explode???
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
