Explorers 5/5/2023

 Hello  Explorer Families!

We hope everyone enjoyed a restful spring break. We are putting the finishing touches on our auction projects. We look forward to seeing everyone at the Spring Fling on May 11th.

Please remember to return your child’s permission slip so that he or she can participate in the in school presentation from the Howell Nature Center.

ELA

We are reviewing parts of speech - nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Students are enjoying creating silly sentences, roll-a-sentence, and fix-it ups. Daily journals are also a great venue to practice writing with details and descriptive words. 

Science

Informational writing can be a very new type of writing for many elementary students in 1st and  2nd grade. Students are  used to writing in their daily journal or creating fictional stories. However, informational writing requires a totally different set of writing skills. With narrative writing, students can just write whatever they want from their own minds.  Informational writing is based on facts, so it can add the step of doing research on new topics as well. This can be a new and challenging skill just on its own. Students chose an animal of interest to him or her.

First graders will be expected to name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide a sense of closure. Second graders will introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop their ideas, and provide a concluding statement or action. So, 1st grade focuses on finding facts to support a topic.   With 2nd grade, the focus is developing points on their topic. Then, they need to support each point with facts.

Math

Our first grade level mathematicians are learning how to break apart numbers in order to solve subtraction problems.  They are using counters with ten frames as well as mental math to solve.

Our second grade level mathematicians continue our journey subtracting two digit numbers, recognizing when regrouping is necessary and when it is not.  We know that this skill requires a lot of practice and we are using our time wisely by discussing the steps involved in solving and how to use a number chart or mental math to help us.

Our third grade level mathematicians are reviewing their multiplication skills up to 12 using games and review pages to show our understanding.  We are also using number cubes and rolling 2 cubes followed by multiplying those two numbers together to see who rolled the highest number.

Social Studies

Our first graders are learning how to make a map using building templates, drawing roads and using a compass rose to navigate through their self-made communities.

Our second graders worked in teams to brainstorm positive and negative consequences to a scenario:  all of the trees in an area are being cleared to make way for a new neighborhood to be built.  They worked together so beautifully to come up with ideas to share with the whole group.  Many were very passionate about preserving the trees somehow instead of clearing all of them due to their beauty, ability to produce oxygen and because they provide shelter for animals.