Dear families,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful winter break with friends and family! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of the stories and fond memories shared.

We are authors.
For the past two weeks, we dove into our inquiry about what makes a good story. I am a firm believer that learning should be meaningful and relevant. The more we engage learners as active participants who are given time to question, explore, analyze, and eventually create, the more invested they are in their learning. When we move beyond the lower level thinking tasks that include basic recall and  instead, stretch our brains to think more critically with reflection, learning is more rich and fun!

We started with talking about the “hook” we generally find at the beginning of books we read. It is an opportunity for an author to entice a reader to want to flip the page and read on because they are excited to learn what happens next. So in partners, we studied a minimum of five books to analyze and evaluate the story beginnings that did just that. Then as a whole class, pairs had to justify why the books they chose met the criteria of having the “hook” and they had to explain why. [Higher level thinking skills on Bloom’s Taxonomy]

Next, we did various character studies by describing their appearance, traits and things they can do, core values, and beliefs. The more we learn about traits, core values, and beliefs, the better they will begin to see themselves reflected in various characters. The more they learn about themselves, the more self-aware they become about their strengths, who they are, and what they stand for.

A couple years ago, we had an author visit to teach my class about the importance of building characters in our story. Prior to that, I hadn’t placed much value on understanding our characters in our minds before we wrote our stories. We have to spend time envisioning and nurturing our main character in order to develop a strong story around them as they interact with other characters. So, students have been diligently working on creating their ideal character in their quadrant: Details on what they look like / character traits and what the character can do / core values / beliefs. I love watching them discover who their main character is and the excitement of seeing their character come to life on paper!

Today, we started building a brainstorm bank of ideas for different problems and solutions to use in our stories. Again, students were given an opportunity to work in pairs to search for the problem and solution in different picture books. They were so motivated to read and were so engaged as they recorded and added to our chart. We will continue to add to our list so they can be inspired by various problem-solution combinations. However, I will be encouraging them to be use it as inspiration to be even more creative!

I am very excited about how our inquiry into what makes a good story is turning out so far! Stay tuned!

Literacy Week
We have a fun week of activities planned for Literacy Week next week! There is one event new at Gilmore: A Book Swap! Many families have books they no longer read. This is a great opportunity to share well-loved stories with others! Please choose books published after 2010 and in good or excellent condition. Children can bring them in anytime this week.

Date of book swap: Thursday, January 26!

Grade 2 Mathematicians BUT applies to Grade 3’s too!

We reviewed even and odd numbers. They LOVED this catchy song: Even or Odd. 😉 Have a listen!

Your child should have come home with a piece of paper with random numbers (0-10) on one side and (0-20) on the other side. This is their random numbers chart. They are learning their addition and subtraction math facts. So far, they have practiced +/- 0, +/- 1, +/- 10.

This is how it works: If your child is practicing +1, use their finger to tap on the random number. Say the sum. We are aiming for this to be automatic. They are not actually calculating or adding 1 to the number, they are simply thinking and saying the next number up. Click here to watch a video of me explaining it.

If they are practicing +10, then use the (0-10) only. If they are practicing -10, then use only the numbers above 10 on the (0-20) side.

We will be moving on to +/-2. Click here to watch a video on me explaining this. Skip counting by 2s will be great practice!

We are also practicing skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s forwards and backwards, starting at ANY number. Please feel free to have fun practicing this as you walk home, in the car, or at home! You can use a deck of cards to have random numbers to start.

Listen to these skip counting songs: We’re Counting by 2’s.  Let’s Count by 5s.  10s Lift Off! More catchy songs!

If you haven’t checked out our Mathematician’s Play page recently, take a look!

With Mrs. Paulich, the grade 2s have been learning about measurement.

With Ms. Pears, the grade 3s have been learning about increasing patterns and being able to describe them: For example: “Start with one red & one black cube. Add one more red cube to the right each time.” Have fun practicing at home!

We are scientists.
Scientists in our room have been learning about sources of water: oceans, lakes, rivers, wells, and springs. As scientists, we are always learning to be curious! So after some basic knowledge about each of the water sources, we got into groups to be curious and record our wonderings on large chart paper. Each group started at a different water source. After a few minutes, they traveled to the next water source. They had to read the questions first before coming up with new questions to add. Then, we moved again to another water source to read all the questions and to add more. This strategy is called carousel because they move from station to station around the room like a carousel. They loved working collaboratively and seeing the questions their classmates came up with prior to them coming to the station! Next up will be reviewing the questions and learning about relevant questions and what makes a deep thinking question versus one where they can easily find the answer on Google, for example.

Computer IDs and passwords
Thank you so much for helping your child memorize their computer IDs and password. This will make their experience of logging in far less stressful when they know it by heart. My goal this term is to have them become proficient with logging in, sending an email in Outlook, composing a document in Word, and creating one slide in PowerPoint. Ambitious? Yes, but I think it’s possible! Consistent in our lessons will be talk about being responsible digital citizens who THINK before we post or share. More will be shared next time about this.

Gratitude & Joy
My heart is always filled with gratitude for your support at home. Please continue to encourage your child to read for enjoyment and include some time to talk about what they read and to make connections. For students who have writing as a goal to improve, please encourage your child to practice writing at home too.

My time spent in the classroom brings me such joy! If you’d like to listen to me share on a couple recent podcasts that I was a guest to get a better glimpse into my teaching philosophy, experiences, and what it might feel like to be in our class, please feel free to have a listen. I love sharing about how teaching and your children bring me joy! The things I share can apply to your life as an adult and parent too. There are multiple takeaways to help you live a better life. If you listen, I would absolutely love to hear what resonated with you. I would greatly appreciate it!

Teaching Champions with Brian Martin – EP 152

Wisdom & Productivity with Efrain Martinez

With sincerest gratitude AND joy, Ms. Chan