It seems impossible that we’ve already completed our first month together, but we have. This week we explored how feelings affect actions and how actions affect learning. We’re developing the idea of personal weather reports to describe our inner moods and therefore our readiness for learning. We’ve continued learning about multiplication in both the set and array model. We’re beginning our first research project. We set up our individual blogs. We’re doing lots. It is fun to be together.

The River Runner Challenge – Deepening Relationships

On Tuesday we joined Mr. Caron outside on the nature trail for a group learning experience. The class was able to challenge themselves in a physical way: could they cross over sections of swaying logs, pass around a tree and continue to the other end? Once that challenge was met, a cooperative element was added: could we divide the class in half and begin from either side, meeting in the middle, passing and reaching the opposite end? Of course all this had to happen without anyone falling off. That meant lots of talking, patience and encouragement. Once that challenge was met, an element of trust was added: could we cross the logs with eyes closed? And finally could we cross from either end in a blind challenge? The children were encouraged to open their eyes whenever they needed to feel safe and sure.

As an observer, I watched children try something they weren’t sure they could do. I saw them choose to give it a try. I saw them trust one another. I saw and heard great care for each other. One student took the role of coach, waiting until the end to cross himself, to support his classmates when they reached the tree so no one would blindly run into the tree and get hurt. There were encouragements, compliments and kind words spoken throughout the challenge. There was pride in work well done and happiness over the accomplishments of the whole group.   It took focus, determination and teamwork to meet all three levels of the challenge. 3E is definitely coming together as a kind and strong learning community.

Understanding Multiplication and Arrays

We began the year learning about multiplication. We have been exploring it through repeated addition. Most of the children understand how multiplication represents repeated grouping. When they select their problems each day, they are more independently able to understand the math story, represent it with an equation and solve it efficiently.

This week we learned about the commutative property – turn around facts, as they call them. If one student has six plates with two cookies each and another student has two plates with six cookies each, they both have the same amount of cookies and that means if we know the multiples of 2 we also know some of the multiples of six. We are trying to help the children develop strategies for knowing these facts, just as they learned strategies for addition and subtraction facts last year.

Blogging

This week Mrs. Wyman came into our classroom and helped us set up our personal blogs. We chose background colors, and title colors. We added a cluster map so each student can see how many people have viewed his or her site, along with where they were when they viewed it. We hope you will begin reading and commenting on our blogs (3enews.edublogs.org). It is pretty exciting and we are looking forward to building this part of our writing curriculum.

Our first post is a copy of our paper blogs. For that each student chose something important to him or her – an interest, a passion, a favorite memory or activity. Each student wrote about it and created an illustration to go with it. We used these to practice our commenting skills with post-its. We know a comment is positive and specific, makes a connection, shares information and asks a question to get a little conversation going.

Next we are looking forward to creating book commercials and math riddles. If you find time to read the blogs, please leave comments. The kids will be thrilled.

Bits and Pieces –

• We are working to complete our James and the Giant Peach project. Our peach is put together and up. Our figures are ready to be placed on the peach as well. The last part is making origami seagulls and surrounding the peach with our favorite parts.
• We began reading The Trumpet of the Swan. Louis has just begun school in Montana while his family is at the Red Rock Lake Wildlife refuge.
• We have chosen insects to research and decided upon the areas we will attempt to discover about our insects. This is a look at a small being in a micro-habitat.
• We are beginning to explore elaboration strategies with writing. We are learning to develop our stories through detail, action, dialogue and inner feelings.
• We are developing our abilities to use questioning as a way to deepen our understanding when we read.