Halloween Celebration!Jog-a-Thon Fun, 2019!We have GROWTH MINDSETS!After watching Zootopia's "Try Everything" music video, we shared what we SAW and HEARD. These big ideas led us to delving deeper into our growth mindsets. We will post our encouraging thoughts in our classroom to remind us to keep a positive outlook all year long! Click each picture to ZOOM IN!
First Day FUN!Bemis Buddies Give Back!After earning and raising $900 for our donations to Caleb White's "Homeless Project," first and third grade buddy classes took a field trip to Walmart & Meijer. After our trip, students put together their donation bags and decorated cards to go with them! We put together 27 donation bags - what an accomplishment! Way to go, Wise Guys!
We have GROWTH MINDSETS!After watching Zootopia's "Try Everything" music video, we shared what we SAW and HEARD. These big ideas led us to delving deeper into our growth mindsets. We will post our encouraging thoughts in our classroom to remind us to keep a positive outlook all year long! Click each picture to ZOOM IN!
First Day of Third Grade 2018-2019 FUN!Last Day of School 2017-2018!Happy 100th Day of School!When We Are 100 Years Old!Holiday Party: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!Happy Halloween! BOO!First Day of 3rd Grade 2017-2018!Happy LAST DAY of 3rd Grade!!!!Happy 100th Day of School! Photo Booth Fun!Happy New Year, Wise Guys!Holiday Fun!Our Elf on the Shelf - JINGLES!Halloween Parade & Party!Jogathon 2016!Our New Class Family! Wise Guys, 2016-17Last Day of School FUN!!Field Day Celebrations!!!Open House Photo Booth!Our Third Grade Music Concert!Happy Holidays!Here are some of the fun things we enjoyed in the month of December!
-Our holiday owl plates -Holiday Breakfast fun! -Holiday Book Exchange -Our Holiday READ IN! -Gingerbread Houses with Buddies! -Holiday Cards from Pen Pals! -Mr. Whan's daughter Grace dancing at the Sing Along! Class Newspaper of Summaries!Check out our class newspaper, "The Fiction Times!" We each have been reading different books throughout our IDR time in reading. After finishing one of our texts, we had the opportunity to SUMMARIZE and STEP INSIDE a character. We also created a HEADLINE with the theme of the book. Please enjoy!
Halloween Fun!Checking for Understanding StrategiesWhat does a FLUENT reader do? Are these two readers FLUENT?Jog-a-thon Fun!Meet Our Buddy Class!This year we will be buddies with Mrs. Bauman's 2nd graders! The kids met their buddies last week and have been working on Visible Thinking routines to get to know each other. Ask your child about their new buddy!
Meet My Family, The Donovans!Check out the iMovie Trailer I showed our Wise Guys on the first day of school! It's so important for my students to get to know me. Creating a strong relationship with each child is what I strive to achieve each year! Enjoy!
Last Day Photo Booth!Field Day Fun!Happy Mother's Day to our wonderful moms!! 5/8Earth Day Study! 5/4Celebrating Open House - Photo Booth Time! 3/19Celebrating Dr. Seuss! 3/10Valentine's Day! I love you Mom & Dad because...Step Inside... When I am 100 years old!100th Day Photo Booth FUN! 2/6Our Martin Luther King Learning! 1/12-1/21Happy New Year! Check out our resolutions! 1/5Holiday Breakfast FUN! 12/22Our Elf on the Shelf, Lucky! 12/10We have been visited by an Elf on the Shelf in Room 11! We decided to name him Lucky, which he LOVED! He has been creating quite the mischief in our classroom throughout this past month... it has definitely made us think! Some of the ways we have made our thinking visible are through the following routines:
-See-Think-Wonder -3-2-1 (3 Words, 2 Questions, 1 Simile) -Tug of War -Step Inside -Claim, Support, Question -Color, Symbol, Image (C.S.I.) -I Used to Think... Now I Think We are so THANKFUL! 11/21Today we talked about things that we are thankful for as we get ready for Thanksgiving. It's a great time of year to remind ourselves about what is important to us and why. Please ask your child to show you their "Thankful Turkey" and explain what they are thankful for this year!
Publishing Party! Small Moment Stories 11/10-11/11
Character Study: Step Inside & Circle of Viewpoints 11/10Our second unit in reading is focused on character study. The students were paired into partnerships and picked their own characters to study. After choosing this character, they also decided on two different books (at their reading level) that include this character. Thus far, our wise guys have delved deeper into their main characters by stepping inside this character and communicating with their partners how this character might feel, think, see, and wonder. This helped our second graders to understand more about the main character and the problem in the book. After stepping inside the main character, our partners also dug deeper into the thinking and questions that secondary characters might have using the Circle of Viewpoints routine.
Mystery Reader: Miss Morgan! 10/30Let me tell you a little bit about our fabulous mystery reader, Miss Morgan! I can't believe she came all the way out to our classroom today. She lives in Ypsilanti, which is quite far from us in Troy! She had the day off of school and decided she wanted to come visit our class to read to the students. Morgan was in my VERY first second grade class when she was 7 years old! Now she has grown up so much and is in 6th grade! I am so proud of the young lady she has grown up to be and it was awesome that she wanted to meet our current second graders! Her fantastic mom Christina also came to visit and brought the kids some wonderful treats. We were so lucky to have such amazing visitors! THANK YOU!
Extending our MATH Thinking! 10/29We have been working really hard at extending our thinking in math! Instead of only looking for the "right answer," it's important to think about our work and WHY we chose the strategy we did, or HOW we got to an answer. We have extended our thinking beyond the right answer by creating a SEE-THINK-WONDER for hundreds, tens, and ones as well as a 4C's routine to help our Puzzled Penguin! Check them out and ask your child about what we did in class!
The 4C's Thinking Routine 10/17Over the last couple weeks, the students have been introduced to a new thinking routine known as the 4C's. The 4C's stands for: Connections, Challenge, Concepts, and Changes. The purpose of this routine is to provide students with a structure that is built for communication and discussion based around these 4C's. The questions being asked can depend on what topic/subject area/book we are using with the routine. First I modeled the routine with the book, Big Al. Then we read the book Amazing Grace and the students tried it out! I split students into four groups, with each group assigned to one of the 4C's. Each student had a sticky note and was able to share their ideas through silent discussion that day. The following day, we revisited the sticky notes and talked about what we noticed from the text. Then students had the opportunity to share all 4C's for the book Amazing Grace on their graphic organizer.
Nino Salvaggio Field Trip 10/15After our field trip to Nino Salvaggio International Marketplace, the kids worked on a silent Chalk Talk to discuss their thoughts. Then we worked on the 4C's to share connections, challenges, concepts, and changes. Ask your child about what they came up with today! Check out our field trip photos below!
Who is Christopher Columbus? 10/13Throughout the last week we have studied and read about Christopher Columbus and why he is important in American history. We began our study with a Scholastic article about the Santa Maria possibly being found in present day by an explorer. We asked the students to share their wonderings about Christopher Columbus after reading this article. Then we also read a book about Columbus and as a class shared what we saw, thought, and wondered through our "See-Think-Wonder" routine. Later in the week, the students shared connections they could make to Columbus, the challenges he faced, what the concepts/big ideas from his life were, and the changes that occurred throughout his life. We worked on this through the 4C's routine as a group with the book, Young Christopher Columbus. Finally, the students had the opportunity to STEP INSIDE Columbus today and really become this historical figure. The students shared what they saw, thought, felt, and wondered while stepping inside this character. Check out all the fun pictures we captured of our journey discovering Columbus!
Jog-a-thon 2014! 10/9Step Inside Sheila Rae the BraveOur students listened to the story, Sheila Rae the Brave. In order to consider a character’s perspective, the students stepped inside the role of Sheila Rae. Students shared how they felt, what they saw and thought, and what the next steps might be as Sheila Rae. Check out our deep thinking and STEP INSIDE!
Air Under Water ExperimentAsk your child about our "Air Under Water" experiment that we did this week outside our classroom! Ask what the SAW, what it made them THINK, and what they WONDER about air and water.
CIRCLE of VIEWPOINTS! Student Thinking . . .CIRCLE of VIEWPOINTS! ModelingOn Friday, we worked on a new strategy called, "Circle of Viewpoints." This routine allows students to engage multiple types of thinking such as analysis, inference, and synthesis to determine what the viewpoint might be. In order for the students to understand the strategy, I modeled the routine with the book, Terrific by John Agee. The prompts I modeled for this routine are the following:
Introduction to Air: 3-2-1 BridgeToday we began our science unit on Air & Weather. Our unit begins with discussing air. In order to uncover our students prior knowledge at the beginning of this unit of science we began with our 3-2-1 bridge. This routine asks the students to provide:
3 Words 2 Questions 1 Simile We will also complete another 3-2-1 at the end of the unit to see how the students' thinking and learning have moved in new directions. The Little White Owl HeadlinesSecond graders listened to the story, The Little White Owl. In order to summarize and find the heart of the story, students created their own “headlines” for the book. With their shoulder buddies, students were able to confer and decide upon a headline that summed up our book.
Think, Puzzle, Explore: CommunitiesStepping Inside Stand Tall, Molly Lou MelonOur students listened to the story, Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon. In order to consider a character’s perspective, the students stepped inside the role of Molly Lou. Students shared how they felt, what they saw and thought, and what the next steps might be as Molly Lou. Check out our deep thinking and STEP INSIDE!
Compass Points: How do we feel about 2nd grade?
Back to School CHALK TALK!Starting school in a new classroom is exciting and scary! As a class, it is important that we understand one another's needs in learning and cooperation. Our students did a wonderful job sharing these needs with one another in our first class Chalk Talk. The questions on each poster were:
After our students completed the chalk talk, the following day the students were assigned to one poster and connected the ideas to find the BIG IDEAS. After identifying these big ideas, each group presented to our class. It was wonderful to see the kids work collaboratively in our first week! Way to go! Character HEADLINES!The "Headlines" routine we worked on recently was used to synthesize learning. With this activity, students used their reader's workshop books and chose a character of interest from their text. I modeled with one of our class books, Amelia Bedelia Bakes Off to create a headline for Amelia. The idea is that each headline reflects the character chosen with either their character traits or shows what students learned about this character. Check out our students' characters below!
STEP INSIDE Chrysanthemum!Today we worked as a class to "step inside" the character of Chrysanthemum. The students thought about what Chrysanthemum saw, felt, imagined, and any questions she may have had. Students spoke in first person saying things like, "I wonder why they don't like my name?" and "I think I want a new name." This thinking routine greatly allowed the students to delve deeper into their thinking and experience with character traits. We had SO much fun with this activity today! The students were allowed to get their own perspective on how the character felt and thought. It is important to see things from the points of view of others. After the book, students talked about themselves (aka Chrysanthemum) and developed deeper thinking and understanding.
EMU Student Visitors!This week students from Eastern Michigan University visited our classroom. They presented lessons to the students on various science topics. Ask your child to explain what they did in their group today and what they learned from their session! As I circulated the classroom, it was wonderful to see the intentional conversation and learning occurring. What a wonderful visit from future teachers!
Character Traits in Reader's WorkshopThis week in reader's workshop we are focusing on identifying character traits using evidence from our texts. We look over how to analyze our characters through noting what he/she does or says in our text. Our students began reviewing character traits through identifying adjectives that describe themselves. Not only are students describing their inner selves, but also providing EVIDENCE for how they know they display their chosen traits. It's all about being character trait DETECTIVES! We ask students, "What makes you say that?" and "How do you know?"
Formal & Informal LanguageToday we worked in partners to sort informal and formal language sentences. They did a fantastic job working together and discussing why a sentence should or should not fit into each category. One of my favorite parts about today is that our students really THOUGHT about why a sentence was formal or informal and defended their thinking with reasoning. Multiple times we decided that a sentence could go either way! Ask your child tonight, "When would you use contractions in your language? Would this be formal or informal language?" Then ask, "Can you give me an example?" As the conversation progresses, have your child think-pair-and share with you or a sibling to develop three formal language sentences. Have your child tell you WHEN and WHY they need to use formal language.
Donors Choose Hooooray!Recently our Donors Choose project, "Teaching Through Technology" was fully funded! Our second graders are extremely excited to have our new class iPad! We have already created an "iPad Rotation List," where students have the opportunity to access the technology and work with their Making Meaning partners on a schedule. In addition to our schedule, we are also using quite a few applications during our reader's workshop guided reading time. Some of our favorite apps to use in building reading fluency are "Quick Voice" and the video application. Our kids have had a great time audio and video recording their voices to work on building character voices, using a storyteller's voice, and matching their voices to the mood of the text. We are looking forward to exploring more with our new technology! #WiseGuyTechWizards #TechnologyRocks!
Hoot, Hoot, Hooray for BOOK BAGS!Our Donors Choose project, "Growing Guided Readers" was recently fully funded! With this project, we received eight packages with 20 books in each level. Students now have a "Book Bag" that they take home each week with a new book at their just right level. Students check out the book like they would in a library and place their library cards behind their pictures in the pocket chart. The kids recently wrote their "thank you" notes to the donors. It was really fun to read what their favorite things are about our new books and how the books are helping them become better readers! How great that our second graders are aware of their learning process!
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