2H Class Blog!: Jan. 7th News

HAPPY NEW YEAR! How nice it was to be back together as a class. It sounds like everyone had a great holiday vacation week. Although it was a short week (made shorter by the snow!), everyone did a great job transitioning back into the demands of the classroom. We had a productive, hardworking couple of days!

Before the holiday break we said "goodbye" to our friend, Mikey. We wish him all the best at his new school. Stay in touch!

Highlights from our week...

*New Year: Without a doubt I can say we all started 2018 on the right foot! We thought about being our best selves and had a lot of great discussions about our resolutions. Each Owl was challenged to select one learning resolution they have for the new year, and two ways in which they were going to work towards their goal. Check out some examples below and be sure to ask your child the learning resolution they made.

As many of the Owls started their New Year with a toast, we also decided to make our own "New Year's Toasts". Thinking of others, each student needed to choose one person and one wish for them. Our "toasts" will be on display next week!

*Math: After a quick review of the traditional algorithm for addition (everyone is doing SUCH a great job with this!!), we made the trickier switch to subtraction. While we have explored subtracting large numbers using base-10 blocks and a number line, we will spend the next week working on the traditional method. To get us ready, we watched a BrainpopJr. video on subtraction with regrouping and then worked on a poem to help us remember when we need to regroup. Have your child act out the poem!

We finished out our week, by sorting various problems. It is important that students can identify when they need to regroup, and when they do not, before we begin solving.

Everyone is eager to begin tackling these tricky problems!

*Reader's Workshop: Coming off of our character unit, we spent the week revisiting good reading habits. Each student was challenged to recognize what they are already doing really well as reader---and there are really SO many things they are doing really well! This work will lead into goal setting before we begin our next unit of study: Bigger Books Means Amping Up Reading Power!

*Science: It was another exciting week of science here in 2H! Picking up where we left off before the break, the Owls dove right back into our states of matter unit. This week we learned and explored some new science vocabulary. First we discussed atoms and molecules. Each scientist created a visual representation of what the atoms look like in solids, liquids, and gases.

Later in the week, we learned about insulating and conducting materials. In our experiment, they created "mittens" out of foil, socks, and Styrofoam cups. Using each mitten, they had to close their eyes and see if they could feel the difference in temperature between two water bottles. If they couldn't, then the material had insulating properties. As always, it was a blast!

*5th Grade Buddies: As we have nearly reached our midway point in our school year, Mrs. Loh and I decided it was time to take our buddy time up a notch. On Friday, we participated in our very first STEM BIN challenge. Each buddy pair chose a bin containing one building material and were then challenged to build a SNOWMAN. They could ONLY use the material in the bin and had only 15 minutes to build. Mrs. Loh and I were SO impressed with the creativity, thinking, and teamwork that went into this challenge. We can't wait to participate in more challenges!