2H Class Blog!: Oct. 8th News

Happy Columbus Day Weekend!

Highlights from our week:

*Global Read Aloud (GRA): Joining over 2 MILLION students worldwide, our Owl Class was super excited to begin the 2017 Global Read Aloud! This year's GRA Author is Mem Fox. Our connection this week was with the second grade students of Ellendale Elementary School in Alexander County, North Carolina! We had SO much fun "meeting" them this week over Skype! On the first day, we participated in a shared read aloud of our first Mem Fox story, Koala Lou (the Owls were particularly mesmerized by hearing their teacher's southern accent!) Later in the week, after sending them our slideshow, we asked and answered questions about each of our schools. What a great experience! It's safe to say that the Global Read Aloud is off to a fantastic start!

*Breakout Box: Our Global Read Aloud work took us on a VERY exciting adventure this week! Breakout Boxes are designed to teach critical thinking, teamwork, and problem solving. The puzzle we were challenged to solve involved our GRA Author: Mem Fox! Students had to work together to solve a series of puzzles in order to unlock a series of locks to uncover what was hidden in the mysterious box The catch? They only had 45 minutes! Would they be successful? We truly didn't know!! I was extremely impressed with the perseverance and determination displayed by the Owl Class! It was truly magical watching them problem solve and celebrate as they reached success!! We look forward to trying additional Breakout Boxes in the future!

*Word Study: We've completed our first unit in Words Their Way! Units run in two-week cycles. On the first day of the cycle, the sort is introduced. Students explore and analyze the words to discover patterns and consistencies and to establish rules. The first week of the unit is done completely in class to build independence. The second week of our cycle is when you see the word sort coming home. Practice will now happen in both the classroom and at home. A huge thank you for all of your help with this practice---the students felt confident during their first "spelling review"! On these reviews, students will be given five words chosen randomly from their sort list, as well as three "challenge" words. These "challenge" words, are not from their sort, but do follow the same pattern. The purpose for Friday's review is to determine if students have mastered the spelling pattern and are ready for a new pattern, or if they need some more practice with the current pattern. I will share their spelling review booklets with you at parent conferences.

In addition to the activities associated with our word sorts, our word study time is also spent on grammar concepts. While introducing the parts of speech, students had a great time creating jack-o-lanterns representing different adjectives!! Take a look at their clever creations!

*Fall Leaf Project: Information about a fall leaf project will be coming home next week. Students will be asked to gather 20-30 dried leaves to bring into school. While the leaves are not due for a couple of weeks, it's a good idea to start keeping an eye out for interesting, unique, bright, or bold leaves as they start to fall.

*Writing: In addition to drafting our Crazy Creature stories for the Young Authors' Contest, each Owl has been hard at work working on additional pieces. As writer's workshop pros, they know that during each writing time, they can either add to their words, add to their pictures, or start a new piece. As the starting can often be a struggle for students, we've been working on ways to collect ideas for new pieces. Each writer was given a special tool this week (courtesy of the Fitzgerald family!) to store all their marvelous ideas: a tiny topic notebook! These writers have been busily filling these notebooks, taking them to recess, home, or anywhere an idea might strike them!

*Science: We began our latest science unit this week: Processes that Shape the Earth! To launch this earth science unit, we began by creating mountain models. Using Mystery Science as our guide, students set out to discover, "If you floated down a river, where would you end up?" We studied maps to see where all major rivers start and end, looking for patterns, and our brainy scientists uncovered that all rivers start up in the mountains, and eventually, end in oceans. While building the mountains was fun, the real excitement came when we simulated rainfall and got to watch our rivers flow down the mountain!