Here are some highlights from our week:
Fieldwork at Birch Aquarium
On Wednesday we went to the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute of Oceanography to continue our research about animal communities.Wow, what a beautiful and enriching place to learn! We saw so many fascinating aquatic animals, and observed several interesting characteristics about aquatic animal communities. We spent most of our time at the Aquarium in the Hall of Fishes, where students noted how different kinds of fish moved together and protected themselves. Here are some of the key observations we made:
- Schooling – When a group of three or more fish swim together in a pattern
- Shoaling – when a group of three or more fish stay close together but don't swim in a pattern
- Some fish can switch genders if their community isn't balanced
- Lateral lines – A sense that fish have on the sides of their body that help them notice movement and vibrations around them. The lateral lines help fish school
We also had a second reason to go to the Birch Aquarium: to observe and make scientific sketches of fish, specifically looking at fish tails. One of the students' final products for this project will be a moving fish art installation that they will co-create with the other 2nd grade classes. Mrs. Fuentes's class is learning about the science behind the fish in Mrs. Lee's Science class, Ms. Kegley's class is learning about how to make the art move in Mr. Lee's engineering class, and our class is learning how to design the fish in Mrs. Vinetz's art class! It was important for our class to observe a variety of fish and notice their key elements, so that they can help the 2nd grade team create clay fish that accurately represent real fish.
Organizing Our Research Data
The students are coming up with so many interesting observations about animal communities that it was time to start organizing our data! We looked at our data and started to see these common themes across many animal communities:
- Communication
- Helping each other
- Protection
- Playing
- Leadership
- Movement
Read Aloud
We have started a new chapter book called A to Z Mysteries: The White Wolf.
Math
We learned a new math game called Race to 20, and modified our war game so that now students flip over two cards and add them together to determine who won the round. These two games have helped us further explore the number line and base 10 concepts. We explored several new math materials: base 10 frames, counters, and dice.
Hooray! Our class is at an average of 10% completion on ST Math! We got our first postcard from JiJi. Our 10% got him to the African Desert. We are making predictions on where we think he will end up next!
Literacy
We introduced a third rotation, Listen To Reading into our Daily 5 literacy block. At Listen To Reading, students use Raz Kids to further build their reading skills and listen to good models of reading. Students are now rotating through Read to self, Work on writing, and Listen to Reading.
Expected and Unexpected Behaviors
We are establishing common language to help us regulate our behaviors in the classroom and throughout the school. Each week we will focus on a new term that will help us be successful. This week, we learned about and practiced expected and unexpected behaviors.
We started the conversation talking about expected and unexpected behaviors at a movie theater. Students modeled how we expect people to watch a movie, and then gave examples of unexpected behaviors at movie theater. We talked about how those different behaviors make us feel: what would it feel like if you were trying to watch a movie and the person next to you talked to a friend the whole time? Student said it might make them feel frustrated, not important, and distracted.
We connected this activity to expected and unexpected behaviors during whole group instruction. What behaviors do we expect our class to follow during whole group instruction on the carpet? These are the expected behaviors we are working on maintaining when we are all together on the carpet:
- Whole body listening:
- Raising our hands to talk
- Actively listening and participating in whole group work
Here are some pictures from our week: