Our Second Week

We had a wonderful and very full week together! 

This week we continued our discussion about math tools. We used an organizational tool called a "Brain Frame" to create a joint "Relationship Brain Frame" showing what each tool is used for. Our brain frame became quite complex and the students began realizing that "all of the tools are connected!" and "we can use one tool for more than one purpose."  We will use brain frames this year to help organize our thinking in preparation for writing, as well as in Social Studies (see below!) and Science.  All of the children who attended first grade at Angell had exposure in Brain Frames last year and are eager to continue using them to explore new topics.

Every morning the students find a morning message from me on the board. Sometimes it highlights special events on our schedule, sometimes it reminds them about routines (especially early in the year), and sometimes it involves surveys.  The survey below was a simple exercise in reviewing tally marks, and at our morning meeting led to some nice discussion about pro's and con's of each season, and also served as a tool for us to get to know one another better.

In Social Studies this week we began our year long study of "My Community" by creating a "Telling Brain Frame" together.  The question I posed was "What comes to mind when you hear the word 'Community' ?"  Later in the week we learned a working definition for community, which is: a place where people live, work, learn, play, and solve problems together.  The students also learned a community song that you may have heard them singing this weekend!

On Wednesday Mr. Court came by to talk to our class about Angell school 

behaviors and expectations. 

Writer's Workshop in action!

This week in Math we played a game called "Pin the Number on the Number Grid" (variation on Pin the Tail on the Donkey) - which is always an instant favorite among second graders.

To continue reviewing our number grid skills, the children worked in partnerships to create number grids all the way from 0 to 1,200, which will be put together next week to form a gigantic class number scroll. It was wonderful seeing the students challenge themselves and ask for more and more sheets so that they could make the scroll reach an even higher number.

This week we also began our Life Cycles unit in Science! The students will have science with Mrs. Brennan two times each week, while her students come to my class for Social Studies.  This week Mrs. Brennan took the students outside to find leaves, which they then used to create leaf rubbings.