Quick Notes for Journal Writing

         One of my personal goals this year was to respond to my student's journal writing on a more regular basis.  Our writing journals are used throughout the year. Sometimes I assign a quick write and other times the kids just enjoy writing stories. I find that I am recording information about their writing anecdotally and on checklist rubrics on my clipboard but I don't always record something for the students.  In second grade we learn that writing is an ongoing process so sometimes the kids will go back to old stories and improve on them.  Like most students, they always want to show me their writing.
        This year I started something new...I call it the Love and Look! My students have class numbers so on Mondays I read journals 1-6, Tuesday 7-12 and so on.  If the student has something they want me to read, they put it on my desk on their assigned day.  I read them at lunch and leave them a sticky note message. I tell them something that I loved about their writing and something they have to look for. Hence the title "Love and Look". My kids love seeing their stickies and always try to improve their "look" for the next week.  Plus, it is quick and easy for me. I simply put a heart and an eye!  :-)
          This particular student had a great story with wonderful word choice but many errors that could easily be fixed by reading aloud to check. I find a lot of kids are excited to get their work down on paper. Simply reading aloud to check often finds the simple mistakes.  I told her that I would post a follow up picture of her edited work.

Science In A Bag!

The fourth grade teachers in our building love science! Recently at a staff meeting, they showed us their
"Science in a bag/box" take home science experiments.  They create bags or boxes (depending on the materials) that contain an experiment that goes along with the science unit they are teaching.   The other second grade teacher and I decided to give it a try with our second graders on a smaller scale. Here is what we came up with.
We bought the bags at the dollar store and created a booklet for each bag. Each booklet has enough materials for 6 kids.  (We made 5 bags in all.)We will rotate the bags every three days.  The booklet includes a few directions and rules pages, a vocabulary page, short reading, two recording sheets, and a short questionnaire at the end for the parents.  This will help us determine what parts of these bags were successful and what parts we can improve.  We decided to have the experiment pages in the booklet so each student can see what the student before them did. This will also be a great guide for the families.

We send the first set of bags home tomorrow......hope they enjoy them!

Testing time interrupted....

We all know that testing has been a very hot button topic lately. There are many forms of assessment and yes, sometimes kids have to sit down and take a test. :) Just as my kids sat down for their big end of unit science test we head a loud grinding noise.....and then a jack hammer....and then a huge machine rolled up next to our window.  I spoke with my kids about distractions and that this would be perfect practice with zoning out the background noise and staying focused on the task at hand. Five minutes in even I couldn't concentrate.  The kids all wanted to watch so over to the windows we went. :)

Earlier in the year we studied simple machines and at the end of the unit they had to build, with Legos, a machine that could help us do something.  Our challenge began...how many simple machines can you find?  They named a ton! I was so impressed.  

This was the beginning of what became a 2 hour long adventure in my classroom. The road was sawed, jack hammered, dug up, pipes lined up, and concrete poured.  Needless to say, the test was saved until the afternoon and it was a perfect lesson in flexibility.  But, it does make me reflect on the high stakes testing we have to administer. In that situation I would not have been able to put the test away and use it as a teachable moment. The test would have gone on with an incredible amount of distraction for children.  

I have always been a firm believer that if you are going to complain about something, you should try to fix it.  I was speaking to a colleague about our "teachable moment" and she mentioned that in some cities, construction like this is completed after school hours. They actually plan their construction in school areas around the school schedules. How amazing is that?! Maybe something we should look into? :)

Pebbles, Sand, and Silt Unit

Last week we started our Pebbles, Sand, and Silt unit. This unit and all materials are provided to us by EBEC (East Bay Educational Collaborative).  The science standards line up wonderfully and we can easily tie in our writing standards during the science notebook time.  On Thursday the students experimented with three rocks, basalt, tuff, and scoria. They could use water, magnifying lenses and the three rocks. It was so fun to just give them the materials and say "experiment, observe, discuss".  They had amazing conversations with each other.

Many of the students observed that when they placed the scoria in the water, air bubbles escaped. Simply through discussion with each other (and a bit of guidance on my part) the students were able to conclude that there was air in the cracks and holes of the rocks!  One student even told me it was porous! He remembered our vocabulary word from months ago. :) Inquiry learning at its best!