This morning, I pulled a small first grade reading group. We started reading Two Bad Ants by Chris van Allsburg. It is a great book for teaching students how to make inferences. There was a lot of giggling about how silly these ants are and the trouble in which they keep finding themselves. All of my K/1 groups tend to be fluid as students make so much progress during this time. Students are generally not formally identified until the end of first grade so keep in mind that coming to me in K/1 is not a guarantee of an identification and not being pulled in K/1 does not preclude an identification.
Fourth grade math moved onto a visualizing numbers activity. We worked on this briefly last year, but this year it’s just a little harder. Tomorrow I’ll be dropping a copy of the visual they’re using into Seesaw, if you’d like to see it. Students must determine different patterns in the numbers. This allows them to see numbers as being flexible – the ability to decompose numbers into smaller parts makes multiplying and dividing easier and more importantly – allows them to see those number parts when it comes to the hardest of all the fourth grade topics – fractions!
The focus for third grade social studies this year is ancient civilizations. They will study ancient Greece, Rome, China, Egypt and Mali. While a good chunk of our year will be spent on nonfiction research related to those topics, we start by first exploring some fiction that will help them gain an understanding of other cultures. Students were given a choice as to which Cinderella story to read. Choices included the following versions: Greek, Islamic, Chinese, and Egyptian. On the off-chance you’re not convinced that representation matters, the best part of my day was when one student was able to read (and translate) some of the Arabic words in the Islamic version of the story. To see the look on his face as he could do what no one else could do was honestly the best part of my day!
Second grade math has transitioned from algebra into geometry. They used pipe cleaners and straws to build several 2D figures. Today they’ll finish up that assignment and, if time permits, move on to building 3D figures. They’ll be asked to compare the attributes of each type of feature while building academic vocabulary around the concept of geometry. I started the study by breaking the word geometry down into its parts – geo meaning Earth and metr meaning measure.
Though they probably wish otherwise, second grade had a double Espo dose yesterday. During their reading block, they continued to write about who they are. This is turning out to be more difficult than they anticipated, which is always good for me. We will be doing a lot of writing as a way of studying story elements. Students who can write about the different parts of a story are far more likely to be able to understand their impact on the story.