Newsletter: January 29, 2016

Hey Everyone!

We are off to a good start this week. After a week or so of observing the classroom and getting to know the kids, Mr. Smith, our MAT, is now sharing some of the teaching duties within the classroom. This includes the newsletter. So I will share with you what has been happening in reading workshop then Mr. Smith will tell you all about our explorations in math and science.

Reading Workshop

The focus of our studies in reading workshop right now is to compare and contrast multiple sources of information (Are they sharing the same information? Do they convey the same messages? Are they providing multiple perspectives?). Largely, we've been laying the foundation we will need to do this work. On Monday we read a news article about the winter storms that hit the East coast. While reading the article we stopped at the end of each paragraph to go back and identify which information was most important in helping us understand the article. Some refer to this as "determining importance." Of course, there's some subjectivity in this but it does help guide us in locating the who/what/when/where/why/how/why of the article.

On Tuesday we read another article. This one was about homework assignments over school breaks (such as Winter Break, Summer Break, etc). This time around we didn't just pay attention to the important information that was being shared in the article. Rather, we stopped at the end of each paragraph to talk with one another about what we were thinking in response to what we had just read. This moved us from just reporting on the news to actually forming a response based on our own experiences, desires, understandings, and so on. This is really important work! It's my goal to help the kids grow into critical consumers of information. I don't want them to just mindlessly consume it but to really mull it around in their minds. This might call on them to ask questions, make connections to their own lives, draw on previous knowledge, have an emotional response, think of other possibilities, wonder what other people might think or feel about what is happening, etc.

The homework article did just this. There was a lot of great discussions going on around the room. Some really felt the idea of homework over the break was needed, to some extent, while others thought it was important to have a mental break and to spend time doing other things. Others felt as though they agreed with both positions. This was another goal of mine...to help the kids see we don't have to "pick a side" when a topic is too complex to merely say "I'm for it!" or "I'm against it!" Often there is a spectrum and we fit somewhere within that spectrum. This also helps us understand others and their beliefs. Actually, we are now thinking a good bit about how multiple people can have different perspectives on a single topic. Today we are sharing out key ideas from the written conversations they had with you last night about homework then the kids will be asked to write from the perspective of different people on this topic (students, parents, principals, and grandparents). Of course, within any of these groups you will still see diversity in thought and belief.

Today we launched an exploration into zoos with the guiding question: Are zoos good for animals or bad for animals. This is a really rich question because there is great information to be found both supporting zoos as well as condemning them. It will be a chance for the kids to compare and contrast the information they receive from multiple sources (PETA, zoos, activists, etc) and to begin seeing themselves on that spectrum between good and bad as they not only identify important information but think about what it means to them. It's good work!

Math

In math workshop this week, we continued our inquiry into money. The focus of our work is to better understand how coins are combined to make different values while working on basic number sense and mathematical meaning making. This has lead us down the path of forming lots coin combinations and the arithmetic required to find the value.

We picked up Monday where we left off on Friday. We shared different ways to form 60 cents using pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters. We came up with lots of great ways to play with the coins to arrive at 60 cents, sharing our responses in the form of a riddle: I have 60 cents and -- coins. What do I have? Working with the partners on the floor, everyone came up with answers and shared them with the class.

After creating a few riddles together, everyone went back to their tables to create their own riddle. We were really impressed with the flexibility everyone demonstrated shifting to better strategies to create the problems. At first, most of us simply came up with a value and picked a random number of coins, hoping it would match. After a few unsuccessful attempts at random selection, we developed a more efficient strategy using our donated coin collections. The result were some very thoughtful and creative riddles with great pictorial and numeric representation on the back which we plan to return to in the near future as a review.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we built upon our coin observations to make predictions as to how many coins would form a 1-inch stack and a 12-inch row. We worked in pairs to create predictions for how many pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters would be needed and then formed the rows and stacks to measure. We recorded the information and then totaled the value using skip-counting to find the value of the rows and stacks.

For the rest of the week we continued working on our ability to count coins and develop efficient strategies. We worked on adding and subtracting monetary value by doing a "Money in the Bank" activity. Everyone selected a cup, counting the coins and recording the value to find out how much money is in their bank. We will finish up this activity with counting the total value of our donated coin collection. This will prepare us to move into solving word problems involving money.

Science

In science this week we finished our inquiry into severe weather: blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. These provided guiding questions for our group inquiry. On Monday, everyone finished adding their weekend research to their posters. On Tuesday, though, they received a curve ball -- a last minute addition. Each group had to include safety information about their weather. They had to find this information on the internet. With their Chromebooks in overdrive, everyone was able to find ways to avoid the danger each phenomena presents. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, each group presented their information. Wednesday proved to be a trial run which gave us time to work on some presentation skills. We focused on ways to be less distracting while presenting and how to prepare for presenting information ahead of time. This practice will be very helpful as they move into presenting more expert projects in the future.