Dear Grade 2/3 Families,
Thanks so much to those of you who were able to join us for our presentations last week. The children were so excited to show what they had learned. It’s fun to share with their friends, but it is especially meaningful to present to adults as well. It was good practice for the children in public speaking, and they really shined.
Thanks also to Gina for planning another great celebration. We celebrated our teachers’ January birthdays and we also said goodbye to Charles. We were fortunate to have Charles join us from China as part of our international student academic immersion program. I know Charles learned a lot while being here and found some new friends on the other side of the world. It was definitely a positive experience for our children as well. What a great opportunity to connect with someone from a different culture.
With Chinese schools being on holiday this month, we have been presented with more opportunities for these great cultural connections. Anna joined our 2nd Grade class last week, and she will be with us for a few weeks. Again, our children have been very inviting and we are proud of how they welcomed Anna into our class.
In Grade 2
Math Workshop: The children have been working with two digit numbers for a couple of weeks now, and they are getting more and more comfortable each day. We have focused on using multiple strategies to solve problems, and children are starting to more consistently choose the most effective strategy for each problem. This week, we will look at a variety of real life situations where we can use our knowledge of adding and subtracting double digit numbers. We will work further with money and look at when we should add or subtract.
Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop: We saw some great writing in 2nd grade this week! Students continued the Tomie dePaola author study and used his strategies in their writing, such as adding dialogue and adjectives. As a class, we made a list of ways we come up with writing ideas and used this list to start a new piece of writing. Next week, we will put all of these strategies together when we publish a piece of writing of our choice! In reading, we took a look at more strategies to help us overcome tricky parts in stories and increase our ability to comprehend text. Students used the “turn and talk” method to have conversations with classmates about what they were reading, as well as context clues, rereading, and prediction. These strategies were then put to use when students read their series texts independently.
In Grade 3
Math Workshop: We began a new unit on fractions with an exploration using 12 double sided counters. Third graders organized the counters into a variety of fractional parts which were shown by color. We also played a bit of a neat game on Greg Tang Math called SatisFraction where mathematicians explored simplifying, comparing, adding and/or subtracting fractions at a level that they felt was a “good fit” for them. Coming up, we will practice different ways of recording our fraction work with numbers and drawings to show our understanding as fractions as parts of a whole. We will also explore fractions with the use of the patterns blocks to better understand simplifying and comparison of 1 whole, ½, ⅓, and ⅙ .
In Readers’ Workshop, we took a hard look at paragraphs. What are they for? What are they telling us? How do you know when a new one starts? We discovered, through a comparison of the books we are reading (fiction and non-fiction), that paragraphs can happen when there is dialogue and/or a topic change in the story. We used mentor texts by Lawrence Yep to see how he decided to use paragraphs in “The Ribbon” and “The Lightwell”. Third graders felt that these two texts had very powerful paragraphing.
In Writers’ Workshop, writers are paying close attention to when they might need to indent in their own writing, and are practicing using paragraphs to help organize their writing as they lay out stories for their readers. We will also begin looking at how to include dialogue in order to move the story plot along, rather than telling.
In our 2/3 learning community
IB Unit Inquiry: We finished up our third unit on the earth’s changing surface with open house presentations for grade 1 visitors, and individual presentations in the commons for parents. All students did an amazing job researching, problem-solving, and risk-taking as they demonstrated keen knowledge of a topic they were confidently passionate about to a large audience! We are tremendously proud!
Important Dates and Reminders:
January 30, Monday - ASG - Open Mic
January 31, Tuesday - PJS Young Scholar Series - Where have all the bees gone?
Speaker: Prof. Albrecht Koppenhofer
PJS Commons @ 6:30 - 7:00pm
February 2, Pizza Thursday
February 3, Friday Focus - 12:00 Dismissal
February 4, Saturday - PJSPA Soiree - Please RSVP ASAP.
February 6, Monday - ASG - PJS Spirit Day
February 11, Saturday - PJS Pancake Breakfast 9:00-11:00am & Annie Set Making Day
Thanks so much to those of you who were able to join us for our presentations last week. The children were so excited to show what they had learned. It’s fun to share with their friends, but it is especially meaningful to present to adults as well. It was good practice for the children in public speaking, and they really shined.
Thanks also to Gina for planning another great celebration. We celebrated our teachers’ January birthdays and we also said goodbye to Charles. We were fortunate to have Charles join us from China as part of our international student academic immersion program. I know Charles learned a lot while being here and found some new friends on the other side of the world. It was definitely a positive experience for our children as well. What a great opportunity to connect with someone from a different culture.
With Chinese schools being on holiday this month, we have been presented with more opportunities for these great cultural connections. Anna joined our 2nd Grade class last week, and she will be with us for a few weeks. Again, our children have been very inviting and we are proud of how they welcomed Anna into our class.
In Grade 2
Math Workshop: The children have been working with two digit numbers for a couple of weeks now, and they are getting more and more comfortable each day. We have focused on using multiple strategies to solve problems, and children are starting to more consistently choose the most effective strategy for each problem. This week, we will look at a variety of real life situations where we can use our knowledge of adding and subtracting double digit numbers. We will work further with money and look at when we should add or subtract.
Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop: We saw some great writing in 2nd grade this week! Students continued the Tomie dePaola author study and used his strategies in their writing, such as adding dialogue and adjectives. As a class, we made a list of ways we come up with writing ideas and used this list to start a new piece of writing. Next week, we will put all of these strategies together when we publish a piece of writing of our choice! In reading, we took a look at more strategies to help us overcome tricky parts in stories and increase our ability to comprehend text. Students used the “turn and talk” method to have conversations with classmates about what they were reading, as well as context clues, rereading, and prediction. These strategies were then put to use when students read their series texts independently.
In Grade 3
Math Workshop: We began a new unit on fractions with an exploration using 12 double sided counters. Third graders organized the counters into a variety of fractional parts which were shown by color. We also played a bit of a neat game on Greg Tang Math called SatisFraction where mathematicians explored simplifying, comparing, adding and/or subtracting fractions at a level that they felt was a “good fit” for them. Coming up, we will practice different ways of recording our fraction work with numbers and drawings to show our understanding as fractions as parts of a whole. We will also explore fractions with the use of the patterns blocks to better understand simplifying and comparison of 1 whole, ½, ⅓, and ⅙ .
In Readers’ Workshop, we took a hard look at paragraphs. What are they for? What are they telling us? How do you know when a new one starts? We discovered, through a comparison of the books we are reading (fiction and non-fiction), that paragraphs can happen when there is dialogue and/or a topic change in the story. We used mentor texts by Lawrence Yep to see how he decided to use paragraphs in “The Ribbon” and “The Lightwell”. Third graders felt that these two texts had very powerful paragraphing.
In Writers’ Workshop, writers are paying close attention to when they might need to indent in their own writing, and are practicing using paragraphs to help organize their writing as they lay out stories for their readers. We will also begin looking at how to include dialogue in order to move the story plot along, rather than telling.
In our 2/3 learning community
IB Unit Inquiry: We finished up our third unit on the earth’s changing surface with open house presentations for grade 1 visitors, and individual presentations in the commons for parents. All students did an amazing job researching, problem-solving, and risk-taking as they demonstrated keen knowledge of a topic they were confidently passionate about to a large audience! We are tremendously proud!
Important Dates and Reminders:
January 30, Monday - ASG - Open Mic
January 31, Tuesday - PJS Young Scholar Series - Where have all the bees gone?
Speaker: Prof. Albrecht Koppenhofer
PJS Commons @ 6:30 - 7:00pm
February 2, Pizza Thursday
February 3, Friday Focus - 12:00 Dismissal
February 4, Saturday - PJSPA Soiree - Please RSVP ASAP.
February 6, Monday - ASG - PJS Spirit Day
February 11, Saturday - PJS Pancake Breakfast 9:00-11:00am & Annie Set Making Day