Second Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of April 18-21, 2016

This was a 4-day week at school, but since we’ve moved our MWU to the afternoon (instead of first thing in the morning), it has seemed it’s been easier to make them happen every day. Maybe it’s just because of the unit we’re in, too, but our conversations about them have been SUPER POWERFUL lately. Can’t imagine teaching without this part of our day!

Monday

I definitely should have taken a before and after picture of this one. The circles were all filled up with post-its when we sat down to talk, but we had to work through them and decide which ones sounded like things mathematicians would say about these polygons. Many of them were vague or didn’t use mathematical terms. They said things like “they’re different” or “they’re the same.” We talked through the definition of polygon (hence the words over there) as well as what some mathematical terms were that we should listen for as we narrowed down the choices. This idea of comparing is something that students are expected to know how to do independently with two different polygons by the end of the unit, so trying some together along the way was crucial.

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Tuesday

This one matches up with both some work on shapes we had done earlier (names and attributes), as well as a replay of the question from the day before to see how they’d do in the same situation with different shapes. The number of specific, mathematical responses was much greater this time and we had less work to do to make our Venn Diagram make sense.

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Wednesday

This question has a great story to tell (which is SO long and involved I’ll be nice and put it in a different post!), and really gave us lots of math to chew on. And I thought I would be an easy one. Those are always the problems that surprise me.

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Do you see the marks on the word HALF up there? Here’s a close-up:

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We’re applying our knowledge of lines, angles and polygons everywhere we look! This wasn’t even part of the question, but of course was a great part of the discussion!

Thursday

After all our hard work (which I hope you’ll pop over and read about), I wanted to see if they could remember and apply it to a similar but new situation. Most could see how the knowledge we had gained the day before about halves applied to thirds (and therefore to fourths, fifths, sixths, etc.).

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What did you work on as a mathematician this week? What warm-ups would you suggest to us that include angles, polygons or fractions? We’d love to try some more! 🙂

Second Grade Writing Warm-Ups: Week of April 18-21, 2016

This was our second week of second grade writing warm ups, and they have been just as successful as they were when I first started them in 5th grade (remind me of this for next year when I forget that again, ok? LOL).

We’re in the drafting/revising/editing part of the writing cycle, so that is reflected in the warm-ups I had them try this week. Check ’em out! We’d love to know what you have to say about them, too, so leave a comment when you’re done! 🙂

Monday

This warm-up goes with the one we did last Friday, as we added details to our fiction with adjectives. And yes, I quickly realized there were WAY TOO MANY WORDS on this chart, when someone’s first response was “Wow–that’s a lot….” Oops. I think they got it, for the most part, though. Since this day we’ve been recognizing them everywhere and talking about how they help the reader. Many have added some to their drafts. I’ll revise for next time. 🙂

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Tuesday

This question is obviously very general, mainly because I knew that our focus in Writers’ Workshop this day would be to finish up (hopefully!) what we’d been working on for the last few days (rather than something new). We had a design challenge planned for pretty much the whole morning and so our time would be cut a little short for writing, as well. It also helped me get a better gauge on where everyone was with their drafts. There are a couple of post-its that say “I haven’t revised yet.” These friends obviously needed more time!

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Wednesday

I tweeted this picture after we did on it, because I was so impressed by the work they had done on it! The endings they chose to post were really thoughtful ones, and then our synthesis of what makes a “good” ending was also great thinking!

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I had them finish this stem “A good ending…” and this is what we decided upon:

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We had a great conversation about how a “good” ending is not any one thing, and that it depends on the story you’re writing, as well as your goals for how you want your reader to respond to your text. Notice the adverb that someone pointed out from our conversation on Monday. 🙂

Thursday

I’m not even sure where I learned that phrase, but long ago I was taught that about the idea of editing being a “courtesy to the reader.” We touched on it at least a little last year in first grade, but I wanted to get their thoughts on it now, as we began editing our pieces for publishing next week. And since I knew they might need help (or at least a reminder) with what courtesy means, I added it to the question. They had great suggestions about how it helps the reader understand your message, as well as making it so they know what to read and how to read it, but we had to really focus our conversation in on HOW to do that. Many 2nd grade writers still talk a good editing game, but don’t always show that knowledge in their actual final drafts. We’ll continue to work on that next week as we finalize our published texts.

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What did you work on as a writer this week? What do you think of our warm-ups? How would you have answered them?

Rm. 202 Kids Take Over–Read Aloud!

Last week I was having a reading conference with a friend, and as we were talking about TBR piles and good book recipes, another idea came to me that would help one reader, and then in turn many others: kiddos doing read aloud.

As I continued to talk to this friend about books, I suggested that he choose a book from his new TBR pile to share with the class. We talked about how he would have to prepare to do this, including practicing holding the book up so that everyone could see the pictures. It was totally picture-worthy while he was working.

And maybe the best part was when he turned to me and said, “Wow, this is hard. My arm hurts! Is it hard for you, too?” We had a great little chat about how teachers have to have strong arms. 🙂

He continued to work and was ready to present to us. Man was he excited!

Check out the stories he shared with us:

Well…as you can imagine, this sparked interest by many other people to be able to share with us at read aloud time. And what a great idea, as I considered all of the many things kiddos learn on both sides of this opportunity.

We began to schedule read alouds in a couple of ways: I gave some friends the assignment based on books we were reading in our small group together, and some friends just began to request a spot. And since then it’s become a “have-to” for everyone. It’s just such a good idea that we (ok, probably I) decided all should participate!

Amber took the next turn, and did a super job of matching up to what my lesson would have been that day anyway–good readers use evidence from the text to support their thinking.

Then on Friday, Emily took her turn and taught us about fiction/non-fiction (as well as using some pretty great teacher moves for management!) with The Little Work Plane.

Now don’t worry if you don’t see your favorite Rm. 202 friend in this post–each will get their turn. While I had originally never intended to take this path with readers in our room, it’s a SUPER example of how organically ideas come up for us, and how kids’ ideas are often the BEST ideas! Thanks, Rm. 202 kiddos for taking chances, learning new things and then sharing that learning with the rest of us!

Mystery Skype–April 14 (#3)

We’re on #3 Skypes in about 2 weeks! YEHAA!! Today was the 2nd in two days!

Like last time, we had jobs, but at the end of the last session we decided to trade. Unlike last time, our camera worked, though (did I mention that? They were Skyping with a blank screen the whole time! 😦 ).

By the way, this post has made me think it might be a good idea to start a new page just devoted to Mystery Skypes. Would make it easier for us (and everyone else!) to find the archives when we need them.

This was another great session, and at the end I’ll share what we know now that we didn’t know just three short sessions ago. 🙂

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The debrief this time was a question about how much more they know now than they did just a couple of short days ago. Here where their responses when I asked “What do you know now?”

“I am a better greeter because I’ve practiced three times. I don’t need my dos/don’ts sheet anymore!” JH
“Now I can visualize a map in my head when they ask a question.” KB
“My job was easier today [than yesterday] because I wrote shorter words.” EM
“I think doing a job more than once makes it easier.” AM
“I know more about maps.” PM
“I know more about what to do as task manager. I can just sit and watch what’s going on [and give reminders when they need them] instead of walking around.” AK
“I know where to stand and use better angles to take better pictures.” CB
“I am better at Twitter. I did it almost alone!” JM

What great thinking, Rm. 202 friends! As always, you amaze me with your reflection and insight. 🙂 Keep it up–excited to see what happens as you keep going with Mystery Skypes!

Culture–Final Drafts!

We worked for much of last quarter on culture, based on many versions of Little Red Riding Hood. Here are our final drafts of the books we published about the cultures of the various regions and countries we studied (not all kiddos wanted me to share, by the way–since I know now that I should ask!).

Khalani B.–THE MIDWEST

Thank you for reading! We worked so hard and would love your feedback! 🙂

Writing Warm-Ups: Second Grade Debut

A couple of years ago, I tried writing warm-ups in 5th grade. The idea was the same as our math warm-ups, and would give kiddos a way of getting their thinking ready for whatever my writing lesson was going to be for the day. For some crazy reason I stopped doing these, and totally forgot about them. Until this week. And then I forgot again between Monday and Wednesday and finally remembered to try one on Thursday. So this 2nd grade debut of Writing Warm-Ups only has two examples. But hopefully they’re really great and that will make up for it. 🙂

Thursday

We are in the middle of a fiction cycle, and were to going to begin revising. Our lesson on this day was about adding details into your draft and making the story more interesting for your reader. This got them thinking about that before we started, and so when we read our mentor text and got into our conversation, they were ready.

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Friday

Can you tell what today’s revision lesson was about? Yep–leads! And since I knew I’d want them to collect some good examples for us to use in our discussion, I had them do that as their warm-up. Again, a win/win because it got them thinking, and saved time during our Writer’s Workshop since had already done that work. They did a great job of paying attention to how the intros sounded and were able to make connections to how writers need to make their leads hook the reader so they’ll want more. 🙂

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It’s only been two days, but I can already tell these are going to give us a really big bang for our buck. Stay tuned–I’ll have more to share next week. 🙂

Second Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of April 11-15, 2016

What? This week I did MWUs every day? Partly that happened because we actually had every day this week at school, but also because I moved the MWU to a different time of day and it made the timing easier (sometimes mornings can get a little crazy and sometimes I have other things I need them to do instead). Now (at least for the time being), we’ve moved Writing Warm-Ups to the morning and Math Warm-Ups to right after lunch, and that conversation is then the beginning of our math time together (that part is still the same). Confused enough now? Don’t worry–the big deal is that I have FIVE MATH WARM-UPS TO SHARE!! They’re pretty great, too, so I’m glad you stayed through that long intro to check them out. 🙂

Monday

We have been working on subtraction lately, and my kiddos have started to do some amazing thinking with negative numbers as a means of figuring out differences. It started with just a couple of friends a couple of weeks ago and now probably at least half the class has tried it! The chart here is similar to the HTO model (which we called Sticks and Dots back then) we used in 1st grade, but connected to an investigation we did with the T-Shirt Factory and refers to the inventory of t-shirts. The come in Boxes of 100, Rolls of 10 and then loose ones. Same idea, but inside the context it makes much more sense. Like most times, you’ll see we did it using two other strategies, as well. The green numbers on top are from the strategy Making an Easier Problem, in this case by adding 11 to both numbers (which we know is possible because of the idea of constant difference).

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We also tried it with Circle, Split, Subtract and modeled our thinking on a number line.

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And check it out–we got 289 every time!

Tuesday

Another concept we’ve been playing around with is the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. This one also asked them to analyze someone else’s thinking. We tried it by adding up…

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…as well as with our negative number strategy. Again, we got the same answer both times!

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Wednesday

On Tuesday during math, I gave kiddos a check-in sheet to see what they could do on their own with subtraction, now that we’ve been working on it for a while together, and the last problem was a challenge problem. Ok, it really isn’t that much harder (just another place), but I wanted to see what kiddos would do when I added 1000s to our work. Landen and Ava decided to that the BRL chart would probably work the same way if you just added another column, and suggested that we try it together as a math warm-up the next day. Great idea, kiddos!

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Somehow I took my picture before we had done our work on the chart, so you can’t see it, but believe me–it worked just like they thought it would. Oh, and when I was using this chart again with someone later that day, we decided that instead of just T for thousands (which doesn’t fit the context of the t-shirt story), we’d say T was Trucks, because you could put 10 boxes on trucks.

Thursday

We’ve been working on both geometry as well as subtraction in math for the last couple weeks (and some still also on money from our last unit), but I decided that we’d use the MWU as the start for our conversation by throwing up some geometry vocabulary I needed to emphasize. So using examples and non-examples, I had them think about parallel:

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They were able to figure out the meaning (for the most part), although many kept saying it meant “straight” and we had to clarify what they really meant, because ALL of those lines are straight….and while I don’t like math tricks, I did show them that in the word PARALLEL are clues to what it means: PARA for the PAIR of lines, and that the l’s make two parallel lines themselves (ok, well they do if they’re lowercase…see, told I don’t like tricks).

Friday

Today’s MWU was geometry again, related to work we’d done this week, as well as connecting to the work I knew I’d have them do during Math Workshop today. Win/win! (Oh, and I realize now I mislabeled the trapezoid as a parallelogram. Oops. I’ll fix that on Monday. 🙂 ).

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After this conversation we went on a great shape hunt challenge outside, but you’ll have to wait about it. We’re not quite done yet. 🙂

Note: See that “next” on the bottom? I’d tried many versions of that extra question this week on math and writing warm-ups. It seems that when I put “bonus” there, kiddos thought that meant they didn’t have to do it. LOL So I tried “next” and also “big ?” to help them see that they could do both of them. Or at least start thinking about the answer, since it would be what we’d be talking about anyway.

Mystery Skype–April 13 (#2)

Remember our Mystery Skype last week? Well after that AMAZING experience, the first things that came out of my kiddos’ mouths were “When are we doing this again?” That meant that I had to get busy because I needed to schedule another one for them! I tweeted out a request and quickly I got many requests. One of them was today. Here’s the story. 🙂

We are all about learning in Rm. 2o2 and so the first thing we did was reflect on the experience from last week and talk about what had happened. I showed them the blog post I had written and asked them to think about what they saw. We analyzed the photos and talked about what we would do the same and what we would change. Some noticed that there were not pictures of everyone, and we agreed that the next photographers would make sure to get images of each job that we had on our list.

Next I showed them the video from our first try. We did the same analysis and noticed somethings we could change. Many of the “issues” just came from the fact that this was the first try at something like this for our videographer. We talked about some technical things like shooting at people’s faces (and not their legs and feet), not moving the camera too fast (because it makes the watcher d-i-z-z-y!), not talking over the recording and making sure–just like the photographer–to get the WHOLE room in the video. We made sure everyone knew that we were only working on how to make our next try even better, not saying that anybody did anything wrong.

It was time to pick jobs and so we sat down to decide what each person would do. After our debrief from last time, we had decided to add in Tweeters (check out the AMAZING job Mrs. Sisul, Ja’Mia and Makayla did today!) and Closers, so that made just two people doing each job. Rather than the chart we made the first time around, I thought I’d try to start digitizing some things, so I made our job list in a Google Doc like Mr. Solarz’s example. I just made a doc that we can add pages to for each MS (at least that’s my plan for now) so we can keep track of who’s done what during each session.

I hope to start using a Google Doc for questions next time, too. For today we hand wrote them and I entered it into the table:

We had to go to PE right after this, but before we left, we agreed we should get everything set up, since we only had 10 minutes from when we got back until we got started. I was SUPER pleased that this was what I saw them do:

The Data Enterers had their area ready, the maps for the Researchers were laid out, the chairs for the Questioners, Greeters and Closers were in place and the Photographers and Videographers had their iPads raring to go! Isn’t it amazing what 7-8YOs can do when they are motivated and have a purpose? LOVE!

Here are the photos we collected from our session today:

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And the video. Don’t worry–this one’s a bit shorter than the one from last time. And you should get sick and dizzy either. At least I hope not. 🙂

Then, when we were finished we sat down to debrief. We said many of the same positive comments as last time, but I noticed many kiddos were a little unhappy about their jobs this time around. Well, some of them were. When we went through the assigning of jobs, obviously some kiddos got the one they wanted, and the others didn’t. We talked about what to do about it, and we were divided about how to fix the problem. We suggested that we could stay with our original jobs, since we felt that we had done a great job of finding the right person for each one (which we had agreed upon after we finished the first time around). Not surprisingly, not everyone liked this idea. We also considered just staying with the new ones we made today, since we didn’t really have time to reassign before our next scheduled Skype tomorrow morning. Again, not everyone agreed this was the best. Then, someone quietly suggested that we could trade. He said, “What if I want a new job and so does someone else. Can we trade jobs? That might work.” BINGO! Everyone loved this idea and so we quickly had the “traders” meet on the rug and most got a satisfying trade out of the deal and walked away happy. Unfortunately, since there was an odd number, one person did have to stay with a job they don’t really like, but I’m sure it will all work out and next time she’ll be able to try something new. Oh, and I had forgotten until now, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the reasons someone gave for trying new jobs every time was “I like to make mistakes so I can learn something. That happens when you try new things.” HA! Pretty amazing, right?

And you know, as fun as this is, and as much as it reinforces geography and inquiry and does loads for engagement and motivation, I just love watching what happens when you get out of the way, let kids do their thing and they run the show in ways that are far beyond what you’d think the realm of 2nd graders would be. But then again, I continue to see it over and over, so I should stop being so surprised, right? 🙂

Design Challenge: Landforms

Last week we tried a challenge in Science where kiddos had to create a representation of a body of water. Since then, I’ve heard multiple times “When are we doing this again?” Then, when my friend, Mona, asked me if I was planning on doing the same thing with landforms I knew we just had to!

I didn’t want to make the situation exactly the same, however, so I thought of ways I could change the parameters to up the level of the challenge. Last time, students chose their own group, as well as the materials they used to build. It was great that somehow everyone chose something different and there was no arguing about who used what. That doesn’t happen a lot in our room, but I was super glad it didn’t come up here. So this time I again let them choose who they worked with (which because of numbers was groups or 2 or 3), but there as more chance in both their landform AND their building material. I wrote the choices on index cards (very high tech, I know) and put them in two cans. Each group chose one from each container.

I was impressed with how easily kiddos accepted both of the cards without complaining. Again, not much of that happens with Rm. 202 friends, but I was pleased with how quickly they got to work planning their next moves. After about 3-4 minutes, most were ready. There was only one pair who did fuss a teeny bit about how they’d be done really fast and how their cards were not a challenge. We talked about how that meant that they needed to figure a way to challenge themselves, ask themselves “What could we do differently than we had originally planned?”

Much like last time, they had 25 minutes to work on their representations and then we’d do a gallery walk to see if we could guess what everyone had created. They were to work for the entire time and had to use their assigned medium, but other than that there weren’t too many rules.

Ok, here’s your chance to see if you can figure out our landform creations, and then I’ll give you the answers.

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What do you think? Did you guess them? Here are the answers:

plains
hills
valley
barrier islands
canyon
plateau
mountains

We love how building challenges work for learners in Rm. 202, and we want to know how they work for you. Any stories to tell us? What suggestions do you have for future design challenges we could try?

What’s in Your TBR Pile?

Many, many years ago I was a presenter for Project Construct. I had a super responsibility of teaching Missouri teachers about how to incorporate Readers’, Writers’ and Math Workshop into their classroom routine. It was during this time that I learned about “nightstand books” and TBR piles. Oh, you know, that 12-inch stack of books that sit next to your bed so you have them ready to go when you have a few minutes to read before bed?

Well, often my pile sits elsewhere than my nightstand, but for sure it’s always there. And sometimes it’s taller than 12-inches. Like in the summer when it’s about as tall as my 5-YO (she’s 40 inches right now, by the way. 🙂 ). My current TBR pile looks like this:

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Anyhow, after we had learned about recipes and how they help guide us with book choices, we talked about something else readers do–make plans. I started our conversation by asking a simple question: Why do people make plans? I didn’t specifically say readers at this point because I wanted them to think broader and try not to guess my specific plan for the day just yet. Kids turned and talked to their partners and came up with SUPER ideas. They connected this to how builders use blueprints and how important those are to making the building look “right” in the end. They mentioned how writers make plans so they know what their stories are supposed to be (can you tell what we’ve been doing in Writers’ Workshop lately?). They talked about how plans keep your organized and help you know what to do.

After that great start, it was easy to then expand the idea to how readers make plans for what they will read next. This allows them to move smoothly from one book to another, without wasting reading time wandering around the library. It helps readers think critically about what they want to read and why (I explained to my kiddos why each of those books is in my pile), and to be more purposeful in their choices. This becomes especially easy if you choose books that are in a series, or if you “trust an author” and read all the books that they’ve written. I can TOTALLY do this with Ralph Fletcher, Sharon Creech, Jerry Spinelli, Joan Bauer and Liane Moriarty.

Kiddos had a great time trying out this strategy, and then send me their lists when they were finished. We’re going to use them now and I plan to hold kids accountable to try out the books they put on their list. While they can change, these piles (which are saved as pictures/notes on their iPads) help them think ahead and more purposefully use their time both in the classroom and at home. I’m excited to see how they continue to help us grow as readers through this year and even beyond!

20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Starting a 3rd Grade Journey

Monthly Archives: April 2016

Second Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of April 18-21, 2016

Second Grade Writing Warm-Ups: Week of April 18-21, 2016

Rm. 202 Kids Take Over–Read Aloud!

Writing Warm-Ups: Second Grade Debut

Second Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of April 11-15, 2016

Design Challenge: Landforms

What’s in Your TBR Pile?