Week 11 (October 27-31)

Happy Halloween!

We had a spooktacular week filled with fun and excitement! We made spooky houses, we decorated pumpkins, read lots of Halloween books, and of course celebrated the day with a parade! Congratulations to Gigi who won the Des Plaines Library writing contest! We will pick up your prize next week!

Books we Read this Week…

Math Games…

Salute… (A game Ms. Georgia taught us)

Football… (Another fun math game donated by Ms. Georgia)

Art Activity- Spooky House Silhouettes

Mindset Mathematics Lesson- Big Idea 4- Which is More…

The activity, “Which is More”, encourages students to compare quantities and reason about relationships between numbers, rather than just compute or memorize facts.

Journaling about our novel, Flora and Ulysses…

Painting Pumpkins…

Guessing How Many Pumpkin Seeds and the Weight of the Giant Pumpkin…

Multiplicity Lab- How Many? What do you Notice?

Choice Time and Centers

Ms. Lisa’s class came to give a presentation about their service learning project which is Bernie’s Book Bank! If you have any gently used books at home, please send them to school October 29-November 3. 🙂

Our students made bookmarks for Bernie’s Book Bank!

Middle school students came to our classroom for an activity–in Greek!

Field trip to the Des Plaines Theater to see Sleepy Hollow!

Halloween Costumes…

Happy 8th Birthday, Gigi! We hope you have a wonderful Halloween birthday!!

Have a great weekend!!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Week 10 (October 20-24)

Dear friends and families of room 120,

This week we spent some time writing our own comic strips. This ties in with our novel because parts of it are written as a graphic novel. We talked about how a comic strip is a short series of drawn pictures (panels) that tell a story or joke, usually with speech bubbles or captions for dialogue and narration.

We celebrated two birthdays this week!

Happy Birthday, Benji!

Happy Birthday, Carla!

We love making birthday books for our friends!

Math-

A lesson in place value…

Learning place value is one of the most important foundational skills because it explains what numbers really mean, it builds number sense, and improves problem solving and reasoning skills.

Math Games…

I Sea 10-

Football With Ms. Georgia-

Guess Odd/Guess Even-

Mindset Mathematics…

The lesson this week was called Array Talks: Composing and Decomposing Numbers.

The focus of this lesson is about how numbers are composed (made up of parts) and decomposed (broken into parts). Arrays become a powerful representation because they allow students to see a number as e.g., “4 rows of 5=20” or “5 x 4 = 20”, or break 20 into 10+10, etc. Arrays make the abstract idea of composing and decomposing numbers concrete. Students see the parts (rows/columns) and the whole. It also encourages mathematical talk: By asking “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” and “How could this array be broken onto parts?” students verbalize their thinking and reason about number structure.

Pick Up Sticks for Points…

Centers/Choice Time

A student created a board game…

A computer game…

Sixth and seventh graders from Ms. Mary’s class wrote and illustrated children’s books and shared them with our class…

Room 120 loves to draw and color!

Can’t wait for the Halloween festivities next week. Until then, have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Week 9 (October 14-17)

Happy Friday, friends and families! We had a short but fun-filled week! Here are some highlights…

Writing a final copy of our Superhero Stories…

I sat down with each child to read and edit their rough draft. After fixing errors, the students recopied their writing onto a piece of lined paper using their best handwriting. It can be challenging for some students to look back and forth between two pieces of paper in order to copy sentences because children at this age are still refining hand-eye coordination and writing stamina. This also requires visual tracking and motor control– both still maturing at this age. The students did a great job with this challenging task.

Centers/ Choice Time

Choice Time and Center Time in second and third grade is much more than a break–it’s an essential part of child development and learning. Here’s why it’s important:

Builds Independence and Responsibility- Students learn to make decisions about how to use their time and what activities to pursue. This fosters self-regulation, organization, and ownership of their learning–key skills for later grades.
Encourages Creativity and Critical Thinking– Free choice allows kids to explore interests–like building, drawing, reading, or experimenting. They often solve problems, invent games, or create projects, which builds creativity and cognitive flexibility.
Develops Social and Emotional Skills– During choice time, children negotiate, share, and collaborate with peers. It’s a safe environment to practice empathy, resolve conflicts, and build friendships–all crucial parts of social-emotional learning.
Supports Differentiated Learning
Promotes Joy and Motivation for Learning
Reinforces Academic Skills in a Natural Way

Writing about Squirrels…

Since a squirrel is one of the main characters in our novel, “Flora and Ulysses”, we made a KWL chart about squirrels and then wrote a mini report about them.

We learned the following facts about squirrels…

Squirrels plant trees without even knowing it! When squirrels bury nuts and forget where they hide them, those nuts can grow into new trees. They’re like little forest gardeners!
They have amazing memories. Squirrels can remember hundreds of hiding spots for their food and use landmarks, like rocks or trees, to find them later.
Their teeth never stop growing. Squirrels’ front teeth grow all the time–about 6 inches a year! That’s why they’re always gnawing on things, to keep their teeth from getting too long.
Squirrels are great jumpers and climbers. They can leap up to 10 times their body length in ne jump and use their sharp claws and strong legs to race up trees.
Their tails are like multi-tools. A squirrel’s tail helps it balance, keep warm, communicate, and even parachute when jumping from high places.
They use body language to talk. Squirrels flick their tails or make chirping noises to warn other squirrels about danger.
Some squirrels take naps in winter. Tree squirrels don’t hibernate completely, but they spend a lot of time sleeping in cozy nests called dreys when it’s cold.
There are over 200 kinds of squirrels! They live almost everywhere in the world- from forests to city parks-except in Australia and Antarctica.

Chess Class…

Mindset Mathematics Lesson…

Making a Dollar (Big Idea 3 Composing and Decomposing Numbers)

This activity helps students explore different ways to make $1.00 using coins. The discussion questions included

How many ways can you make a dollar?
What patterns do you notice?
Is there a system you can use to find all the possibilities?
How can you show your thinking clearly?

Spooky Story Writing Contest for Desplaines Public Library…

We were challenged to write a Halloween story in two sentences…

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Week 8 (October 6-10)

Hello, families! We had a SUPER week! Please enjoy some of the highlights…

Books we read this week…

We read the Junie B. Jones book in the mornings to get us excited for our upcoming trip to the farm, and we are enjoying our afternoon read-aloud about a squirrel, (who is a superhero), in the afternoon.

We love our weekly trips to the Des Plaines Library!

Writing about our superpowers…

The class brainstormed what superheroes Can do, Have and Are

Journaling

Throughout the week we wrote a rough draft about the following prompt…

If you woke up one morning and discovered you had superpowers, what would they be?

They then answered the following questions-

What would your superhero name be?
What kind of costume would you wear?
How would you help people with your powers?
Who would be your sidekick?
What would be your greatest adventure?

Draw a picture of yourself as your superhero!

Centers and Choice Time…

Mindset Mathematics…

This week our activity was called “The Many Ways to See 100”

This big idea helps students understand that 100 can be made, seen, and understood in many different ways. The main goal was to help kids see numbers flexibly–not just as digits, but as quantities that can be grouped, split, and combined in different ways. The students “saw” 100 as tens and ones such as 10 tens, 9 tens + 10 ones, and 8 tens + 20 ones. This helps children understand place value. They also so the parts as equal groups, (e.g. 100= 5 groups of 20, 100= 4 groups of 25, 100= 2 groups of 50)Color coding these 100 blocks taught the students there’s not just one way to think about 100. It can be built, broken apart, grouped, or visualized in lots of ways. Understanding this helps students become flexible and confident with numbers.

Scoop and Count- Mindset Mathematics

This open-ended counting and estimating activity is designed to help students practice counting and grouping numbers, build number sense, understand place value, and explore addition, subtraction, and estimation in a fun way.

Our trip to the Wagner Farm!

Making Butter…

We took turns shaking the jar of heavy whipping cream.

We ate butter on graham crackers…

We saw the pigs and cows, prepared corn for the chickens, pumped water for the cows, and ground the corn into seed. We had such a nice time!

Feeding chickens…

Have a wonderful long weekend!

Love, Ms. Melissa

Week 7 (Sept. 29-Oct. 3)

Good evening, families and friends! We had a wonderful week of learning and having fun together! Here are some highlights from our busy week!

Phonics practice…

Even though our second and third graders know their letter sounds, reviewing them still has important benefits for literacy development. At Plato our early grades use Secret Stories to teach phonics. Secret Stories is a supplemental phonics program designed to teach the “rules” of reading and spelling easier for kids to understand and remember. It is a collection of “secrets” that explain why letters make the sounds they do. Instead of presenting phonics rules as abstract, it ties them to fun, brain-friendly stories and visuals that students can easily recall.

Books we read this week…

Ms. Stephanie from the Des Plaines library will come to our class every other month to read a picture book and do a fun craft activity. This week our book was called Mr. S

Mr. S is a humorous children’s picture book by author-illustrator Monica Arnaldo, published in 2023. The story follows a kindergarten class on their first day of school, where they find a sandwich and the name “Mr. S” on the chalkboard instead of their teacher. The book explores the ensuing chaos as the children debate whether the sandwich is their new teacher, while the reader is aware of the real Mr. S’s comical mishaps happening outside the classroom window.

The Des Plaines fire department came to our school to do a presentation about fire saftey. We even got a tour of the firetrucks!

Mindset Mathematics…

The Array Museum was our math activity for this week where students create and display arrays (rows and columns of objects, dots, or drawings). Then, like in a museum, everyone “tours” and looks at the different arrays. Arrays helped the children see multiplication (e.g., 3 rows of 4=12). They also connect to addition (3+3+3+3). They also notice patterns (like rows, columns, symmetry). During the gallery walk students walk around, look, and discuss what they see…

“I see 3 rows of 4!”

“This one is like mine but flipped!”

“That array shows both 3 x 4 and 4 x 3!”

The goal of this activity was for students to build a visual, flexible understanding of multiplication and see connections across different representations.

Array Museum…