Literacy Week

It's Literacy Week and everyone is keeping track of all their reading! We also had a fun Tuesday dressed up as our favorite literary characters.  There were characters from many different stories and genres; Annie and Cleopatra, Batman and Superman, Snow White and Cinderella.  Check out the photos of the competition.

Adia, dressed as the Princess and the Frog, was the winner for grades 2 and 3!!!

All our grade 2 characters :)

 We also did school-wide reading buddies for Guided Reading time.  It was really nice to get to cooperate with, teach, and learn from students from different grades. 

 For the last couple days we have dedicated a lot of time to finishing up our community inquiry projects.  We have been working on filming, voice recording, and editing the video we created about JIES, our school community and our community tree artwork is beginning to bloom... we hope to see you all at the Celebration of Learning!

 

Katakana time

Grade 2 students did Katakana review this week.

Although they are so good at writing Katakana, sometimes they get confused with ソ(so）and  ン（n）, ツ(tsu) and　シ(shi).

 They look pretty similar, but students know it is different.

Some students always ask me, "Sensei, is シ up or down?"

JNL students started reading "Kansatsu meijin ni narou"."Be good at observing things."

I asked students to pick one thing to observe and take some memo, (we couldn't go outside because of rain.) they decided to observe their friends. 

It was so funny to see them checking how tall they are and what they smell like.

October 17, 2014

For this week I thought I'd share some of our classroom routines so you can get to know how our class works a little better. 

This is our job chart.  Each student has a job that they do for two weeks and then they rotate.  The jobs help build student responsibility and empower them in the classroom to help make a difference in our learning community.

 

One of the jobs is the Homework Checker.  S/he keeps track of who has done and turned in the homework each day and keeps the paperwork all organized.  If a student has done the homework everyday for the week then s/he gets to play Homework for a chance to win prizes, and free homework passes!

 

 This is our weekly weather forecast.  The Morning Reporter is in charge of researching the weather on the internet and then presenting the forecast during Morning Meeting time.  The Morning Reporter also works on speaking and leadership skills by mediating the discussion time during the meeting. 

 This is our calendar where we practice our place value by keeping track of the number of days of school.  The Calendar Person can keep track of the weather and also make patterns using red or black numbers for the date. 

 

 These are our Essential Agreements that we all agreed upon as a class.

 This is our "Work in Progress".  They are the different learning outcomes that we are working on in the class at the time they are posted.

 After I feel all the students have mastered that outcome they go up on our "We Can Do It!" wall.  The students also check it off on their Scope and Sequence Learning Outcomes list that they keep in their portfolios.

 

 Each week the students practice their writing and communication by writing letters to other students and teachers. They develop attitudes like empathy and appreciation, and skills like being a communicator, caring and reflective.  Everyone looks forward to Friday when they send the letters and receive replies from their peers.  This is our list of types of letters you can write which helps them come up with different ideas for what to write each week. 

 Students keep track of when they express the positive attitudes and attributes that are promoted at our school by nominating either themselves or others to receive a sticker for that attitude or attribute. 

 Here are a few examples.

 

And it makes me really happy, thankful, and proud when I receive letters like this.  We still need to work a bit on spelling but the thoughts and importance put on positive attitudes (curious, tolerant, and confident) is excellent.

October 10, 2014

The students are working on the rough drafts of their community travel guides.  The travel guides put together all the information they learned and thoughts they have about for the most important community to them including the people, beliefs, jobs, ways people help each other, and things they share.  Some students decided they needed to learn more about and practice map making since maps are an important part of travel guides.  Here is some of our work in progress...

Kanji day

This week, Grade 2 students did Kanji review from Grade 1.

To keep remembering learned Kanji, they need to keep using them.

They actually had fun with remembering some Kanji they already knew.

JAL students like writing Kanji, too!

JNL students started reading "Tampopo no chie".

They are learning how to read and write explanation sentences.

JAL students got a new Kodomo no nihongo book, 

I hope they can read it nicely on the next reading day!

This week students have been making progress on their community inquiry and are really understanding what makes a community and how people in the communities are connected.  The students worked in groups to make a brainstorm poster about all the different aspects of a community; the places, people, things they share, jobs they do, ways they help, and things the community believes in.  It was a great way for them to learn how to organize and present their thoughts and ideas.  It also helped reinforce ideas we have been talking about with visual presentation and using font, color, shape, and layout to give a stronger impact on the audience.

The students also presented their ideas about why they and their parents decided to become a part of the JIES community and what they believed were important parts of a school.  I took some quick notes on what each student mentioned and in the end we had a nice list of all the common things that our school community believes in! 

 The students then began the first steps in their final assessment on communities by observing different travel guides that they brought in from home.  They looked for positive aspects in the different guides to help them when they make their own travel guide for an important community that they are a part of.  After seeing them get started on the rough drafts I think we will have some very nice community travel guides this year!