Highlights from Week 5 in Room 2

Some highlights from week 2 are...

We got to meet Paul's sister Andrea! Andrea came to visit from Washington, D.C., and shared about her time as a nurse in India. Thanks for the great visit, Andrea!!

Two Stanford Trees sported their Stanford hoodies on the same day. I love it! Future Stanford students!!!

Ms. S taught us a super fun tune to remember the parts of a plant, and played it for us on the guitar! We got to sing along, act it out, and LEARN more about plants all the while! Thanks, Ms. S!! 

We grew our schema even more about penguins. We read March of the Penguins, and listened for facts.  Check out how much new learning we collected!

Scholars hard at work

One of my favorite thing about learning through thematic units is how rich our content, vocabulary, and student engagement is! Students are completely engrossed in their literacy workstations, and are producing such amazing work! 

One reason why Literacy Workstations have been such a fruitful time of learning is that we have begun each workstation session setting goals about our learning. Here are some journal entries from workshop scholars!

We learned more about some of our classmates this week during Share time in Morning Meeting! 

Joczan shared a picture of his dad, who we learned is a police officer. Stanford Trees were curious and interested in how Joczan's dad earned his badge.

Joel shared a special photo of him with his brother Jaime, who he cares a lot about!

Eduardo had a fantastic week of growing as a mathematician! He practiced becoming an accurate counter by double-checking, counting one to one, and adding two numbers together. Way to go, Eduardo! Keep up the hard work!

Penguin Dramas

This past Friday, Room 2 transformed into Antarctica when water froze over and ice bergs formed right in the middle of the room.  The Stanford Trees made their own penguins for dramatic play, and acted out caring for their fragile eggs, and making the long trek to the icy sea for krill, squid and fish to feed their young. 

 During the trek, the eggs hatched, and the dads took good care of the baby chicks covered in downy feathers. When the exhausted mothers finally got back, they fed their young and traded spots with the dads!

Penguin-Human Comparisons

We have been so curious about what makes penguins different than human beings. This week in Science, we compared physical features and measured up against the largest penguin of all--the Emperor Penguin.  Students made predictions about whether or not they would be taller than the Emperor. We were surprised to find most of us were not! The Emperor grows to be 4 feet tall.

               

                 

Afterward, Stanford Trees traced one another and labeled a human's physical features.

Sharing and Interactive Write!

We have been learning all about our classmates during "Share" time in Morning Meeting. Each morning, a Stanford Tree shares something special about their life. It's a great time for the sharer to practice public speaking, while the audience practices active listening and question asking.  As a class, we learn more about one another and build community.  

Then, the class works on one component of writing as we share the pen through interactive write. Each day of the week has a different focus--conventions, sight words, cvc words, etc.  Here are some of the Sharers we had this week.

Amazing Workshop Scholars!

I have been so impressed by my super scholars' work during Literacy Workshop! Check out the Writing they have been doing at the Writing Station, and the observations they made at the Science station.  They are like sponges, retaining so many facts about penguins, and learning so much vocabulary!

PENGUINS!!!

Penguins might be my favorite animal ever. We have been having so much fun growing as Ornithologists, and learning all about this fascinating creature. Here are first graders working on "Observation Charts," and interacting with penguin images as scientists.

  

  

Here are scientists exploring a penguin's habitat. These first graders froze ice to create icebergs for their penguins.  We had so much fun having our penguins jump off icebergs, dive into the icy cold water, and slide on their bellies.

Our penguin/human pictorial & vocabulary wall: