April Showers Bring May Flowers

April 27, 2015

Dear Parents,

Will April showers bring May flowers? I certainly hope so, however for my yard it will most likely bring a bumper crop of weeds. In any event, I am so thankful for the rain of the last few days. We need every precious drop of moisture to help with the drought conditions.

Math

How many squares can you make
with 32 craft sticks??

Division was our focus this week in math. Students are doing a fantastic job!! Students spent some time this week working with manipulatives to physically take a whole and divide it into groups (parts). We also drew pictures to depict division. "When in doubt, draw it out" is a common saying in Room 5.

Through all our work with multiplication last week and division this week students have begun to notice the relationship between the two operations. Again using manipulatives (cubes), students took 12 (whole) cubes and divided them into 4 groups (parts), discovering each group had 3 cubes. Next they took the 12 cubes and divided them into 3 groups, discovering each group had 4 cubes. As students broke the whole (12) into groups we discussed the multiplication facts involved. Students wrote the division and multiplication facts that went with the activity--12 divided by 4 = 3, 12 divided by 3 = 4, 4 X 3 = 12, and 3 X 4 = 12.

Finally in math we worked on work problems involving multiplication and division. We continue to use the same steps to solve word problems--read the problem, circle the question, flip the question into an answer statement, reread the problem--underlining important information, decide how to solve the problem, solve, and finally check. We spend a lot of time solving word problems, which can be challenging but the students of Room 5 are becoming masters. I'm so proud of my math students.

Homework

Mon. IXL T.2 Identify 3-Dimensional Shapes

Tues. IXL T.5 Count Edges, Vertices, and Faces

Wed. IXL T.7 Compare Edges, Vertices, and Faces

Thurs. No Homework

Writing

Peer Revising and Editing

Peer Revising and Editing

The writers of Room 5 have been working on their persuasive writing pieces. Students completed their rough drafts and spent time doing self revising and editing and working with their writing partner to complete some peer revising and editing. I have started meeting with students and I must say these pieces are quite persuasive. Just a "heads up", I see a lot of requests for puppies, kittens, and video games coming your way!! You've been warned!!

Language
In language we have been working on dictionary skills, specifically guide words. Last week we worked a lot on alphabetical order. With students putting lists of words with the same first few letters (cattle, came, cats, cape) in alphabetical order. This week we looked at the words at the top of a dictionary page (guide words). Students are learning that guide words are the first and last words on a dictionary page and help "guide" us to find words in the dictionary. We did a physical activity with students holding cards with a word on them. Students holding the big cards were guide words and students holding smaller cards were entry word. To figure out which entry words would be found on the same page with the guide words, students had to put themselves in alphbetical order according to the word on their card. Once in alphabetical order students could clearly see that the students holding word cards that came between the two guide word cards would be on the same page.

I am pleased to announce that students are using the IXL program (the same program we use for Math) for Language. We are currently on a 30 day trial but it looks like Mrs. Mackedon will be purchasing it for use next year. We used it to practice guidewords and capitalization this past week. I felt it was a great way to practice skills and students enjoyed using the familiar format.

Projects

Measuing our radish plants.

Our Plant Project is moving right along. Students having been observing daily and writing weekly about the changes they are seeing in the radish plants that they planted as seeds last week. Each student planted 6 seeds (2 under each condition--sunlight and water, sunlight and no water, and water and no sunlight). It has been interesting to see the how seeds grow or not grow under these conditions.  

Comparing bean seeds water
soaked versus not soaked.

As we are observing our radish seeds this week, we started to think about what we feed our plants and how plants might grow if they were "watered" with a liquid other than water. This idea has led us to our next plant experiment--growing bean seeds using different liquids. Students came up with a wide variety of ideas, everything from milk to vinegar. On Monday we put the the bean seeds in a wet paper towel in a baggie to get them ready to plant on Thursday. This week we will start them on their feeding schedule. It will be interesting to see what happens. We will definitely keep you posted.

As much as I have enjoyed the much needed rain, I am happy to see the last week in April will be filled with lots of sunshine and warm temperatures. With the warmer weather please be sure that your child brings a water bottle to school. I know our week will be great, here's wishing you the same.

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's some Reading information from Mrs. Jackson...

April 27-30

Fabulous 2nd Grade Families-

This week we continue to work hard to finish off our year.  We truly only have 3 more weeks of “nose to the grindstone” focused time with each other.  We are diligently reading, enjoying, discussing and finishing as many books as we can together.  

Your child should be bringing home chapter books nightly with at least 10 pages of reading.  Thank you so much for taking the time to sign their nightly reading homework.  As I mentioned last week, the sharing and quality of our discussions has risen greatly.  It has been so much fun to see the energy and excitement over the same reading we’ve all done the night before.  

We will be studying a new poem this week as one of our Daily Five rotations working on our Spelling and Handwriting as well as working on Word Work at our level and typing stories of our choice on the computers.  

Our year is ending quickly and furiously.  Please remember to practice fluency with your child at home if they are still working on this skill.  

Have a wonderful week!  Hasn’t the rain been such an amazing surprise!  More this week?  I hope so!

Earth Day

                                                 

                                                                                                 April 20, 2015

Dear Parents,

What a strange week!!!  Between crazy windy weather (You got to LOVE spring in Nevada!!) and the Tuesday power outage, it was a very different week!  At Oasis we are all hoping for a calm week, as all our older students (3rd grade and up) are involved with the Smarter Balance Testing.  

Math
Students continued working with the concept of equal groups and multiplication.  We used arrays to show multiplication, while writing the equation.  Students used repeated addition and multiplication equations to go with the array.  

Multiplication was also the focus of our word problems this week.  As we work through the problems students are using the same steps that we have used when working out addition and subtraction word problems.  Circle the question, flip the question into an answer statement, reread the word problem underlining important information, and finally determining a strategy to use.  As we have worked through the multiplication problems, we are drawing lots of pictures to solve the word problems.

The last part of the week we started exploring division.  Students were given 15 cubes (whole) and asked to put them into 3 groups (parts).  We then took the 15 cubes and put them into 5 groups.  Finally students divided the 15 cubes into 2 groups.  Students found that they had a group of 7 and a group of 8.  When told that both groups had to be equal students learned that they would have 7 in each group with 1 cube leftover. 

Homework
Mon.      Workbook pages 129-130
Tues.      Test B
Wed.       IXL  T.4 Count Sides and Shapes
Thurs.    IXL   T.1 Identify 2-Dimensional Shapes


Writing
Students were very busy working on writing their persuasive writing piece.  Students came up with a wide variety of topics.  They used the acronym OREO to organize their writing.  O=State your opinion, R=Give a reason (students had to come up with 2 reasons), E=Explain or give examples, and the final O=Restate your opinion.  After filling out their notetaker students completed their rough draft.  

Language
Students reviewed and assessed on prefixes.  We started our work with dictionary skills.  Students reviewed using alphabetical order.   Our work with dictionary skills will continue this week with guide words.

Projects
We started new projects this week.  Our project will focus on plants, animals, and habitats.  This week we planted radish seeds and are growing them under different circumstances. Students will be working through the scientific method.  One group of seeds will be recieving sun and water, another will recieve sun and no water, and the 
third group will recieve water but no sunlight.  Students will be making observations over the next week or two.

We also discussed how seeds move.  This started as a topic of discussion.  Students had some very good ideas including--wind, water, and animals.  We watched a short video that confirmed our discussion points.  Finally we put some socks on over our shoes and walked to the park in an attempt to pick up some seeds.  Upon returning we wet the socks down with water, placed the socks in a zip lock bag, and taped the bags to the windows to see if we can germinate any of the seeds we might have picked up.

Well as you can see our first week back from Spring Break was a busy one.  Wishing you all a wonderful week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's some information from Mrs. Jackson...

April 19, 2015

Hello families!

SBAC is upon our older students.  Be thinking about our Oasis superstars during the next few weeks.  (I know our 1st and 2nd graders will be jealous when they see all of the amazing breakfasts the 3rd graders are having, but for the kids taking these tests and their families, these can be stressful times.)  

I have 3 intermediate students in my home and I feel for them this week.  We have such thoughtful and talented students and teachers here at Oasis;  I rest assured that we are prepared and will represent our school well on a state and nationwide level.  Yet, as Mrs. Green said in her own blog this evening, I can’t stress how important it is not to STRESS!  

In our own neck of the woods, we will continue carrying on with higher level discussion groups during our Guided Reading.  I really appreciate your support signing our nightly reading homework.  The quality of our daily reading discussions improved greatly last week and I am looking forward to beginning 2 new chapter books this week as well.  The students are all remembering their new folders and this seems to be a more effective way of getting our materials back and forth from school to home.  Thank you for this extra effort!  This week we hope to begin writing a piece that we can publish before the end of the year.  

Hope your family has a low-stress week with lots of rest, protein-filled breakfasts and “early” softball games!

Mrs. Jackson

Welcome Back from Spring Break

                                                                                    April 13, 2015

Dear Parents,

It was great to see so many of you on Thursday, April 2nd.  The students were so excited to show off their projects!!  I was very proud of the way they pulled the projects together.  The excitement the students had about presenting their projects was amazing!!

Spring Break was very restful.  It was nice to have some time at home to catch up on some neglected spring cleaning, planting, and organizing.  I especially enjoyed just spending time with my family.  Hopefully everyone had a great spring break!

Math
Our week started out with finishing up out work with graphing.  Students worked on creating their line plot graphs and wrote questions to go with their graphs.

We also explored the world of equal groups better known as multiplication!!  Students showed multiplication using manipulatives and through drawing pictures.  We are learning that when we use equal groups the equation can be written as repeated multiplication (3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12) or as a multiplication equation (4 X 3 = 12 or 4 groups of 3).  

Here are some pictures of the mathema-ticians from Room 5 exploring multiplication.

Math Homework
Mon.     Workbook pages 117-118
Tues.    Test B
Wed.     Workbook pages 125-126
 Thurs.  Workbook pages 129-130




Writing
All our writing was project related.  Students completed their research writing for their landform/bodies of water projects.  

Projects
All students completed and presented their landform/bodies of water projects. As I mentioned earlier, I was so thankful that many parents were able to come and check out the projects.  The students worked very hard and were excited to share their knowledge.  I am so proud of these kiddos!!  Here are a few pictures of students working on and sharing their projects.

Language
We able to squeeze a little bit of time to continue our work with prefixes.  We will be testing on prefixes after spring break.



With Spring Break behind us, we only have six weeks of school left.  I really can't believe how quickly this year has passed.  As we wind down our year we will continue to work hard learning and mastering new skills.  Here's wishing you a wonderful week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's some important information from Mrs. Jackson!!

April 12, 2015

It feels great to be back!  I spent 3 days in San Francisco with my sister and my Mom; I haven’t been at Alcatraz and Union Square since I was 13 and on my 8th grade graduation trip!  

While I was in the city, my daughters were camping at Washoe “Lake” and present when Governor Sandoval made his announcement that Nevada is officially in a “drought”.  My youngest daughter took advantage of this drought and finally truly learned to ride her bike in Washoe Lake.  

It was an exciting week with the above two events, but as is always, many home projects are still left undone…there’s always summer….

I’m excited to get back to the daily learning, projects and collaboration that goes on every day at Oasis.

This week we will be bringing home new Reading envelopes with our daily reading assignments inside.  These will replace our blue folders and need to be returned daily.  For this last quarter, I am asking that parents sign their child’s nightly reading homework.  

In these envelopes, they should bring home their books and a sheet of paper with the date, a parent signature request, the pages assigned for that evening and possibly an assignment relating to what they are to read that night.  

I know firsthand that this time of year can be really busy with softball, baseball and other evening activities, so if reading isn’t possible one evening just write a note next to the box and I will make special arrangements with your child so that they can finish their reading assignment during a time other than study hall.  If your child does not bring their homework with a nightly signature and there is not a note attached (or an email or text sent to me), they will be doing their reading HW during study hall.    

This quarter we are focusing on collaborative discussions with our peers about texts, so it is important that we are all prepared for our discussion groups.  We are also focusing on doing close readings of what we are reading, so that we can discuss the details of what we have read when we come to group.  

I have picked some new books that I think your children will enjoy for the end of this year.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you!