End of April

Dear Families and Friends,

Over the past few weeks the students have begun to really grasp the concepts of multiplication and division.  The class has been answering word problems that relate to the real world, thus understanding why division and multiplication are important tools to have throughout life.  The past week and this week we are focusing on division.  The students have been using lots of visuals to help them solve the problems.  Below are two examples:

Here Giovanni is solving 20 divided by 10 and Chalaya is showing the class how she solved 20 divided by 5.  The great thing about the way the class is developing their understanding of these concepts is that to the students the symbols and equations come second.  They are more concerned with going deeper into what multiplication and division really mean.

Here is a pattern that Noah observed after working on the division problems for the day.  It was interesting to listen to him explain his observation to the class.  He explained that although there were different numbers of books or shelves, depending on the problem, they were still being grouped with the same values.  So if there are 4 groups of 5 or 5 groups of 4, you still get the same total which he then related back to multiplication.

As last week was Earth week the class talked a lot about what we could all do to help heal our planet and how we can get our great ideas across to others.  The kiddos made posters expressing their ideas of what or what not to do to help the planet.  As we discussed other ways to get the word out about recycling, reusing, and reducing Chalaya came up with an idea to write to the President to see what he was doing to help the Earth.  The kids loved the idea so we are currently in the process of writing letters to President Obama.  Some students are asking him what he is doing and some are telling him what they are doing.  We are all hoping very much that he will write us back!

This week's words come from something that I have observed in the classroom.  Often students use the past tense of irregular verbs inccorectly.  Many students say "I drawed..." or "It growed...," so this week we will be focusing on irregular past tense:

know - knew

draw - drew

take -took

go -went

make - made

get - got

grow - grew

UPCOMING EVENTS:

CSTs continue this week.  We will be testing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Please make sure your student gets plenty of sleep and a nice healthy breakfast.  We finished part I of the math last week and will be trading off; math, language arts, math language arts.  This will hopefully help the kids not burn out on any one subject. 

May 17th we are going to the San Diego Zoo.  If you would like to chaperone there is a sign up sheet outside of the classroom.  The first 6 volunteers will get in for free, after that it is $10 per chaperone.  If you have a Zoo Pass it will also be free.  There is no cost for the students.

April Update

Dear Families and Friends,

As April comes to a close, CST testing begins!  This Thursday the 21st through May 4th the students at IA will be taking the CST each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9:00 - 11:00am.  Please make sure that your child is ON TIME to school.  If they arrive after testing begins they will not be allowed into the classrooms until after 11:00.  Also, it is important that your student gets a good nights rest, has a healthy dinner, and a healthy breakfast each day.  This will give them a chance to perform to their best ability on the test.  The California Standardized Test is a statewide test that the state and districts use to assess the abilities of each school in California.

Last week the 2nd grade took a fieldtrip to the Water Conservation Gardens.  I want to thank those of you who came as chaperones.  Like with any field trip, it would not be possible without your help and support.  The students spent the morning learning about plants and animals that are native to San Diego.  Mrs. Smarty Plants explained to the students how planting gardens full of native plants helps to conserve water.  The students also had a mini-lesson on the water cycle, which many of them remembered from our meteorology project.  Lastly, the students all got to plant a succulent that they took home.  

Playing in the garden sprinklers

The class outside of the garden



Mulch keeps water in & heat out



Planting their succulents



Zoey found tadpoles.  She observed that they were much
 smaller and darker than ours.





Many of the students have been inspired by their trip to the garden and are painting flowers and plants that they saw on the trip.  Feel free to come into the classroom and enjoy their work.  It is interesting to see how the students are mixing colors and using water to get their desired effects.  

This week's words of the week are a review of prefixes & suffixes.  We are working on in-, un-, -ly, and -ful

incomplete, incorrect, unkind, untrue, slowly, quietly, careful, joyful

Thank you for reading!

Welcome Back from Break!

Hi All,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Spring Break.  It was so nice to come to school today and see all of your students excited to be back and ready to learn.



Javhi working on a multiplication problem. 
He drew the 3 groups first and then the 6 lines
inside each group to show 6 x 3



The week before break was filled with lots of exciting learning.  The students began multiplication and it was great to see the lightbulb go on for so many of them.  I think that multiplication was some scary math concept to many of the students previously.  So when they worked on problems and found that through drawing pictures and repeated addition that it was actually quite simple they were ecstatic.  It was also really interesting to see how so many students could solve one problem in different ways and still find the same product.

Last week was also full of students taking over the teaching

role.  Giovannia had a great lesson on implied texture that he wanted to share with the class.  Come see the final results hanging outside of our classroom.

We showed implied texture in marker and then
replicated that on tin foil to show actual texture.

Chalaya took charge of a music lesson.  She saw musical instruments that I had lying around the class, unused, and asked if she could teach music.  The class discussed the different families of instruments and then played percussion instruments we have in the class.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

FIELDTRIP to the water conservation garden is Thursday the 14th.  If you can drive please sign up on the sheet outside of the classroom.  We need 5 more drivers!  We will leave IA at 8:45am and return at 1:00.  We will be having lunch at the gardens.  The cost is $5 per person.  This covers entery and a plant that the students get to take home.

CST testing is coming up at the end of the month.  It is very important that your student is ON TIME each and every day.  If they arrive late they will not be able to take the test and will have to make it up at another time.

WORDS OF THE WEEK:  past tense verbs with a double consonant

planned  tapped  clapped  trapped  mapped  shipped  dipped  ripped  zipped  hopped  stopped