Starting Wednesday, May 1st we are back in the pool. Please have your child bring a swimsuit, towel, and sunscreen. We will swim after our May Day Performance. See you on May Day!
How We Organize Ourselves Math or Chaos Central Idea: Math is a system that organizes our world by providing order. We started our new unit this week by brainstorming what we know and like about math. Here are some initial inquiries about math- Where did numbers come from? Who thought of math first? What was the first number? Why did they think of math? We watched The Story of One, an informative video about the history of math. Ask your child to tell you about the evolution of the number one. How did it start? Why did they need numbers? Which culture has a number for one and everything else is just considered many? Where does our number system come from? This week we look at the strands of math and go on a school scavenger hunt to discover where math is used to organize our day. For the summative assessment we will visit Kailua and identify places where math is used in the community to organize and provide order. Students will photograph the math they see and then use these photographs to put together an informative video. Cassie Barina, an LJA middle schooler and bassoon enthusiast visited our class and shared with us the importance of math in music. Watch the video to hear Cassie skillfully play this unique instrument! Our Skype sessions continue! This week we skyped a school from Mexico City. Their English skills were impressive however we could hear their accent and this became one of our clues. We worked hard to discover where their school is located. We used maps of the world, time zone maps, and our iPads. We will have another Skype session with them this week to ask questions and confirm our research. 
We are looking forward to May Day this Wednesday. The performance begins at 8:30. Please have your child wear green clothing and a fresh lei. We will also be watching the performance so have your child bring a hat, sunscreen and a water bottle. It is going to be a great day!
Last week was a busy and very productive week! We are polishing our performance for May Day. See if your child can show you the dance moves to the Molokai Slide. We also celebrated Poetry Month and Earth Day by learning about Haiku poetry. Poems are on display in the classroom, many students are publishing their haiku poem on their blog. The students also worked very hard on their summative assessments for our Commotion in the Ocean Unit. Students took their research and synthesized it to create a colorful and informative magazine in the style of Time for Kids. I am so proud of the time and effort that they have put into their magazines! We will finish up tomorrow and students will be bringing these home at the end of the week. Exciting Skype Sessions We have had two very exciting Skype sessions. We skyped Bryan Chick, author of The Secret Zoo. He was so generous with his time, spending 30 minutes answering all of our questions. You can read about this skype session on our Skype Bulletin Board in the classroom.
On Friday we had another exciting Mystery Skype Session. When we connected with our Mystery School we discovered that it was their lunch time and it was just 8:15 here in Hawaii, this was our first clue! Here are the rest of their clues- 1. We are in Canada. 2. We live in a province. 3. We see grizzly bears. 4. We like to ski and hike. 5. We live in the very first national park in Canada. We were very excited that this school was located in Canada. It is our first school that is outside of the U.S. and Jack is moving to Canada this summer. We looked at maps and books about Canada and figured out the province and the town where this school is located. We also learned a lot about Canada. Did you know that Canada is the second largest country in the world? There are 10 provinces in Canada. A province is like a state in the U.S. They speak English and French in Canada. We have another skype session with this school to confirm our research. Do you know where this mystery school is located? Go to our Mystery Skype Schools page at the top of the class blog to find out. Jack inspired us all this week when he taught us how to put a slideshow into our blog posts. Thanks for teaching us something new! Check out the slideshow below and see highlights of our week. Be sure to check out your child's blog to see their slideshow on the octopus. Our May Day celebration is scheduled for May 1st. We are performing a dance to the Molokai Slide. The color of Molokai is green so please have your child wear green aloha wear. Boys may wear an aloha shirt that is primarily green or a plain green shirt (logo free, can be turned inside out). Girls may wear an aloha dress that is primarily green or a dress or shirt that is green. Check out the clip below for a sneak peek of the performance! We had a fabulous trip to the tide pools. Thank you so much to all of our chaperones. Check out pictures from the field trip on the picture page.  Thank you so much for joining us on Friday for the Tide Pool Condos Play. I was so proud of our performers! They performed with so much confidence and poise. Thank you for your help and support. I am in the process of organizing the pictures and will post them on the picture page soon. If you have pictures please send them to me and I will add them.  -Field Trip Reminder-
Thursday we are headed to the tide pools/ See above picture for location. Please have your child wear a swimsuit and bring: 1. Snacks and a Lunch 2. Plenty of Water 3. Sunscreen and a Hat 4. Towel 5. Change of clothes Optional- bucket, small net, goggles *No boogie boards or surfboards please If you are available to chaperone thank you in advance. There may be available seats on the bus or you may want to carpool and follow us to the tide pools. Chaperones will be responsible for a small group of students. We will have a lifeguard on duty to supervise. If you need to leave early please let me know so that I can assign your students to another chaperone. It is going to be a fun filled day of discovery! I hope everyone had a relaxing and fun filled Spring Break! It was fun to hear about everyone's vacation. Check out your child's blog and read about the highlight of their vacation. We are blogging buddies with 2 classes of 2nd graders. Help your child check out the comments on their posts from their buddies. Please encourage your child to go to the Mystery Skype page at the top of this page and find their blogging buddy. They can then read their buddies blog and post a comment back. We also were excited to receive postcards from our Washington D.C. Skype friends. In this digital age many of the students stated that they prefer receiving a postcard to a blog comment... Wouldn't it be nice if the art of letter writing continued? We are going to continue our postcard exchange with Ms. Magana's class from D.C. and with our Hilton Head Skype friends. 
We are busy, busy, busy with rehearsals for our Tide Pool Condos Play. We hope to see everyone on Friday at 8:45 for the performance. Picture opportunities and snacks for the cast immediately following the performance! The dress rehearsal is set for Thursday afternoon. Please make sure your child has his/her costume ready for the school dress rehearsal. UPCOMING FIELD TRIP TO THE TIDE POOLS IS SET FOR NEXT THURSDAY. PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU ARE AVAILABLE TO CHAPERONE AND HAVEN'T TURNED IN THE SHEET. THIS IS A FABULOUS FIELD TRIP! Curriculum Update- Second Graders are "piloting" a spelling/word study program this last trimester. We are continuing to follow our school scope and sequence for spelling but are also incorporating the activities from this program. Students will take a pre-test on Monday, bring their words home to study during the week and have a final test on Friday. Word lists will still be available on Spelling City. This site is a great way for students to study their words. Spelling City can be found on the "Websites on Sqworl " page on the top of this page. Just 10-15 minutes 2 times a week will really boost your child's spelling skills and confidence.
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