Hello Everyone!
It has been a lovely week here in Core 2! We have been hard at work on our Government Lapbooks- the students are very excited to share them with you at Exhibition. It is really neat to see them working so hard, and persevering through writing, editing, and creating final drafts. One of the joys of my job is getting to see kids learn what it means to work hard, and the pride that comes along with hard work. We have also spent some time furthering our understanding of the history of voting rights. It is a complicated and fraught history, and one that is a bit tricky to explore with young kids. That being said, kids have such a keen sense of justice and fairness, I am often surprised by the clear eyed way that they have of processing complicated history. We have gone into some depth on women’s voting rights, and African American voting rights. I think a lot of them were surprised by how recently a lot of these changes came about. We have also taken another dive into the Constitution. The first time we started to study the Constitution it seemed a bit hard for them to grasp. This time around I had us focus on our list of class rules that they created at the beginning of the year. I changed the title of our class rules to “Class Constitution”. We discussed what purpose these serve, and had some interesting discussions about the difference between individual and group responsibility. We then read a bit about the Amendments that were added to the Constitution. They paired up and came up with Amendments that they wanted to propose to the class. Then they voted on these Amendments and any Amendment that got 2/3 of the vote was added to our Class Constitution. They took this very seriously and really seemed to keep in mind that we were making changes/ additions that would be good for the whole group. The ones that passed were beautiful additions to their original Constitution. We had a Guest Visitor on Monday and Tuesday. Christian Horvath, a Redondo Beach City Councilman and DVIA parent, came in for the morning to talk about City Council and campaigning for office. The kids loved it! It was really great to see them have the chance to make some concrete connections between what they have been learning about with this project and an actual elected government official. They had a chance to ask a ton of questions about all aspects of government and he was wonderful with his kid friendly, but very interesting answers. In the next few weeks we will be ramping up to Exhibition. That means that we will be spending more of our class time on creating final products and making sure that we feel comfortable presenting all of the learning that we have been doing around the government, elections, campaigning, voting, and the constitution. On Tuesday, November 1st we have an awesome voting opportunity! Studies Weekly (one of DVIA’s curriculum choices) is running a mock kid election for the upcoming presidential election. In the past, enough kids have voted that it predicted the real election! On Tuesday, November 1st we will run a polling place for DVIA our of our classroom. Because November 1st is a Tuesday, I wanted to offer my Monday/ Thursday cohort the opportunity to have your student come to school between 9:15 and 10:30 on November 1st so that they can vote and help run the polling place that we have set up in the classroom. I am okay if you want to drop them off for that time, just be sure to pick them up in the office promptly at 10:30. I hope some of you are able to do this, as I think it would be awesome for all of the kiddos to get to participate! Please sign up using the sign up genius link below (You only need to sign up if your kid is Mon/ Thurs) http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d48a8a729abfe3-monday Pizza/Spirit Day #1 Mon 10/31 and Tues 11/1 The first Pizza/Spirit Day of the year is coming up! Wear your favorite costume, enjoy a yummy lunch, and support the Art and Maker Space programs at DVIA! Hello Core 2 Families,
I loved getting to spend time with some of you during Tuesday’s SLCs! I will get a chance to see the rest of you on Thursday. Thank you for being so thoughtful with your children, I really am so inspired by the care and attention that you give to your children. This week in reading we have continued to do our word sorts and leveled reading. I am still getting through all of the student’s DRAs (reading assessments) and will regroup them into different groups once I have that info. In reading we have also been reading articles on Susan B Anthony, with a focus on Women’s Voting Rights. We are building a timeline of all of the important dates in voting rights history along our stretch of windows. If you have never explored the resource NewsELA, it is definitely worth your time, especially if you have a more advanced reader. NewsELA is a resource that allows you to choose from different articles and then change the reading level of the article to make it appropriate for your student. It only goes down to 2nd grade, but it could be helpful for some families: https://newsela.com/ Timelines are a great way to help students understand history. It can be a really fun activity to have students create timelines of their own lives. Here is one of many resources on the internet to help kids create timelines: http://kidsactivities.about.com/od/LifeSkills/ss/My-Life-Timeline-Activity-For-Kids.htm We have also started working on our Government Lap books. Lap books are a creative way for students to record what they understand about a particular subject, in this case the government. These will be used to support students in sharing all that they have learned about the government at Exhibition. In math we have continued to work on addition and subtraction word problems and number talks. I have been talking to a number of second grade parents about the fact that one of the main things that 2nd graders are working on in math is subtraction with regrouping (ex: 82-47=). One of the best things that you can do to support kids who are still trying to conceptualize what is happening with place value in this type of problem is to offer them base ten blocks to work with. If you do not have base ten blocks at home, you can find templates on line: https://www.havefunteaching.com/tools/paper-cut-outs/printable-base-10-blocks/ I would highly recommend having these out for kids to access when they are doing problems with larger numbers, and especially when doing subtraction with regrouping problems. Important Info: Survey Please take a few minutes to do the Fall Da Vinci parent survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N9WFYN7 Work Journal #1 Due- Tuesday Oct 11 The first work journal period ends Friday, October 7. Work Journal #1 is due Tuesday, October 11, by 4:15 pm (NOT 4:30!). If your child has after-school enrichment that day, please still make sure to turn in your work journal on time. Please use the checklist and reflection sheets found under the “Work Journals” tab on my Digital Portfolio. Please check them carefully, it would be a huge help! |
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February 2017
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