This week in readers and writer workshops the students have been diligently working on packing away information they have found about their non-fiction topics. Students designed and assembled non fiction notebooks for storing their notes and then created a "suitcase" to pack their knowledge into. The non fiction notes, images, and sketches will be unpacked to create a new work on each student's topic in the new year! Please enjoy the images of these beautiful creations below. We have been working all week with the idea of Read, Think, Write. This encourages students to read a bit, think about what they have read and then put that information into their own words for note taking. Some of the observations during the mini lessons were really great, here are some of the quotes of the week... While discussing Jaques Cousteau "He was wondering three things: why people float, why boats float, why rocks sink." -Blanca "Sophia said it was kind of like a poem and I said he discovered things that had never been seen before." -Grace "Cousteau loved exploring in the sea." -Oscar "Whales are migratory." -Brodie We also took part in learning how to take notes using a video as a non fiction resource. The students were encouraged to put a twist on read, think, write by trying watch, think, write to use. The ability to stop and go back in a video clip was seen as a benefit for note taking. We watched a clip from a documentary about explorer Matthew Henson. Here are some of the things students were able to recall from the video... -Henson got a gold medal for discovering the North Pole. -Henson was not recognized (at first) for his achievements because of his skin color. -Henson's body was re-buried in 1987 from his original resting place to Arlington to be next to his partner. It has been a great week of learning about explorers through non fiction text! In math workshop we have been adding new concepts to our prior knowledge of addition and regrouping by beginning to address subtraction and borrowing. We discussed the three kinds of subtraction problems: taking away, comparing and finding the missing part. Students have been working with base tens blocks to see what borrowing looks like and challenging themselves by trying new kinds of problems each day. It has really been exciting to see students gathering new information and applying new knowledge in their work!
This week 2/3 was introduced to our new unit and the central idea "Exploration leads to discovery and develops new understanding" through a slide show and asked three questions regarding what they saw: What do you notice? What do you wonder? what do you think? Students answered these essential questions in their IB Notebooks and were and to discuss the images and their ideas after the slide show.
Readers Workshop This week in Readers Workshop students began a Non-Fiction unit. They examined what makes a non-fiction book different from a fiction text. Students discussed the differences between fiction and non-fiction based on the information inside. They looked for text features within "just right" books and explored the idea of "dipping in and dipping out" of non-fiction books to gain information as opposed to reading the book all the way through as they would a narrative. Students then further divided the genre into categories that had similarities. They were able to generate a list of over 20 different categories for their non-fiction genre! Students then organized the books into baskets, labeled the baskets and created more categories during their organization with partners. Writers Workshop Students carried the non-fiction theme into writers workshop this week. Students were encouraged to think of topics that interested them. Once students had chosen several topics they then needed to pose questions about those topics in their writers ws notebooks. Topics they had no questions about fell to the side, and the topics students had less knowledge of became their topic for research. Students made notes in their books using stickies and then practiced putting those notes into their own words. Students began making a special "non-fiction notes" book specifically for their research which they can add pages to as they continue to discover more information about their topics. This is the list of non-fiction topics the students made: Oscar- inventors, science, Albert Einstein Sarea- puppies, dolphins, seals, Golden Retrievers Kyle- Wright Brothers Manaal- tigers Hartleigh- spiders, Wright Brothers Oliver- animals, climate change (we need to narrow this down) Arabella- kangaroos Vanessa- puppies, koalas, panda bears, dolphins Blanca-dolphins, puppies, penguins Ana Sofia- King Tut Linn- birds Dhruv-the Wright Brothers Eliza-Dogs Grace-horses and ponies Jack-cars Becket- Inventions/Inventors Myla- Dolphins Lily- still need to narrow down- animals Sebastian-archaeology Brodie- George Washington Sophia- Dolphins Math Workshop
In math workshop this week students chose just right math work. Some students are looking for more challenging work and others are working with mastering math facts. Students had choices of building flash cards, working with ones, tens, and hundreds blocks or addition and subtraction worksheets to master regrouping. Other students chose word problems to master reasoning. Later in the week students participated in a math facts game and enjoyed the interactive ball component of the game. |
Archives
October 2017
Categories |