Lots to Talk About

We have been very busy.  Some of these pictures I didn't want to post before Back to School night.  I wanted the kids to show off all the things we have been doing in class.  For those of you who couldn't make it, or some of you may not have seen all that we have been working on....this post is for you!

In math, we have been making sense of numbers.  To be good at math, kids need to be comfortable with numbers....not just adding and subtracting them, but working with them.  Thinking about numbers in lots of different ways.  For example....10 can be 10....it can also be 5 + 5, 4 + 6 or even 12 - 2.  10 is also halfway between 0 and 20.  Eating 10 jelly bean would not be a lot, but 10 pizzas may be too much!   I ask that students be FLEXIBLE when working with numbers.  That way, they can make numbers work for them.  This will allow them to do harder math, much easier when we get to that point.

One way, we talk about numbers is by building BASE 10 models of numbers.  We use strips of tens, and units of ones to build numbers.  Here is the number 18.  You can see the digit 1 stands for 1 ten.  The digit 8 stands for 8 ones.

We will continue to build numbers into the 100's!   Understanding how our numbers are built is so important when we start adding/subtracting larger numbers.

This past week, we finished talking about the brain.  We learned a lot about how our brains work and how we control our brain.  We finished out brain books, and we went into Ms. Grant's first grade class and shared our work with her students.

In writing, we have also started our first formal project.  We are starting on a scar story about a time where we got hurt.  First we told our story to a partner, then we sketched the story on cards.  We re-told it a few more times, to see if we needed to add cards or rearrange them.  Now, that our cards are the way we want them, we have written text on the back to match the sketches.

Our next step is to learn how to revise and edit the text, then we will publish our first formal writing project!!!

This week, we also did a fun art project.  We had talked about warm and cool colors.  We also talked about lines in art, and how line can define an image, and also create movement.  Our art project features fall leaves and we used contour lines to create an almost 3-D effect.  The kids were amazing that they could create such a cool looking art piece.

We traced leaves, and then did the contour lines in sharpie.

When we were done, we added watercolor.

We are starting reading clubs next week, and I am excited to start meeting in small groups with readers to dive into some interesting books!