Cooperative Thinking Maps

Often in class when organizing our thinking an learning, we will create Thinking Maps.

Today we created Bubble Maps to describe Johnny Appleseed.

We talked about how important it is for us to work together successfully and that we will be practicing a lot this year!

Here are some pics from today:

Math Workshop!

During Math Workshop, we are practicing our math skills, but we are also working on other important skills like communication, collaboration, and problem solving.

Another thing we work on a lot in 2nd grade is explaining HOW we got our answer or solved the problem.

Here are some pictures from last week:

Exploring Maps

This week, we've been talking about maps, and today we got a chance to look at all different kinds of maps!

First, we watched a video all about map skills and created Circle Maps about maps! Ha, get it?

Then we partnered up and looked through atlases for maps that were interesting.

Then we got to share with the class.
We were VERY into maps today!
Think about looking at a map with your child at home and talking about the compass rose, the map key, the scale, and any other features included.

Daily 5 Update

Today we continued practicing Read to Self, but we also introduced and began practicing Read to Someone!

There are lots of things we must remember to do in order to help us build stamina during RtS:

-Pick a spot and get started quickly
-Read the whole time
-Use 3 inch voices
-Take turns reading & choosing books
-Check for Understanding every page or 2
-Sit EEKK! (Ask your kiddo to explain this to you!) :)

Here are some photos of us during Daily 5 today:

We got up to over 5 minutes in our first stamina challenge today!!

First Day of Daily 5!

Today we began our introduction of The Daily 5, which is a large part of our Language Arts block. Almost all of us remembered D5 from last year, so today was mostly for review and practice.

Today we talked about "Read to Self." We talked about what Read to Self looks like and sounds like, and some students volunteered to model correct and incorrect behaviors. We did a great job pointing out what they wrong and how we could fix it.

Last, we had our first "stamina challenge" where we tried to read to self for 3 straight minutes without losing focus or getting off task. First we only made it to 28 seconds! (Harder than it sounds!) But our 2nd try we made it to 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

Here are some of us during the stamina challenge.

Today we also began our CAFE program, in which we'll be learning and practicing strategies to help us become better readers. CAFE stands for:
-Comprehension (I understand what I read.)
-Accuracy (I can read the words.)
-Fluency (I can read accurately with expression.)
-Expand Vocabulary (I know, find, and use interesting words.)

The strategies we practiced today were:
-check for understanding (comprehension)
-cross checking (accuracy)
-back up and re-read (comprehension)

Ask your child to show you our hand motions for cross-checking!

Happy 4-day week! :)

Human Circle Maps

Last week was our first week in 2nd grade, and we had a blast!

One of the fun "getting to know you" activities we did was to create "human circle maps" to tell about ourselves.

It was fun for me to see who prefers drawing and who prefers to use words. I love how we are all so different and have different talents, interests, and things we're passionate about.

Here are some of our Thinking Maps.