Maps and Milk Cartons

Well, Spring Break sure went quickly, but based on a survey I did with the class this morning, it sounds like everyone had a wonderful time.  The trees outside of our classroom are fully leaved, the daffodils have come and gone and mason bees are buzzing the clover and dandelions in the field.

In the coming weeks we will be embarking on a study of Portland geography and history.  To start off  we will be making a three dimensional map of Portland.  I stopped by the Ace hardware on Woodstock after school to pick up a canvas drop cloth. We will use a projector or overhead to blow up a schematic of Portland that the kids will paint.

Which brings us to milk cartons.  I casually asked Kathleen if it would be possible to get some milk cartons for rendering Portland architecture and POOF! there were two large sacks of rinsed milk cartons on my carpet when I got back from picking the kids up at recess.  The class quickly found ways to manipulate the cartons so that they would be easy to work with. They were so engaged in ways to fold and stack.

As soon as we have the canvas "terrain" ready to go, 2nd-graders will be creating 3D versions of important building in Portland.  3rd-graders will be creating their renditions of Portland's iconic bridges.

We will need lots of help bringing this all together so be sure to drop me a line if you have a moment.  Look for updates regularly on Twitter by following our class @LewisRoom5.

Performances and Poetry

This week our class started a five week long residency with dramatic artist Michael Wehrli.  The students, despite some initial nerves, are loving it.  They ease into the eventual stage production through theater games, acting exercises and improvisation.  Let's face it, we are pretty stacked with comedic and performative talent in this class, so I look forward to a great show.

Adam gives Bella ideas about  line breaks in her poem

Since only half of my actors only go to their drama workshop at a time, I get to work really closely with the other half of the class.  This first week I am taking advantage of the time to do some really hands-on revision and editing work.   We took some time to model what an effective partner feedback session should look like, sound like and feel like. 

"You could read it this way or this way!"

 It was heartening that after some thoughtful listening and talking everyone decided that there was still a lot of work to do on their writing.  It is always energizing to watch writers take up each other's pieces and find new life.  As a no longer young person it heartening to know that these kinds of conversations will continue in the world that our students make after we are gone.

Your news for the week of 3/9

Spring has sprung a little early and the class was excited about the "snowing" cherry blossoms just out our window.  They are also excited about pretty much everything.  This is an energetic room of learners.

We have been working on some quick poems in anticipation of National Poetry Month in April.  The first one was the "I look like a girl" poem, based on the book of the same title by Sheila Hamanaka.  Now we are working on a slightly (okay, much) sillier poem.  Here is an excerpt.

I Know Someoneby Michael Rosen
I know someone who can take a mouthful of custard and blow it down their nose.
I know someone who can make their ears wiggle.I know someone who can shake their cheeks so it sounds like ducks quacking.
I know someone who canthrow peanuts in the air and catch themin their mouth.....and that someone is                                       ME.

A silly poem for sure.  The kids love it and are coming up with great versions of it.  What makes it successful for everyone is the simple repeating structure.  There is a sentence stem that they use to keep them going, slotting in details from their lives. They love the twist at the end, too. Today we looked at ways to add some serious ideas to their poems to give some depth.   Look for some student poems soon.

I will be out for the next two days at a teacher training.  I will miss the class but look forward to the opportunity to learn alongside my colleagues.  This also means that we have to cancel the second Ping Pong Paddle Party tomorrow.  We will reschedule soon!

Ping Pong Paddle Project

One of the great things about working at Lewis is the space we have to pursue learning opportunities that arise in the moment.  I have to say how eager folks around here are to work together on emergent learning.  Studying something new in class?  Ms. Tori will make sure that her read aloud in Library supports it.  Are your students passionate about birds? Ms. Kathleen will help you find all of the bird nests around the building. Need some new ping pong paddles for P.E.? Ms. Layman will rope you into creating and designing new paddles.

Tomorrow, Wednesday 3/4, after school, any students from Room 5 interested are invited to join me and Ms. Layman in the gym to decorate and finish some paddle templates that we cut with my friend Adam at his business, Peerless Pattern Works.  Below are some of the photos from the process.

Originally Adam thought we could use his CNC machine to
cut paddles from large sheets of plywood.

Upon reflection, he figured it would be faster to cut the plywood into
rectangles and then use a pattern to cut the paddles on a bandsaw.

Almost ready for the bandsaw, about to be screwed together so they stay in place while being cut.

Adam grinding the screws down so the stacks lie flat.

Cutting the stacks.

The trimmings.

The trimmed.

Smoothing down the edges.

A very think paddle, ready for action.

Second Grade Area Review

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/pre-algebra/measurement/area-basics/v/introduction-to-area-and-unit-squares

Prioritizing New Facts and Generative Grammar! Plus Bonus Audio!

This week we have been meeting in new book groups.  Some 2nd Graders read into Into the Ocean by Brenda Z. Guiberson.  To keep track of what they were learning from this fascinating book, the kids used sticky notes to write down interesting new facts. Then as a group we talked about which of those facts were most interesting.  Each student had a different criterion for what made their facts more important. Some thought facts relating to how turtles are endangered were the most noteworthy while others prioritized information about their life cycle.  Above, Owen shares his thoughts on the facts he chose to highlight.

We are also doing a quick poetry study and have had so much fun creating our versions of Sheila Hamanaka's book I Look Like a Girl.  The book has a repeated line structure that we are using  to build our own poems.  After we get some basic lines down, we will go back and revise them.  What's most interesting is how our young writers are extending their simple sentences with participle phrases.  For instance, Adam, whose poem you can listen to below, takes his line "I look like a boy but really I'm a coral reef," and turns it into "I look like a boy but really I'm a coral reef bursting with life."


If you are interested in some of the teaching theory behind this kind of approach to writing,  there is some interesting research from the National Writing Project about the use of prominent feature analysis.  This is basically looking at effective writing and teasing apart the specific grammatical strategies a writer uses to build their piece.  Dry as it sounds, this is kind of revolutionary: it helped me see that grammar and writing are most effectively taught as a set of tools to use and not as a set of rules to follow.  Poetry is an especially effective way to expose kids to grammatical tools and have them practice in a highly motivating context. So, with this poem, we are looking at one kind of free modifier (that "bursting with life" part of Adam's line) and how it helps us complicate and stretch a simple declarative sentence. Of course, our young writers are focused on creating their poem (not on the technical application of final free modifiers to create structural complexity on the sentence level), but it is the borrowed structure that allows them to put it all together.  Fascinating to watch it happen!

This Week's News Brought to You by Stacie

We are lucky to have a guest blogger this week. Stacie was waiting for her sister to be done with band practice and was kind enough to help me write this post.  Take it away, Stacie!

Click here for audio of Stacie reading the news.

In class we have been learning about birds.  We went for a walk around the school to see what birds we could find.  We saw crows, a blue jay, two fox sparrows getting twigs for a nest.  The best was the hummingbird.  It was on the very top of a tree. I looked away and it was gone.  We looked it up in the guide and we think it was an Anna's hummingbird.

We posted all of what we saw to the Great Backyard Bird Count.  We send the information to scientists who can use the information to understand birds all around the world. 

We are learning about how weather works and how climate change will affect animal habitats.  Today our teacher printed off vocabulary words that go with that.  We had to match the terms to the definition and an example picture.  We worked as a group and found people who had the pieces that fit with ours.

In Writing we were practicing writing our memoirs which is our memories.  We worked on thinking back and staying focused on our writing.  I was writing about my Dad's birthday on Saturday.  We went to a snow mountain and we played snow baseball with a guy who built an igloo. 

We third graders are practicing multiplication with Mrs. Zimmerman. Sometimes we do time tests.  Good bye, I'm leaving you  now.