Inquiry Group Work:

Today we examined drawings of many different bugs and small crawling creatures. We recently learned that insects have 6 legs. The students worked together in their inquiry groups to sort the creature drawings into 2 piles: insects and non-insects, and identify them using sticky notes, if they could.
Tomorrow, we will compare ideas and compile a list of questions for further research.

 

We have begun our new Unit of Inquiry under the 

IB Organizing Theme: How the World Works

Central Idea:

Scientists examine nature to understand relationships among humans and all living things.

On Tuesday, we welcomed Painted Lady butterfly larvae into our classroom. We are closely watching the changes that occur each day and are recording them in Observation Logs. The caterpillars have grown so much in only 2 days!

Today the students imagined that they were scientists like Charles Darwin, collecting bugs in the Galapogos Islands. They returned with a collection of bugs and had to decide how to sort and identify them. In groups, they discussed and made decisions on how to sort their collections. The groups sorted the bugs in different ways. 

Each group then went to a different group's area. They discussed what was the same and what was different about how the bugs were sorted. They asked that group one question about their work.

Question: Why did you put the caterpillars in the 0 legged group?

Each group had the opportunity to explain their choices.

Please allow you child to wonder and question and look for information, and resist the urge to provide them with lots of facts and answers. We are looking for good questions to guide our inquiry! Feel free to wonder along with your child!

My daughter noticed these bird tracks in the snow on our porch railing today.
I wonder if you can find some different tracks in the snow. Post your photos and tell what creature made them!

Yesterday, Ms. Honey and I presented at the Teachers' Convention. We were so excited to share all the hard work that the Grade 2's have been doing in Literacy Cafe. Some teachers have asked to visit our classroom to see the children in action working hard on literacy. I am looking forward to continuing our work as a community of readers and writers!

In our class, we have been working on patterning in math workshop. We created a pattern using our names where each letter had its own color. The name unit was then represented in pictorial form.
We made repeating patterns using our names as the unit (part that repeats).
The repeating patterns created some interesting designs on our grids.

The next step was to see how the unit could be changed to create a growing pattern. A growing pattern changes in a predictable way in each iteration (or step).

We made growing patterns using unifix cubes.

The next day we created a new growing pattern with unifix cubes and represented it pictorially with each iteration in a separate line.

Can you explain how the above pattern grows each time?