Second Grade Rock Stars
Tour News!
Next on tour: Upcoming Events
Coming on Tour Soon:
- 01/02: No School
- 01/03: School is Back in Session!
- 01/05: WAVE Board Meeting at 6:30 pm in the Art Room
- 01/11: Talent Show Auditions
- 01/12: WAVE Coffee Talk at 8:20 am by the cafeteria
- 01/12: WCS Board Meeting at 6:30 pm on the Pebblewood Campus
- 01/13: Spirit Day: Sports Day
- 01/16: No School: Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Are you and your Rock Star up to march to honor the past and impact the future? Check out more information here!)
- 01/17 & 01/18: Mrs. Martin at a Professional Development for Teachers in LA at the Museum of Tolerance
- 01/19: Prospective Parent Tours
- 01/22: Possible Fun Family Activity: Crocker Art Museum Drop in and Sketch (Click Here for more information. From 11:00 am-1:00 pm)
- 01/27: Family Movie Night! Watch a fun family movie with other WCS community members at 6:00 pm in the cafeteria
- 01/31: Lottery Applications Due (Click HERE to download the application)
- 02/01: Middle School Science Fair (Bring you child to see some amazing science fair projects and learn all about science! Starts at 6:00 pm on the Pebblewood Campus)
- 02/04: My Princess and Me Dance (Click here for more information)
Our Highlights: What We've Been Rockin' At!
Wow! I can not wait to see what other solutions these Change Makers come up with in the future to help solve the problems of the world. They are already headed toward making a positive change! As students researched and learned about their chosen endangered animal, they began to see the problems that their animal faces. In this unit, we learned a lot about animals, ecosystems, habitats, the diversity of life, challenges that face animals and ecosystems, human impact, cause and effect, geography, laws, and global issues.
Students came up with one or more new solution(s) they think that could help make a difference in the world for their animal. Without limiting student creativity, these risk-takers developed inventions, changes to laws, and other innovative ways they can help. They worked collaboratively to create solutions and then received helpful, kind, and specific peer feedback. They then continued to revise their solutions utilizing the feedback and critiques from their peers to make their solutions more achievable and have a greater impact. Then students looked up adults and experts who they thought could help make their solution a reality and wrote them letters. From scientists to organizations, students worked together with their partners to make their voices heard. The class also came up with the idea of creating a book to help bring about the awareness to others. Their thinking is that if more people know about what is going on with these animals, then it might spark change (just like we learned about how the scientist Rachel Carson wrote a book and people made a change). As students work on writing their pages and going through the writing process as an author, I am working on getting it published- please let me know if you have any connections to help speed up the process!
Watch out World...these Rock Stars are driven to positively change the world!
Thank You!
Canned Food Drive!
Items of greatest need are:
- macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, jelly, canned vegetables, canned tuna, and canned chicken meat (no glass containers please). Please bring items to your classroom, after our Winter Break. Thank you for your donation!
Rockin' and Rollin' into the Future!
Reading: In Reading Workshop we are doing guided reading groups where students are reading a book based on their reading level and discussing that book together with their group. We will soon also be delving into Biographies!
Writing: Students will be writing their Endangered Animal page to make our class book that we hope to publish to bring about awareness to other students and difference makers. We will also be learning the basics of biographies for when we begin to writing our own individual biography books.
Social Studies: People Who Made a Difference! One of my favorite units! Students will be learning about all sorts of Change Makers and how they positively made a difference in the world. Students will then find and pick their own person they are interested in learning more about.
Spelling: Click for the Spelling Word List and Challenge Word List
Questions to ask your child...
- What was your favorite thing during the Endangered Animals Unit?
- What is your solution to help your endangered animal?
- How can we help your animal further?
- Why is it important to think about how you can help solve problems?
- Why do you love the book that you are reading right now? Which character in it would you most want to be friends with and why?
- What are you most excited about to go back to school?
Resources and Readings:
- Family Fun in Sacramento (A website with tons of information about local family events)
- Math Games using Dice and Cards (In case you missed this one last time: All great games that you can play at home! Let me know if you need dice or cards- I am happy to send some home for you to keep.)
- Angela Lee Duckworth- The Power of Passion, Grit, and Perseverance (Just around 6 minutes. One of the most interesting TED Talks about perseverance in children. If you love it and love reading, check out the book How Children Succeed by Paul Tough- it's an intriguing book!)
- 10 Tips for Building Resilience in Children by the APA
- TED's Recommended TED Talks to watch with the entire family (Can you tell I love TED Talks?)
- Brain's On (A fantastic free podcast for children about all sorts of topics on Science. Recommended to me by a biologist and a mom, I am now hooked and your kids will be too! It's a great listen for you and the kids in the car, before bed, or as dinner is being made. Get the app on your phone for quicker listening.)
Have You been to our website, recently?
Contact the Band Manager!
Second Grade Teacher
Westlake Charter School
Twitter: @MrsMartinsRoom
Remind 101:
Messages that pertain to our class: text @4rockstar to the number: 81010
Email: jmartin@westlakecharter.com
Website: http://MrsMartinsRockStars.weebly.com
Phone: 916-567-5760