Explorers - 2/10/23

 Hello Explorer Families!

Valentine’s Day is next Tuesday, February 14th. Your child’s snack to eat during our celebration, should be brought to school on Monday, February 13th. You may return it in the bag we sent home. 

Students will exchange cards on Tuesday afternoon.

Peak at our Week

ELA

Students are very proud of their opinion pieces. They worked hard to generate a list of favorite people, places, and things (including animals). Students used a graphic organizer to list reasons to support their topic sentence. These reasons turned into sentences and became a paragraph. Second graders also added an introduction and a conclusion to wrap up their thinking. 

In celebration of Black History month, we are watching a series of videos. Some folks are familiar to students and others are not. Students are recording their learning in a journal. The journal will be sent home at the end of February. This week we learned about Mae Jemison, Kamala Harris, and George Washington Carver.

Science

First graders have been learning about the phases of the moon. We have been working in small groups to record the changes we see on the moon. 

Second graders are learning about land and water formations. We have been paying special attention to whether these formations are solids or liquids. We will begin to talk about how land and water can change; some changes occur slowly while others occur quickly. 

Math

Our first grade mathematicians are working on their subtraction skills using number charts and counters to help them problem solve.

Our second grade mathematicians worked with repeated addition using picture cues this week finished their chapter 3 test.  Next week we begin our journey into double digit addition.

Our third grade level mathematicians listened to multiplication story problems and drew a corresponding picture and equation to solve the problem.  We used our individual dry erase boards and enjoyed sharing our methods to solve each equation.

Social Studies

Our first graders each created an item out of pipe cleaners, such as fish or a vegetable, and traded with a classmate to help obtain something they needed.  This was a continuation of our lesson on how people long ago traded and bartered to get needed items.  This really had the children intrigued as we learned that not every request to trade was greeted with a yes and sometimes it took a few tries to have someone agree to trade.

Our second graders began discussing how to create their own ideal community which embraces both human made and nature made characteristics.  Many agreed that including trees, ponds and natural habitats for animals was as important to them as sturdy houses and roads.