We have had an incredibly fun and productive couple of weeks! We have been working hard to finish all 5 (!!!) songs for our Rock Opera, along with making sets and writing narration. I am so inspired by all of the kids’ perseverance and creativity and I cannot wait to share with you the Rock Opera that they have written! Exhibition Night(s) is coming up, and I wanted to make sure that everyone understands what the plan is for our class. It is different than usual, so please read the following carefully:
Exhibition Night Schedule: Each cohort will be performing the Transportation Rock Opera on their Exhibition night (Monday/ Thursday cohort is performing the Rock Opera at Monday’s Exhibition, March 21st and Tuesday/ Friday cohort is performing the Rock Opera at Tuesday’s Exhibition, March 22nd). We are going to be performing out on the field from 6:00-6:30 pm. All of my students will have the same Exhibition Night Schedule: 5:00-5:30 Arrive in costume, walk around and experience other classrooms! 5:30- meet in Robin’s classroom to get organized before performance 6:00-6:30 perform Rock Opera out on the field! Costumes! Students will need to dress in a “rock and roll” costume for the Rock Opera on Exhibition night. I have talked to Michelle and she understands that my students will be in rock and roll costume rather than Exhibition attire. I would appreciate your assistance in helping your student put together an awesome rock and roll costume. Ideas for rock and roll costumes- jeans, leather/ denim jackets/ band shirts/ mohawks/ crazy hair/ temporary tattoos. Any era of rock and roll works (you could go for 50’s jeans and slicked back hair/ 80’s neon and big hair/ 90’s grunge.) Please feel free to use what you have around the house, but the more rock and roll the better J Upcoming dates/ announcements:
Please be at Saint Rocke (142 PCH, Hermosa Beach) at 2:00pm sharp! It is a bit up in the air as to exactly when we will be performing, but it could be as early as 2:00pm, so please be at the venue by 2:00 pm in order to not miss it! We will be performing sometime between 2:00- 3:00pm. Sorry for the lack of a firm timeline, we are tagging on to a different concert that my husband is putting on for his work, so we have to be flexible J
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This month our Spirit Day will be Green Day! We can't wait to see the fun and creative ways that students show their spirit this month! Please note: we are going back to old system of paying for pizza on Pizza Day (bring money on the day of). Pricing reminder: 1 slice for $3 or 2 slices for $5. $1 for drinks.
Hi Core 2 families,
I wanted to update you on a few important Core 2 items of business. We will be performing our complete LA Transportation Rock Opera at Exhibition on March 21st and 22nd. We will be performing out on the field from 6:00-6:30. If you have siblings in other classes, please make note of the fact that your student in my class will be performing from 6:00-6:30 and do not sign up your other students for a conflicting time slot. If you haven’t filled out the sign up genius for the optional performance at Saint Rocke on March 20th, please do so today: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d48a8a729abfe3-rock We are in need of some large pieces of cardboard to make props. If anyone has any large/ flat pieces of cardboard, they would be put to good use in our class Please drop off in class by Friday, March 11th. Thanks! Students will need to dress in a “rock and roll” costume for the Rock Opera on Exhibition night. I have talked to Michelle and she understands that my students will be in rock and roll costume rather than Exhibition attire. I would appreciate your assistance in helping your student put together an awesome rock and roll costume. Ideas for rock and roll costumes- jeans, leather/ denim jackets/ band shirts/ mohawks/ crazy hair/ temporary tattoos. Any era of rock and roll works (you could go for 50’s jeans and slicked back hair/ 80’s neon and big hair/ 90’s grunge.) Please feel free to use what you have around the house, but the more rock and roll the better Thanks for all of your help, and please reach out if you have any questions! Robin We have an opportunity to perform part of our Transportation Rock Opera on a real stage at a real venue! We will be performing the entire Rock Opera on campus at Exhibition, but for those families that wish to participate, students will also get a chance to sing 2-3 of the songs from the Rock Opera at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach, Sunday March 20th. We will go on between 2- 2:30 (it depends when the act before us is finished) and we will sing 2-3 songs, which will take 10- 15 minutes total.This is just a fun opportunity for our class, and is not at all mandatory. Performing students will get in for free, but the venue requires that any audience members (ie parents/ friends) pay $10 to get in. Also, this is a venue that serves alcohol, so if that makes you uncomfortable, please wait and enjoy the performance at Exhibition. Both cohorts will be performing together at Saint Rocke, although they will be performing separately at Exhibition.
Please let me know whether you will be attending, as I need to make sure that we have enough performers to participate. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d48a8a729abfe3-rock Thanks! Hi All,
I wanted to update you on how the Rock Opera Project is going in our class! We are having a blast learning about the history of Los Angeles Transportation and then writing songs about each type of transportation. First we covered boats, both how the Tongva Native Americans in this area built rafts and how the Spanish Explorers used boats to come to this area. Then we dove into the Transcontinental Railroad and how it affected California’s population and way of life. Then we were on to Streetcars! We learned all about how the streetcar routes that were designed over a hundred years ago created the spread out city of Los Angeles that we live in today. Last week and this week we have been studying the rise of automobiles. We did an interesting assembly line activity where students tried making a paper car completely on their own, and then again in an assembly line. Students got the firsthand experience of what it is like to work on an assembly line where you have to do the same small job over and over again. We had a really interesting discussion afterwards where students voiced what the experience had been like, and also explored the pros and cons of creating individually vs mass producing a product. As usual, the depth of their thoughtfulness on this complicated issue was inspiring! After each day or two of studying a particular mode of transportation, students get some time to work with a partner and write lyrics for the song that we are creating on that mode of transportation. Most students have become pretty comfortable writing rhyming lines that describe some aspect of the type of transportation or how Los Angeles experienced the rise of that type of transportation. I take all of their lyrics and pull from them as I create a rough draft of each song. I then play it for each class and they make changes to make it more awesome. I am absolutely loving this process, and we already have 4 songs that are almost finished! Well on our way to a full Rock Opera! We still have airplanes and rockets to cover! I will let you know how those go :) My plan for exactly how the performance of the Rock Opera is going to work is still in the works, but I wanted to let you know a few bits of info at this point. We will be performing the entire Rock Opera at Exhibition. I think that this will probably take place for the last 30-45 minutes of Exhibition out on the field. We will be playing with a full rock band, and I don’t think we can fit in the classroom :) I am still working on what kind of set pieces we can create as a class. If you have any expertise/ interest in helping with sets, please let me know. We will also have an opportunity to perform a few songs from the Rock Opera at a local venue called St. Rocke the Sunday before Exhibition between 2:00-3:00pm. This is not at all mandatory, just a fun opportunity that I wanted to offer to both cohorts. I will be getting you more info on this soon! As always, I love learning alongside your kids! Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions, and please reach out if you are interested in helping with sets :) Hi Core 2 parents!
If you were unable to attend PEC 3 last week, please carefully read the blurb below and make plans to attend one of the make-up sessions this week: Parent educators who missed PEC #3 will need to make-up that face-to-face time in order to remain compliant with our Independent Study Enrollment Agreement. We are offering repeats of three PEC workshops in order to help all families with math support. If you missed PEC #3, please plan on attending one of the three workshops below:
Hi All!
Student Led Conferences are coming up at the very beginning of March! Student Led Conferences are an opportunity for your child to share their experience in the classroom, reflect on their learning, and set learning goals. Each student must sign up for one 45 minute block of time, there will be up to 5 families in each block. Parent Teacher Conferences are an optional opportunity for parent and teacher to discuss the student's learning in a more traditional meeting setting. These are available in 15 minute time slots. Here is the sign up genius for Winter Student Led Conferences and optional Parent Teacher Conferences: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d48a8a729abfe3-winter I wanted to remind you that there is no school or Enrichment on these days (March 1st and 2nd), but there is homeschool. I will be mailing out the letters that you wrote at your child’s Fall SLC. I would love if you would read the letter together and reflect on how the year is going. You may even want to begin reflecting on what a good goal for the last part of the year might be. Thanks, and don’t forget to sign up for an SLC time! Update:
There is so much going on right now that I wanted to remind you of a few key dates/ events: Feb 10th, 9:15-2:15 Parent Educator Conference (PEC #3) Hawthorne Mem Center Feb 18th- Work Journal Deadline WJ #3 is due by 4:15 pm on Thursday, Feb. 18th. Mon Feb 15th & Fri, Feb 12th In honor of Presidents' Day, school will be closed on Monday, February 15th. Please note: campus is also closed on Friday, February 12th. ***Friday and Monday are NOT home school days*** (this is a correction, sorry for the confusion). Enjoy the 4 day weekend! Wednesday, February 24th- Robin’s class field trip to Natural History Museum March 1st and 2nd- Student Led Conferences (Homeschool on both days) Hello everyone! We have been working on learning how to tell time the last few weeks, and I wanted to update you on what I have noticed, along with some ideas on how to support students at home. There seems to be an incredibly wide range of knowledge on how the clock works. Some students already fully understand how to tell time to the minute, whereas others are still learning about the hour hand. This is normal, and to be expected for our set up. I would like to recommend that you give your student a short assessment at home, and begin building on their clock knowledge. Our end goal is that 1st graders should be able to tell time to the half hour, and 2nd graders should be able to tell time to 5 minutes, along with understanding am and pm. Here is are some short assessments that you can give your child to learn more about how much they understand about the clock: If you have been following along with the Georgia State Unit, you have probably already done several time lessons. If not, here is a link to the Georgia State Unit, and I would recommend doing these lessons: 1st Grade- It’s Time (Parts 1,2,3) Time for Bed 2nd Grade- Building a Number Line Clock Missed Bedtime Other ideas for building students understanding of the clock: Get the child an analog watch Do this to one of your clocks at home: Have the student keep a schedule during homeschooling, and refer to the clock in order to stay on schedule.
The more practice students get, the more the clock starts to make sense to them! Good luck, and please reach out if you need more resources! Robin Hello Everyone! I wanted to take a minute to talk about one of the most common math questions that I get from 2nd grade parents: How do I help support students when they are learning about subtraction with regrouping. Subtraction with regrouping (for instance 72-35= or 241-98=) is one of the more difficult types of problems that students in this age group work on. It can be extremely difficult to watch students struggle with this problem type, and it can be very tempting to teach them the stacking way (traditional algorithm) of solving this problem type. The problem is, when you show them the stacking way at a young age, they often struggle to build a conceptual understanding of what is happening when you solve a subtraction with regrouping problem. I want to strongly encourage you to hold off on teaching them the stacking trick for solving subtraction problems, and instead let them solve the problems using their own strategies. This may look like the student using base ten blocks, drawing pictures, or breaking the numbers apart. I completely understand that it can look very inefficient, and it can be difficult for them to get an accurate answer using these methods. Even though it can look cumbersome, the work that they are doing is helping them build a deeper conceptual understanding of what is happening with the numbers in this type of problem. Providing students with base ten blocks is one of the best supports you can offer, as it shows them how to build groups of 10 and also break apart 10’s into ones. They are a great investment to make if your student is working on this problem type. You can also print out these paper versions: I want to offer this chapter from one of Van de Walle’s books, as a helpful resource. He does a much more eloquent job of making the argument against traditional algorithms, and for invented strategies. He also walks you through the different strategies that students will use in place of the traditional algorithms and why these are important. Please give it a read, especially if this is something you are struggling with at home. I am always happy to talk math with any parent, so please just reach out if you are feeling stuck :)
Welcome Back! I am so happy to be back in the classroom with your kids! We have had a nice week getting back into the swing of things and are going to dive into the Rock Opera Project today (Thursday/ Friday) I wanted to take a minute to talk about the project and give you some ideas on how to extend the project at home. First, I uploaded the project document onto the “Projects” tab on this website, so if you didn’t get a chance to read it when I sent it out last week, please take a minute to read it now. In a lot of ways, this is going to be a big project. We will be tackling a lot of content around transportation and its effect on the city of Los Angles, along with music and performance content to support the creation of a Rock Opera. I am excited to dive into these rich areas with your kids! There are numerous opportunities for field trips that would be great extensions to this project. One of the room parents is working on organizing a group field trip to the Natural History Museum to see the exhibit “Becoming LA.” I am hoping to get as many families to go as possible, as this looks like a great overview of the history of Los Angeles. I wanted to give you a list of other possible field trip ideas in case you are looking to add some adventures to your home learning this semester! Union Station LAX A metro station/ a ride on the metro Traveltown railroad museum in Griffith Park Maritime Museum Museum of Flying Santa Monica Airport Autry Museum Space X? Grammy Museum Any concert/ performance (would be neat to try and interview the performers!) Open mic night (a lot of coffee shops have these on week nights) Music stores (go in and ask if your student can count the different types of instruments/ graph them when you get home) One parent had the interesting idea of challenging her kid to try as many modes of transportation as possible! There are so many ways to build on this project! You could choose to extend the music and performance aspect of the project, or the LA and transportation aspect, whichever sounds fun and inspiring! This week in class we are going to start discussing “what is a song?” I want to build up their music vocabulary, so we will begin talking about rhythm, harmony, melody, lyrics, and dynamics. We will also start gathering questions that we have about Los Angeles transportation, and start an exploration of all of the different modes of transportation. Please let me know if you go on a particularly awesome field trip, so I can get the info out to other parents! Announcements: Monday, January 18th- Martin Luther King Day, No school, homeschool or enrichement Monday, January 25th- 2nd Semester Enrichement starts Thursday/ Friday January 28th, 29th- Pizza and Spirit Day |
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February 2017
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