I had thought that I’d leave the Book Club book reviews at the top of the blog for a bit and then add the weekly update.  I was all set to do that, got out the computer, sat down at the desk and noticed that the wireless connection was off.  I walked the computer closer to the hub, still no connection.  I looked over at the router…”oh…we have no power.”  That was Sunday, but today we do and sun shining through the snow-laden trees is just stunning.  Full Moon tonight – I hope everyone has the chance to see it wherever you are.  We’re going to try snowshoeing – I hope to get some great photographs.

Our week began with snowshoeing…

Morning Meeting Conversations

SEL – self-awareness, self-management and responsible decision-making

         Every day we begin with a morning meeting.  The week before a vacation is always tough.  I am hoping we’ll wrap things up and complete different projects and the children are excited about things to come.  We are definitely working from different vantage points.  It is not always the best time for focus and quality work.  Because of that we spent some time talking about learning, school learning and how to “demonstrate” learning by what you do and how you do it.  Here are some of the things your children wrote as a result of that conversation:

“Learning takes you on adventures.”

“Learning shows when you take time while you are working and make sure you do what you need to do.  You need to stay focused.”

“Learning is like a trophy.  You have do work for it and do it like you have to do it.”

“I want to learn all the things we are doing and understand them and get ready to learn new things too.  I think that’s a good goal; to care about school because when I care about things I do my best because they are special.”

“Learning means a lot to me.”

“I like learning because it is fun to learn.  You learn everyday.”

“If I didn’t learn then I would never get to do math clubs or enter a spelling bee.  And if I never did any of that my life would be miserable.”

“Without learning you wouldn’t know anything.”

“Learning is important to me because I am curious a lot and in school I learn some of the questions.”

“I try my best to stay focused but sometimes I get off track.”

“I care about learning because I want my head to be full, not empty.  My learning shows in my work.  I like learning because it is fun.”

“I don’t really care about learning.  I just want to have fun. “

“I love to learn.  It’s very fun like reading, writing, math and inquiry work.”

“Homework:  I have to do it right when I get home because then I can do stuff.  I have to be asked to put it in my log.”

“I pay attention and listen in all the classes.”

“Learning means to me:  spending time learning about something even if you’re not good at it so you at least know how to do it.”

I appreciate their honesty and their effort.  It is exciting to work with such a committed and motivated group of learners.  We do have fun together!

How Do Each of Us Go About Understanding?

            During February the children have been working to capture their inner voices and become more aware of what’s happening in their minds as they read and work to understand.  As a way to see if we were changing and growing the children were asked to try to write more extensive reading responses – “try a page” each day at the completion of our reading block.  The challenge of that was time and doing it consistently enough to have it move from a burden to a learning tool. (We have to keep trying with that.)  Another piece of this work has been to caption the chapters in our current chapter read aloud, George’s Secret Key to the Universe.  This has meant listening, perhaps sketching about the events in the chapters and then going to the read-aloud journal to write a sentence, a phrase and a word to capture the author’s main idea.  Still another piece of this work has occurred in club discussions and in whole class reading sessions.  This work often leads to questions to be dealt with in open forums or images to be shared with each other.  When everyone creates a picture of the same text it is really interesting to see what stands out for different learners or how they think about meaning.  We have been visualizing, questioning, synthesizing and rereading to learn more.

In addition to the work the children have been doing during the reading block they have also been working to use and develop those same habits for understanding during our writing and research block.  Each student is researching both a space topic and a topic of independent interest.  Space is such an unimaginable topic – it is so vast and so vibrant and new.  It is exciting to explore and dream and realize the endless possibilities open to the children.  It is sometime mind-blowing as we work to understand.

Fractions – part of a whole and part of a set

            We have been exploring fractions – though I have now been calling it that.  We have been talking about what would be fair.  We’ve been thinking – if this was something you loved more than anything else, would you be satisfied with the piece you received.  It is easy for the children do think of rectangles being cut into halves and quarters, but not so easy to think of thirds and sixths.  It is easy to consider cutting circles into pie pieces when there are even slices.  It is an interesting challenge where larger numbers represent smaller amounts.  Hmmmm…

 

 

 

 

 

…and ended with a music share

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you are all having a wonderful vacation – leave a comment if you have the chance.  The class will be very excited to know you have been checking out their work.

We have had some exciting and full weeks – playing original math games, celebrating the 100^th day of school, having the trust fall challenge with Mr. Caron, star gazing, Valentines’ Day, and meeting a new classmate, Sam Andreotolla, all integrated into our usual reading, writing, researching and problem solving.   Here are some details about some of our classroom work – hopefully your child can fill you in on the rest.

 

100^th Day Fun In Space

            For the 100^th day of school we explored the interesting things we knew about space.  Each person in our class thought of five different facts they had recently discovered about space.  The challenge was to try to think of ones no one else would think of as well.  The facts were illustrated, written on the back and cut out.  These space shapes were hung in the door in ten groups of ten – so we can walk through space when we enter and leave our classroom each day.

We have been learning a great deal about space – first the moon (thank you for your support in completing the moon log each night- the waxing crescent is easier to see in the early evening), then the stars and now more about the solar system and the process of discovery.  Space is an exciting topic because it is a science that is obviously growing and changing in our lifetimes.  The children can imagine themselves as the scientists to discover a planet or develop a new type of rocket or even to travel beyond the moon.

The children have chosen space research topics and have begun exploring resources to gather their facts.  As they get a little further along, it may be helpful to talk about what they are discovering.  Conversation may help them understand more fully and clarify what they are discovering – this information can be hard to grasp.  Space is huge and in many ways incomprehensible.  It is easy to misunderstand.

Focusing on Understanding

            We have been working to know when we are understanding.  We have had some great conversations about what is happening in our minds when we understand and comparing it to what is happening in our minds when we are not understanding.  We are working to go deeper by being aware of our inner voice – when we think a question we are trying to go beyond.  “If I wonder that, then what does that make me wonder…”  That said, we are also trying to be aware of times when we distract ourselves and get off track of the main meaning and so lose the point.

The children are keeping track of their understanding as we read George’s Secret Key to the Universe by Stephen and Lucy Hawking.  At the end of each chapter they are thinking about what they authors most want us to understand.  They are forming this into a sentence, then focusing even closer with a phrase and finally zooming in even closer with a word.

We have also been learning to guide our comprehension by understanding through empathy.  This comes naturally for some of the children.  They describe themselves as understanding when they are able to enter what they are reading to walk along side the characters and experience the story.   For others it is a stretch to take a different perspective and look at things through a different lens.  We have been exploring this by making quick sketches of what we imagine as we read or listen and we have explored extending stories to write the dialogue the characters might have if the next scene of the story happened.  I wonder if your child can tell you how they know they are understanding and how they are working to strengthen their strategies.

Book Clubs

Children have been part of book clubs for the past three of four weeks.  They have been reading together and thinking about what is happening as they read together.  It has been challenging to rich discussions when not everyone has met the reading deadline and we have learned that we need to work on that.  The children have appreciated having others to question and wonder with as they were reading.

Please be on the look out for book review posts on the blog (3enews@edublogs.org).  I know the children would really appreciate comments – it is gratifying to know your work has been noticed.

Thank you for all you do – from helping children create their math games, fitting in Star Gazing changes into your already busy lives, helping with Valentines and checking in every once in a while to see that they are actually taking responsibility for their homework.  Special thanks to Alison Duffy and Caroline Kelly – our Valentines’ breakfast for beautiful and delicious.

Bits and Pieces:

• Please look for the Art and Music Self Reflections/Report Cards in your child’s communication folder.
• We are planning a field trip to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, Thursday, March 14 – permission slip and details to follow

I hope you are all back in power after yesterday’s bluster.  It seems as though things are settling down here as I write this.  The moon is bright and shining now, but I wonder how many of the children will have the chance to see it.  Thank you for your help with this project.  The children really seem to enjoy noticing phases of the moon change and what and when the moon is in the sky.  It is fun to stop and notice more carefully.  I hope you enjoy the lab too – I know it was a surprising project for me when I first did it three years ago.

Moon Labs – Learning More about the Scientific Method

The Moon Observation Lab is the first to two different space labs that we will be doing during this unit of study.  Through them we hope to help the children learn about the different parts of a science lab.  In these two labs most of the parts – question, procedure, materials and observation data charts  – are set up for the children.  They are responsible for stating their hypothesis as clearly as possible, gathering the nightly data and writing their conclusion. (We’ll do that in the classroom after vacation – I am aware of that time glitch.  We’ll do the best we can.)

In the classroom next week we will be conducting a Crater Lab that will include all of the steps.  We will be adding that into the moon observation book as well.  Our hope is that this work now will help the children be more aware of the scientific method and the formality of science labs. They will be doing more and more of them as they progress through the grades.

Comprehension Strategies

We have continued working to notice and collect thinking as we read.  We have been visualizing and wondering.  We are working to deepen our understanding of what visualizing means – mind pictures and movies are only part of that strategy.  We are adding the notion of empathy and working to become more aware of our other sense as we read too.

We have been comparing our thinking and considering if there is a difference when we are working to understand fiction or nonfiction.  We learned that it is easier to remember facts and understand them if we can connect them to what we know or make a reference to something else.  For instance it was surprising and memorable to know that some craters on the moon as so large you could fit the entire city London in them.  We also learned that if we could drive a car to the moon, it would take four months to reach it.

The children have been working to keep track of thinking during read aloud.  They have also been noting their “inner voice” as they read independently.  When you read with your children you might want to share your thinking with them and see how it compares.  I am often surprised and delighted by how they think and how they put those ideas into words to share.  Thinking about thinking and reflecting to add to understanding is an interesting process.

Learning More About Research

Space and Personal Choice Topics

            Last week when the children came back to school after the museum, they were excited and ready to launch into the next round of research.  They knew their topics right away and were already thinking about how they would build their displays.  They reflected on their work and their research.  Many of the children felt they would like to have more information though they weren’t sure how that might happen.  Some of them knew that all they shared had not been completely accurate nor was it written in their own words based on their thoughtful understanding.  To help with this we are going to have weekly check-ins and write back and forth to each other.  Sometimes I will be writing to the children and they will be responding.  Other times they will be writing to each other.  We hope this will help with the research process and give the children more opportunity to think about and share what they are learning – and what they might want to find out – along the way.

On top of this independent research work, the children learned that we would also be researching space topics too.  We wondered if we could do two projects – would we be willing to put in the effort?  How would we want to present the work?  The children overwhelmingly want to do both projects and they would like to share their work in the museum format.  They really enjoyed sharing and being in the role of expert.  So we are going to give that a try – one museum in early March and another in April.

Bits and Pieces –

• We continue to work with multiplication and mastering basic facts.  We are working with measurement and fractions as we deal with the dimensions of space.  We are nearly finished with The Chronicles of Wildwood – we may even finish it today.  This is a trilogy.  The second, Under Wildwood, has been published.  If you read together as a family it would make a great read-aloud – though I don’t think it would fit well for younger children.  It is a fantasy and some of the “evil” side is just that, evil.
• Thank you so much for supporting our 100 Day collection.  We are definitely approaching goal and have many cans of beans.
• February 11 – Stargazing Night – Please save the night and hope for clear weather. Look for the details and information about telescope etiquette to share with your 3^rd grader so we’ll all have an exciting, rewarding evening.
• February 14 – We will begin our day with a Valentine’s Day Breakfast and share our cards with each other right as the day begins.