We love Reviewing Math Skills!

Posted on May 21, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

This week we decided that each day after our math lesson, we wanted to have a lot of new math centers that review the concepts we’ve learned this year! The Busy Class and K-5 Math Teaching Resources came to rescue Mrs. Felter and give her some great ideas! We set up new expectations for our math center time. Here are the rules we established:

Expectations for Math Centers

Have a positive attitude about centers and partners.
Read the directions before asking for help!
Stay focused the whole time.
Organize your materials and clean up when you’re done.
All done? Clean up & find Mrs. F for a new center!

With these new expectations, that we created ourselves, we are having a fabulous time! Here we are hard at work.

Learning Comes Alive!

Posted on May 14, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

What a wonderful surprise I had when I looked out our classroom’s window yesterday! I spied some familiar looking, hard working botanists! Mr. Bar, our science expert, helped our class plant sunflower, marigold, and corn seeds in our school garden.They used shovels to dig holes in the garden. The students also learned about not digging too deep, so that the plants are able to grow and survive. If you dig too deep the plant can’t grow because it isn’t getting enough energy from the sun. Mr. Bar also explained that when you plant the seeds in the ground you can’t pat the dirt down too hard or too tight because the stem can’t get out of the soil! After planting the seeds, they watered the ground. They learned that plants need the exact right amount of sun, water, and soil to grow. Too much of any one thing can cause the plant not to grow!

Click here for a wonderful plant website! Learn about seed growth, parts of a flower, seed dispersal, and plant identification.

More Knowing and Showing!

Posted on May 8, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

Ixell and Nancy aren’t afraid to show their thinking! Check out their great work below!

Show What You Know!

Posted on May 7, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

Yasmin blew us away yesterday, when she used an open number line to solve the following problem:

452 = n + 323

Her strategy was awesome and she was able to show and explain her work! Good mathematicians can always defend where they got their answer!

Nancy, Francisco, and Alaina did a great job showing their work on the following word problems. I like how they used numbers and words to explain their thinking! Can you aspire to make your work like theirs? What strategies can you borrow from these learners?

Math in Action!

Posted on May 3, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

We took our whole class math block to a whole new level this week! We played “Agree, Argue, Aspire”, worked in teams and independently, took our fraction knowledge deeper, and capped it all off with multiplication Jeopardy! Our class was focused and engaged all week long, and you have made me so proud!

We studied Karmyn’s work on her practice EOG test. Check out how she tried three different strategies before getting an answer with which she was confident! Karmyn’s work showed us that she can truly persevere when things get tough. Her example gave us a lot to aspire to!

Don’t be afraid to try more than one strategy!

Never be afraid to start all over!

Here we are studying Karmyn’s work and deciding what we agreed with, what we wanted to argue with, and what we could aspire to do in our own work!

If you’d like to try out multiplication Jeopardy at home click on the picture below. Get your family involved! See if you can beat your siblings and parents! Remember your good sportsmanship. Even though the girls were our big winner our boys acted like true gentlemen!

Rosie the Riveter Returns!

Posted on April 20, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

I noticed something interesting on my favorite nonfiction reading site for kids. Newsela.com is a great website that contains many current news articles written for students. When you click on the left of the site you can change the Lexile level of the article. A lower Lexile level will be easier to read and a higher level will be more difficult, probably on a middle school level. On Newsela I found this great article, The Original Rosie the Riveter had the Right Name for the Job! The article discusses the same Rosie we learned about in Andrea Beaty’s book, Rosie Revere Engineer! Take a few minutes to read and enjoy this article. Adjust the Lexile level on the left if the text seems too difficult or simple!

Here’s one of our favorite pages from Rosie Revere Engineer! (If you want to learn about powerful, smart women then check out this book!)

Fractions- Picture it in your Head!

Posted on April 9, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

My small math group worked on some great fraction cards this afternoon. We realized it really helps if you make a mental movie of the fraction and think about the numerator and denominator. For your visual, if the word problem doesn’t give you anything specific to picture, just use your favorite food: Pizza, chocolate bars, pies? $fraction fun by The Busy Class$ I love getting to hide behind my iPad with the answer key! Thank you to The Busy Class for the wonderful fraction cards from your Fraction Fun Pack!

Exploring Fractions

Posted on April 7, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

We have been exploring fractions for the past 15 days (wow, that’s half of a month!) I think our favorite fraction activities involve chocolate bars! There’s no better way to explore twelves than with a delicious Hershey bar!

Today, we played a game that asked us to put fractions in order from smallest to biggest. Thinking about those candy bar pieces really helped us out! You can find this fraction game here!

$fractions 5$ $fractions 1$ $fractions 2$ $fractions 3$ $fractions 4$

More Crazy English!

Posted on April 6, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

Last week, we discussed how often times in English, authors use words and phrases that say one thing when they really mean something else. We said that figurative language helps authors “spice up their writing,” or make it more interesting.

We know when we say, “Kyan is a brain” we are using a metaphor to describe Kyan as smart!

Saying, “Nancy is as bright as a lightbulb,” is simile that is comparing Nancy to a lightbulb because she is bright. We can use our context clues to infer that this simile means Nancy is smart!

We also discussed personification. Can you think of some examples of times when we give human characteristics to things that are not human?

Idioms are another type of figurative language. Idioms are combinations of words that mean something very different than what they say. Here are some examples to think about:

Another Snow Day!

Posted on February 12, 2014 by LearnCharlotte

Hello Antwan, Nancy, Shannallie, Karmyn, Yasmin, and Ixell!

I had a feeling you’d be visiting the blog today when you took a break from playing in the snow (please remember to where hats and mittens!) Did anyone else visit today who I didn’t list? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Here are some word problems to keep your brain working on this very cold, winter day!

1. Antwan ran 444 yards in his first game playing football for Florida State. In his next game, Antwan, threw for 156 yards. How many yards total did Antwan move the football down the field?

2. Yasmin has 6 packs of crayons and each pack has 8 crayons. The crayons in each pack are red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, brown, and black. If Yasmin gives Karmyn one pack of crayons, how many total crayons will Yasmin have left?

3. Shannallie, Nancy, and Ixell ran 3 miles each day last week. If next week they plan to run 5 miles each day, how many miles will they each run after both weeks?

Leave your answers in the comments and I’ll come up with more questions just for you!

Here are some of my snowy day pictures from yesterday!

Second graders make it back to class through the Tuesday snow!

Wow! Our playground is covered in snow!

Pablo enjoys his first walk in the snow!

“Hey! I caught a snowflake on my nose!” – Pablo Cinco Felter

unnamed-3

Pablo was very sleepy after playing in the snow!