Light Posters

/

This week during writers' workshop we finished up our persuasive pieces about the best season. Students worked in randomly selected partnerships to edit each other's paper; checking for legibility and proper conventions. Students learned how to write conclusion sentences to connect their ideas and wrap up their papers. Then students had an opportunity to share their pieces with the class using a document camera. During these presentations students practiced using clear, confident speaking voices. We've been learning how to use tally marks to keep score in games, such as Qwirkle, and when taking surveys. We used tally marks to record the results for favorite seasons as students presented their papers. Of the 19 students who shared so far, summer got 7 votes for being the favorite season while each of the other seasons got 4 votes. Each day this week we've played "Which One Doesn't Belong" during our morning meeting. For this activity students are shown four boxes, each with different mathematical numbers, shapes, diagrams, dice, etc. Students must develop an argument for each box about why it doesn't belong (or what sets it apart from the rest). Throughout these discussions students brought up concepts of multiplication, division, even/odd numbers, addition, patterns, characteristics of shapes, and more. This week we also learned how to play Set. This visual perception game encourages students to utilize a wide variety of cognitive skills. You can read more about the benefits of playing Set here. During morning meeting today we worked together to solve the daily digital set challenge. We also started a new read aloud this week called Ribsy by Beverly Cleary. During outside choice time several students have been using our playground balls and sticks to play a version of Quidditch. Much negotiation and problem solving took place as students hammered out the rules and the teams for these games. This week students also worked individually or in partnerships to design posters demonstrating a concept about light. The posters needed to include an interesting illustration, legible words, and at least one of our light vocabulary words: opaque, transparent, translucent, reflect, refract, energy, waves, photos, and absorb. This afternoon students shared their posters with the class. Again students practiced using clear, confident voices while presenting their light concepts.

Students took great care to include legible words, compelling illustrations, and scientific explanations as they created their posters. You can admire their posters here:

Light and Shadows

/

We were thrilled to discover that the date every day this week was a number palindrome. On Twosday Tuesday (2-22-22), Ms. Ren visited our classroom to lead us in a mathematical exploration of palindromes. We just scratched the surface of this rich, intriguing exploration. We were playing around with the idea that every number on our hundreds chart could become a palindrome after some number of steps. I've included the link above in case you want to continue the exploration with your young mathematician at home. This week during content time we learned about the visible light spectrum and how white light is made up of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. We used prisms to separate white light into these seven colors, which appeared as rainbows in our outdoor classroom. We began to research how our eyes see color. We learned that light passes through our corneas and pupils to enter our eyes. At the back of the eye, the retina has two structures that help us see: rods and cones. The cones help us see color. Today we explored how our shadows change throughout the day. We noticed that in the morning our shadows were very long. Midday our shadows were shorter and in a different location. We discussed many possible explanations for this. Ultimately we discovered that as the source of light moves, so does the location of our shadows. When the light source (the sun in this case) is lower to the ground, shadows are longer. When the sun is more directly overhead, shadows are shorter. The location of shadows change as the sun’s location in the sky changes. This week we also celebrated Ava's birthday, solidified our understanding of Qwirkle, and continued our Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing read aloud. In addition, we started our persuasive writing unit and took a trip to the library. Students began organizing their ideas for their first persuasive writing piece about the best season. In our outdoor classroom we were thrilled to discover that our pond froze and we got to play with fragment of ice. We also discovered earthworms emerging from underground this week. Several students teamed up to choreograph a dance for Ms. Ren’s birthday today. It was quite a fun-filled week!

Trout Release

/

Yesterday we went on a field trip to Hagg Lake to release our rainbow trout fry. The weather was gorgeous and our young scientists were eager to explore. Prior to leaving on our field expedition, Mark taught us a lesson about Salmonidae. We learned that the scientific name for rainbow trout is Oncorhynchus mykiss. We learned that the anadromous form of this species is the steelhead. It was fascinating to students that rainbow trout and steelhead are different ecotypes of the same species. While rainbow trout will spend most or all of their lives in freshwater, steelhead will spend a portion of their lives in the ocean before returning to rivers to spawn. Students were excited to ride the bus to nearby Hagg Lake for our release. After releasing the trout in Scoggins Creek, we broke into small groups to explore the area. Students practiced exploring in an environmentally sensitive manner as they examined and observed a variety of native plants and animals. We came back together for a group hike in Bobcat Cove that led us out to a fishing pier. The pier gave us an excellent view of the lake and surrounding forest. On our hike we observed a garter snake and a red-tailed hawk. We heard several other birds in the forest too. After our hike we enjoyed a picnic lunch and some frolicking alongside the lake before returning to school. 

Valentine's Day and Sea Lion Play

/

This week we continued our exploration of light. We used flashlights to determine whether objects were transparent, translucent or opaque. We figured out that many objects have shadows caused by light being blocked. We played and experimented to determine how to make shadows appear larger, smaller, and in different places.We examined the differences in shadows created by opaque, translucent, and transparent objects. We read an interactive ebook published by the National Science Teaching Association called The Amazing Light Show. This week in writers' workshop we've been working on letter writing. We've learned how to write a greeting, the body of a letter, and a closing. Students have been paying careful attention to their writing conventions and penmanship. Their hard work is paying off and I've noticed huge improvements in student writing. We wrote goodbye letters to our trout and birthday letters to Sebastian and Laurence. This week we also had a Valentine's Day party and got to see the Sea Lion play called The Three Bears and Goldilocks.

Light Explorations

/

This week we launched our exploration of light. We've been reading books, watching video clips, and doing science demonstrations to learn more about light and the ways in which light travels. We were excited to learn that light is the fastest thing in our universe. We've been discussing forms of natural and artificial light. We learned that light waves travel in straight lines until they change substances or interact with a material that causes the light to change direction. We've been learning some scientific vocabulary: photons, opaque, transparent, translucent, reflect, refract, waves. Many reading groups have been reading texts related to rainbows, light, and Thomas Edison. We did a coin trick and a pencil in water demonstration as we explored refraction. This week students worked on finishing stories and creating valentines for friends and family members. Several authors shared their stories at morning meetings. Professor Martha Almendarez Langland joined us as a guest speaker to teach us about El Salvador's flag. We learned what the colors and symbols on the flag represent. She also shared her experience of immigrating to the United States when she was a child. In our outdoor explorations we examined coneflower seeds from our pollinator garden under the microscope and will be planting them tomorrow. We also discovered several insects and spiders in our outdoor classroom this week. Student engineers also created a new obstacle course for us this week and Ms. Ren taught us some new outside games. This week several students learned how to play the board game Qwirkle during our small math groups. Friday afternoon we had a picnic outside and listened to several stories read aloud by Ms. Aja. We finished our Mrs. Piggle Wiggle read aloud this week too.

Obstacle Courses

/

This week several student authors published new stories and shared them with the class. Some of the stories were fantasy while others were nonfiction or personal narratives. Sea Lion tutors have been visiting our classroom to help with editing and publishing. This week we've been having daily class meetings with the Sea Lions to discuss important social emotional and executive functioning strategies. Specifically we've been discussing what leadership looks and sounds like. We've discussed how to be a role model in the hallway. We've brainstormed ways to enter play with classmates in a way that is productive and effective. Together we discovered that an excellent way to enter a group already playing is to observe first to determine some of the rules and customs of the game, and then ask to play second. We acted out different scenarios to practice these skills. We discovered that observing, then asking to play, is much more effective than simply jumping into the game and disrupting the flow. We also discussed what it feels like to be excluded from an activity. We brainstormed ways to help each other feel included. Together Otters and Sea Lions constructed obstacle courses in the outdoor classroom. We celebrated Miles' birthday and did an informal pre-assessment to ascertain what knowledge students already have about the properties of light and sound. On board game Friday we played a variety of board games including Kingdomino, Sum Swamp, Chess, Mancala, Robot Turtles, and Knock Out. Students are becoming increasingly proficient at using multiplication and addition to determine the worth of their territories in Kingdomino. We continued to watch the construction progress and sidewalk demolition around Berglund. Student engineers created some amazing Rigamajig structures and we did some shape brainteasers that involved cutting squares into fourths that were equal in size but not shape. 

Authors' Celebration

/

The weeks are flying by! In writer's workshop we've been discussing writing conventions. Students are becoming quite proficient at catching the intentional errors in our morning message. Last week students had the chance to meet individually with a teacher to look for errors in their own salmon books. They fixed "sneaky capitals", made sure their sentences began with a capital letter, checked for ending punctuation, and made sure grade-appropriate words were spelled correctly. Yesterday we had a lovely authors’ celebration where student authors shared their books and received compliments from peers! Last week in math we continued our group exploration of geometry and fractions. We created three dimensional shapes and examined various world flags to determine whether each flag design was composed of halves, thirds, fourths, or other equivalent fractions. Mathematicians had to cut, fold, or mark up the paper flags to prove their case and make their argument in front of the class. Some of our small math groups are also working on measurement concepts. Last week we wrapped up our mini unit on civil rights as well. Over the last couple weeks we learned about the bill of rights and talked about what rights people have. We talked a little about the founding of our country and which groups of people were not granted the same rights when our country was founded. We talked about amendments that granted rights to certain groups of people (specifically amendment 13 and 19 came up in our conversations). We read about inspirational leaders such as Martin Luther King, Malala Yousafzai, Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, Ruby Bridges, and others who had the courage to fight for the rights of themselves and others. We greatly enjoyed the sunshine and multiple picnics outside last week. We even got to watch an excavator demolishing the sidewalk near our outdoor classroom and we took a trip to the library. In our outdoor classroom we have been filling our bird feeders with bird seed each week. It’s be fun to observe different bird species visiting the feeder. 

Civil Rights Unit and Trout Eggs

/

This week we got to celebrate Audrey's birthday! We wrote her birthday letters, admired her baby photos, and enjoyed a hot cocoa celebration. We loved our sunny outdoor explorations and tree climbing this week too. In writer's workshop we continued our nonfiction salmon writing. Today we wrote our About the Author pages. This week we started a mini unit about civil rights and change makers. We began learning about the Bill of Rights and other amendments to the constitution. We started discussing what makes a strong leader. Yesterday we read about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and discussed what characteristics made her a good leader. This week we also received our trout eggs. The eggs are tiny compared to our salmon eggs and they've already started hatching! In math we've been composing and decomposing shapes. We've been exploring foundational geometry concepts and have challenged our brains with tangram puzzles.  Several students also learned how to play Kingdomino. This board game requires strategic planning. At the end of the game students use multiplication and addition to figure out their final score. Each reading group started reading a new book this week. Ask your child what he/she has been reading. This afternoon we made welcome signs for Ms. Tami and talked about how it might feel to be a guest teacher. We discussed ways we can be helpful and kind leaders when we have a guest teacher.

Collaborative Cardboard City

/

This week we continued working on our salmon books. We wrote about adult salmon in the ocean, salmon migration upstream, and about salmon predators. I've been impressed with the growth I've seen in student writing since we've started this nonfiction writing unit. After next week our salmon books should be ready to share! We’ve also been learning about Japanese gyotaku art. We used maps and a globe to find out about Japan and we admired some different types of Japanese art. During project time we started making our own gyotaku art using a rubber replica of a Chinook salmon. In numeracy this week we’ve been discussing three dimensional shapes and architecture design. We decided to create a 3D cardboard city. We took a walk around campus to study the design of various buildings. Then we worked individually, in partners, or in teams to design the structures for our city. Students are combining multiple three dimensional shapes to create their structures and are adding several artistic details as well. Much discussion, problem-solving, and collaboration is taking place as students decide what they want their buildings and our collaborative city to look like. During project time student engineers have also been exploring with other building materials such as geometric blocks, Widgets, and Rigamajig materials.

Salmon Release

/

While we were away on winter break Mark was kind enough to care for our salmon and keep a close eye on their development. It became apparent that the salmon were developing more rapidly than we expected. Because of this, we moved our salmon release date up by a week. Even on extremely short notice, 12 Otter families were able to join us at Rood Bridge for a  salmon release. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, or company, as we bid our salmon fry farewell. We wish them a safe journey to the Pacific Ocean. 

Winter Read In

/

Today was our winter read in. It was a joyful pajama day filled with reading, building, playing, and cozy togetherness. We prepared a basket of our cranberry orange scones for the rest of the classes in the ELC and we enjoyed trying gingerbread, cornbread, and pumpkin muffins made by the other classes. Yesterday we delivered canned foods to Boxer Food Share and visited the public library. We also got to watch the Whale play and admire our ELC quilt all put together. Today we were excited to receive the word clouds created by classmates and teachers. Each student received a word cloud to take home and another to hang on our classroom door. What a pleasure it is to spend our days laughing and learning together. Have a wonderful winter break and we will see you in the new year.

Salmon and Tessellation Explorations

/

This week we added vegetation and alevin to our salmon mural. We wrote about the fry stage of development in our salmon books and started researching the smolt stage. Yesterday we wrote get well cards to an ELC community member. During our morning meetings this week we made plans for a read-in next Friday and started working on word cloud gifts for classmates. We continued collecting canned food and we read a story called Maddi's Fridge about a young girl who struggles with food scarcity. We learned how to play Mancala this week and continued talking about tessellations. We watched segments of the following videos about tessellations: Geometric Transformation Song, Tessellations in Nature, and Pixar the Math Behind the Movie. Today we talked about International Human Rights day and about what type of world we all want to live in. This led to an interesting discussion about how many countries are in the world, how many countries are part of the UN, how long it would take to drive from Texas to Alaska and all sorts of other interesting questions. We used the internet, books, and Google Earth app to answer some of our questions.

Tree Climbing and Salmon Photos

/

More photos from Mr. Mark of our tree climbing adventures last week and the arrival of our salmon eggs in November.

Our Salmon Eggs Hatched!

/

Our salmon eggs began hatching the Monday before Thanksgiving break. By the time we returned from Thanksgiving break, all of the eggs had hatched! Mark set up an iPad to take time lapse photos throughout the break and we were excited to watch the time lapse video upon our return. The salmon are now in the alevin stage of development. At the alevin stage they have yolk sacs attached to their bodies, which provide all the nutrients they need. It was amazing to watch them wiggle their tails to emerge from the egg. After hatching, the fish were quite exhausted and needed to rest. This week we've been observing them swimming around the tank with their bright orange egg sacs still attached. We've been reading books about salmon and learning how to take research notes. We discussed how note taking is different from writing full sentences. After taking notes and compiling research, students have been writing pages for their salmon books. So far they've written about the egg stage, alevin stage, and fry stage. We have also been working on creating a salmon mural in our classroom. We've added the blue river water, dozens of pebbles at the bottom of the river, and salmon eggs in the gravel. In addition, we've been reading books written by indigneous authors. During our whole group numeracy block we've been working on salmon calculations, taking inventory of canned foods, learning about tessellations with Ms. Ren, and increasing our number fluency through playing Yahtzee. We did our first can food delivery before Thanksgiving break. We will be doing another delivery on December 17th. In our outdoor explorations this week we learned about the Thuja plicata, otherwise known as the western red cedar, that is growing in our outdoor classroom. We were surprised to learn that the western red cedar is not a true cedar in the genus Cedrus. The western red cedar is an arborvitae. Arborvitae means "tree of life". Mark visited our outdoor classroom to teach us about this amazing species and model how we can climb the tree in a way that is safe for us and for this living organism. We had an interesting discussion about how trees can communicate with one another. Many students enjoyed tree climbing during their outdoor explorations this week.

Salmon Temperature Units

/

This week we were immersed in the world of salmon. Each day students diligently checked on our salmon eggs and used their mathematical skills to calculate the daily temperature units. We've been keeping a record of daily temperature units and accumulated temperature units. Our salmon eggs have received approximately 790 temperature units and they typically hatch when they've received a cumulative total of 850-900 temperature units. Our second grade math group worked to determine an approximate hatching date of November 23-27. We are crossing our fingers that some will hatch before we leave for Thanksgiving break. Our first grade math group has been participating in a math workshop involving calculating various equations involving double addition facts (2+2=4, 9+9=18, 9000+9000=1800, etc. The sky is the limit!). These mathematicians created a number line for our classroom wall that we can refer to as needed. Ms. Ren joins us on Wednesdays for mathematical explorations and this week we worked to solve a logic puzzle involving fire stations. In Writer's workshop this week we learned how to conduct research and take notes. We read books and took notes about the egg stage of salmon development. Then students used their notes to write the first page in their nonfiction salmon books. During writer's workshop we also designed posters and fliers for our can food drive. This week we read a book called The Story of Ruby Bridges and discussed how Ruby might have felt being the only black child in a white school. We imagined how it would feel to have angry crowds yelling and jeering at you simply because you wanted to attend school. We also finished our Boxcar Children read aloud. At project time this week students chose from a variety of options. Several students created tape art flags and paintings. Others were excited to try our new engineering set called Turing Tumble. Still other students used a recipe to create slime and then modified that recipe to make their slime even better. Students continue to make interesting discoveries in our outdoor classroom and students have been holding “art auctions” during out outside choice time. Today we walked to the library to choose new books.

Fish Eggs and Thank Yous

/

On Monday we had a gorgeous, sunny fall day so we decided to sneak in one more day of photography. We noticed that some of our photos were turning out blurry last week so we discussed ways to take sharper photos. We talked about the importance of holding the camera still and about how we can use a focusing tool on the iPad to focus on a specific item. On Tuesday we brainstormed a list of everything we already knew about salmon. We also brainstormed a list of questions that we are hoping to learn about salmon throughout our salmon unit. Then on Wednesday, our salmon eggs arrived! We received 100 salmon eggs from Oregon's Egg to Fry program. We were elated. We were surprised at how small and orange the eggs were. We could see the fish eyes through the eggs, which is why this stage of development is known as the eyed egg stage. We talked about what salmon eggs need to develop properly in the wild, and what our salmon eggs need in our tank. We also started learning about temperature units (TUs) and how they affect the rate of salmon development. Throughout this unit wevwill be doing some math work around calculating temperature units and predicting hatching dates. During math this week Ms. Ren came in to be a guest mathematician. She brought her ball of finger knitting and asked students to develop mathematical questions about her finger knitting. Then we worked together to begin to answer some of our own questions. We used yard sticks and a landscaping tape measure to measure the finger knitting. It was 92 feet long! Next we worked in teams to determine whether all 20 Otter students laying head to foot would be longer than the length of the finger knitting. We used various math tools to solve this question. Some groups used multiplication strategies and others used repeated addition and place counters. We discovered that the yarn would be longer than all the Otter students laying in a line! In math we also learned to play beginner's Yahtzee. Some mathematicians also learned to play standard Yahtzee. During writing workshop we worked with partners to write thank you letters to several individuals who have helped our class recently.

/

It was a wet, windy week full of cozy reading, writing, art, and building. We ventured outside each day to play in the wet weather and finish taking our fall photos. We went to the far side of campus to get photos of the beautiful sequoia tree. We also experimented with indoor photography and various lighting conditions. Students have become technologically savvy at logging onto the ipads, utilizing the camera tool, and adding their favorite photos to individual galleries. In math second graders finished up a unit on Addition and Subtraction up to 20. Then they began to work on adding and subtracting two digit numbers. First graders have been working with subtraction problems as well. In writing, our student authors are working hard at finishing their stories before we start a nonfiction unit next week. We've been using a publishing checklist to polish our final drafts and check for proper writing conventions. Today we took our first field trip to the library to check out new reading materials.

Tie Dye Art

/

Fall Fest

/

We had an incredible fall fest day today! Some of the festivities included: 

  • Admiring costumes

  • Playing outside in our costumes

  • Painting pumpkins

  • Celebrating Willow’s birthday

  • Baking and eating pumpkin muffins

  • Reading lots of fall books

  • Watching Room on a Broom

  • Fall picnic on campus

  • Afternoon centers with Sea Lions that included making slime, hand painting (instead of face painting), fall mandalas, Art Hub guided drawing, and building.

In other news, students worked hard on their tie dye art this week. Rubber banding tee shirts is tricky business for first and second graders ( especially without parent volunteers)! We will be posting tie dye photos on the blog early next week. We continued finger knitting this week too. We received an email from Carter's grandma with additional photos she took and we continued to discuss what makes a good photo. In math we learned to play Make Ten Memory (or Make 14 Memory) and have been practicing our mental math skills. We started doing number talks and dot card talks to discuss different mathematical ways of seeing and solving a problem. We also worked on solving story problems. We watched a math video called Our Brains Think Visually. During writing workshop we reflected on our needs as writers and then we got new writing spots. Six kids published new stories and we've been using our publishing checklists to polish up our books and check our writing conventions. We wrote birthday letters to Willow too. We finished reading our Upside Down Magic chapter book this week and also got to see a Whale play called The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. We continued to look for ways to fill each others' buckets and be kind community members. We also continued to admire the fall beauty that surrounds us each day.

Starry Night in Autumn Art Pieces

/

We finished our Starry Night in Autumn art pieces this week. We used a variety of mediums including tempera paint, water colors, and oil pastels. We also discussed light sources, shading, and texture effects in art.