Island of the Blue Dolphins

November 18, 2011

Room 12 is currently reading Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins.  If you are unfamiliar with the book, it is based on the true story of the "Lost Woman of San Nicolas."  The Lost Woman lived on alone on San Nicolas Island, just off the coast of Santa Barbara, from 1835 to 1853.  She was one of many American Indians who inhabited the island long before the Christian era.  The Lost woman was found 18 years after the rest of her tribe moved off the island.  She was brought to the Santa Barabara Mission, where she died only 7 weeks later.

While following the main character's story of survival, Room 12 students will be learning and practicing essential comprehension skills.  So far, we are "growing our ideas about characters" by:

• making a movie in our mind, drawing on the text to envision and become the character.
• using our own experiences to help us walk in the character's shoes, inferring what the character is thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
• revising our mental movie as we get new details from the text.
• predicting what will happen next by making a mental movie, and telling it bit by bit.
• thinking about what has alreading happened, then use what we know about the characters to imagine what they will do and how they will do it.
• drawing upon our personal knowledge of similar experiences to make connections, predictions, and have empathy for the characters.

Island of the Blue Dolphins is not only a great book for practicing our reading strategies, but will also give us insight into the lives of California Indians and the local wildlife.  We will learn how the Chumash lived their day to day lives and how they used natural resources.  We will also learn about the many fascinating land and sea creatures that appear in the story.  We will use this website in the computer lab to further develop our understanding of these topics.  Feel free to check it out, but be careful not to jump to far ahead and spoil the ending!

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Stone Soup Day is Tuesday, November 22nd!

November 07, 2011

 Stone Soup Day is a favorite Odyssey tradition.  The inspiration for this celebration is the tradition stories of Stone Soup.  We are reading several versions of this folktale from different cultures, comparing the story structures and themes of sharing and community.  

The OCS Stone Soup Day is a time to celebrate how rich we are as a community and the value of each individual's contribution to our metaphorical "soup' - celebrated, of course, by making actual soup!  Each classroom makes their own soup, then at lunch time we share our soups and eat together.  Families, board members, firefighters, police officers, the city council... EVERYONE is invited to eat with us!

Every student is asked to contribute 1 specific ingredient to the soup.  When all ingredients are combined, we will have a delicious soup to share!  Look for your child's ingredient in this week's Thursday Packet.  For example, your child might bring 2 potatoes, or 2 carrots, or 1 quart of vegetable broth, etc.  Ingredients are due Friday, November 18th.  Perishable items will be stored in the refrigerator over the weekend.  Room 12's soup will be vegetarian.  If you are unable provide your child's ingredient for any reason, contact me or Jessica Bilandzija at mamamiafitness@gmail.com ASAP.

We will begin cooking on Tuesday promptly at 8:15 in order for food to be ready for lunch time.  We would love to have you join us for cooking in the classroom and/or for lunch!  You are welcome to take you child home with you after lunch, just be sure to sign them out in the front office before leaving.

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Word Study Groups Started This Week!

October 13, 2011

Students began working in differentiated Word Study groups this week!  Students are placed in groups based on the spelling patterns they need to work on.  

I meet with 1 group each day of the week to start them on the their word sort.  After learning their sort, the group receives a copy of the sort to study at home.  Each group completes specific activities with their words for next 4 days, the last being a "Spell Check" assessment.

If you would like to know what day of the week your child will receive a new sort or have an assessment, please email me.

Some Word Study activities we know how to do:

• using the words in meaningful or "story" sentence
• a "blind" sort to remember the spelling of each word
• write the words in rainbow writing

Word Study activities we will learn:

• conduct a word hunt to find more words that fit the spelling patterns
• "operate" on the words to create similar words, by subtracting or adding 1 letter at time
• play student-created board games in which students must spell words correctly to move forward

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Geography

October 07, 2011

Room 12 has fully launched our first Social Studies unit on Geography!  We will learn all about maps before zooming in on California and it's distinctive landscape.

We began our studies by becoming cartographers ourselves.  We carefully mapped our school to understand the challengest that face map-makers.  We answered critical questions: what do we include?  How do I translate what I see into a drawing?  How do I make the sizes/shapes of buildings and objects look right?  How do I color the map so that it's easy for someone to read? 

We started by sketching what we know about the school.  Then we took ourselves on a tour, filling in the "blanks" on our sketches; adding and changing things along the way.  We returned to the classroom and worked with partners to create a final draft of our maps.  We folded the paper to divide the space.  We used pencils and sharpeners like blocks to "build" the campus and trace it.  We used color to separate spaces and buildings, then added labels, and some even included a legend!

As we move forward in Geography, we have learned about the cardinal and intermediate directions.  We proved that the North Field really is in the north by making our own compasses out of paper clips and magnets.  Ask your child WHY this works - they should be able to tell you all about it!

Some of the other map skills we are learning:

• How to read a compass rose on a map
• What are hemispheres?
• Latitude and longitude

Next we will shift our focus to California Geography and get to know its 4 main regions: the coast, central valley, mountains, and desert.  We learn where the capital is as well as other major cities.  We learn how each region influences industry and the development of cities.  In the last 2 weeks of October, we will express all of our learning by creating 3-dimensional maps of California out of salt dough.  We love to have you join us if you would like to help us form the maps and paint them!

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Thank you for attending the Meet & Greet!

October 07, 2011

Thank you everyone for attending the Meet & Greet Thursday evening!  Ithink the kids enjoyed showing you what their day looks like and all the work we have done.  And I would like to extend a big thank you and congratulations to our Room Parents, Jessica Bilandzija, Samantha Peale, and Lisa Lansing for planning and organizing a successful event! 

I noticed that our Writers Workshop area seemed to be a main focus the tour.  We are now fully immersed in our Personal Narratives.  Student chose "seed ideas" this week and we are now developing our small moments into chronological stories, stretching out the action by including small details, dialogue, and the character's thoughts.  Your children's lives are so full of rich moments - I can't wait to hear the full versions of their stories!  We will celebrate our first publish work on Thursday, October 20th.  For this first celebration, it will be just the Room 12 students and I.  We will extend invitations to families for our second published personal narrative.

Thank you again for attending, your donations to the Annual Campaign, and for supporting the OCS community!  It would not be such an amazing place without you!

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