What a wonderful, snowy week!
This week we finished reading our Magic School Bus chapter book, Space Explorers. We learned a lot about the planets and other things in our solar system. We read a related (but very fictional) story, Skippyjon Jones: Lost in Spice by Judy Schachner. We also began to learn about stars and constellations. If you're out with your kids at night see if you can spot any constellations! We read Zoo in the Sky: A Book of Animal Constellations by Jacqueline Mitton. This is a beautifully illustrated National Geographic book! We also have begun reading a few Native American star myths about how some constellations ended up in the sky in the collection of stories entitled Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children collected by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac. We'll continue reading stories in this theme next week.
Second grade mathematicians have been working on: even/odd number patterns; doubles, near doubles, 2 apart numbers; place value review work; subtraction strategies; and relating missing addends to subtraction.
We did a few more sound experiments this week--noticing how sound travels, where sound travels, and how sound affects other things. We also learned about bird migration during 4 Winds with Karen and Abby!
We have finished illustrating our next small moment story. We learned that small moment stories are just one kind of narrative. Narratives can be real or made-up. All narratives have a beginning, middle, and end. They all have characters and a setting. Sometimes they have a problem and a solution. We're looking closely at what makes a story a narrative as we get ready to write our own fictional narratives!
On Thursday many kids in our class were having a very interesting conversation about where words come from and how people understood each other before there were words. Since so many were interested in the topic we made some time on Friday to listen to an episode of the VPR podcast "But Why?: A Podcast For Curious Kids." In case you're also interested, here's a link to the episode and accompanying article: Who Invented Words?
Fox Kits Corner
Here's what's important to us this week:
- We had a good week.
- On Friday, today, we upgraded Om Petalhead. She's our champ in GoNoodle. (We don't really know if it's a girl or a boy champ.)
- We made cards for Veda this week because she's moving to Virginia.
- We had all of our regular specials this week.
- Some people finished writing and/or illustrating small moment books this week. It was great to learn people's stories.
- We watched videos about vibration. We learned that if you make a sound things can move because of the sound.
- We learned that there should be a lot of people a long time ago who invented words. These words have changed over time.
- We got new classroom jobs.
- We rolled a big, giant snowball out at recess.
- In Spanish we highlighted fruit words.
- We had 4 Winds and we studied birds. We played a game about bird migration and how birds might crash into things if there are distracting lights while they migrating.
Dates to Remember
**Wed. December 21 - All School Meeting 9:15-10:00 **date change!
Fri. December 23 - Winter Solstice Celebration (a couple of days after the real Winter Solstice) & Gift Exchange 1:45-3:15
Mon.- Fri. December 26-30 - Holiday Break --No School
Mon. January 2 - 1st day back in the new year
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