*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.
It was lovely weather for the Fall Family Night. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves.
Eva won one of the scarecrow awards for her Minecraft Steve.
Walking Club Volunteer Sign Up
October 17, 2013 - Field trip to Thompson Park. Chaperons, thank you in advance for volunteering. Please plan to meet in my room at 9:00am for a brief overview of the morning's trip. We will leave Windermere around 9:30 and return by 11:00.
October 18, 2013 - Local author, Mark Walter, will be visiting Windermere to share the craft of writing.
October 25, 2013 - Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park for Earth Science. Thank you volunteers! Students should wear good hiking/walking shoes that can get muddy, pack a sack lunch and wear something they can zip and unzip as it is usually cool and the morning and warms up throughout the day.
October 25, 2013 - End of the first quarter. Please avoid appointments this week as I'll be assessing.
October 28, 2013 - No school, teacher grading day.
October 31, 2013 - Halloween party (extended lunch from 12pm till 1:30pm, most students go home to change into costumes). Please note it is district policy that no costume may include any weapons or facsimiles.
November 4 - 7, 2013: Parent conferences. If you have not signed up, please contact me. I will send reminders of your date and time in your student's progress report.
November 5, 2013: No school for students: Professional development.
November 27 - 29, 2013: No school - Thanksgiving.
December 11, 2013: Early release: Professional development.
December 23, 2013 - January 3, 2014: Winter break - no school.
January 6, 2014: First day back to school.
January 16, 2014: End of the second quarter. Please avoid appointments this week as I'll be assessing.
January 17, 2014: No school, teacher grading day.
What We Learned This Week
Word Study
Students studied and applied long and short u sounds in two syllable types: closed and VCE. The focus on closed and VCE syllables is paying off as they are starting to apply them in their writing!
Reading
I introduced context clues for decoding unfamiliar words. We can rely on grapho-phonemic clues (e.g., a prefix or suffix, the beginning "chunk" or morpheme of a word that may give a clue to what it is), syntax (is it likely a verb, noun, or adjective) or simply rely on the meaning of the sentences before and after the unfamiliar word to make a best guess as to what it means without going to a dictionary and interrupting the flow of reading.
A few words regarding students' Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) scores: The district relies on the DRA to:
- Identify struggling readers to ensure they get the support they need as quickly as possible
- Identify advanced readers to ensure they get the enrichment they need as quickly as possible
- Identify class and individual student's skill focus areas for instruction
- Monitor student growth over the year
- Identify teacher instructional areas to develop
While the DRA benchmarks are end of quarter indicators, I assess as soon as possible. This allows me to identify students' levels and needs and begin focused instruction right away. Students reading at a level 28 are identified by the DRA as "on track," or reading at grade level. Many of these students will be reading above a level 28 by the end of the quarter.
While lower beginning of assessment window scores can cause concern or anxiety for parents, I prefer to assess early so I can get a jump on student instruction. I have found it pays off and many students reading below a level 28 at the beginning of the assessment window will be reading at a level 28 by the end of the grading period. There are many explanations for this jump from "off track" to "on track" reading in a short time period. There is a significant difference between a level 24 and a level 28. The 28 requires a written component for comprehension, whereas the 24 is purely oral and allows the teacher to probe for understanding. The 28 takes a lot of modeling, practice and exposure before students are able to demonstrate higher comprehension. Students who were not diligent summer readers, especially those who are still learning to read (versus reading to learn), often need explicit instruction on fluency, decoding, and comprehension strategies. I will reassess any student who was not reading at or above a level 28. I will discuss student reading in depth during November conferences.
Math
Over the last two weeks we have made the full transition from partial sums, an algorithm designed to explicitly demonstrate understanding of place and value, to the traditional algorithm without and with regrouping. The second grade teachers did a tremendous job of introducing these concepts last year as I've never had students grasp this material as quickly as this year's!
Science
We discussed two critical learning targets in earth science: rocks are composed of minerals, minerals have many uses. Halite (or common table salt) is one such example. We looked at salt under our microscope to see the crystal structure. Most minerals have a consistent crystal structure that can help to identify them.
We then discussed how humans have collected salt in many places around the world through natural or man-made evaporation of water. We are replicating this with our salt crystal gardens. We mix bluing, a early bleach that has heavy "blue" flakes suspended in water, with saturated salt water. As water evaporates, the blue flakes serve as a particularly good nucleus for salt crystals to form around. We pour this combination under sponges, which wick water up and out as it evaporates, leaving the newly formed salt crystals. We will explore the differences between the new salt crystals (which now have some soap in them) with the original salt crystals.
Each student should have a labeled baggie for soil collection. Students should only fill the baggie half-way. We will use different soil samples (sandy soil, rocky soil, loamy soil, etc.) to grow beans in. We will observe the differences in growth by soil type. These can be returned any time next week.
