"Different types of teeth are adapted to grasp, hold, and chew different kinds of food. Examining the kinds of teeth a mammal has and the shape of its jaw and skull helps us determine the type of food it eats" was the focus of our Four Winds lesson with Ms. Ransom yesterday. The children were able to example real skulls to determine if it was a carnivore, herbivore, omnivore or insectivore. They observed the skulls to answer questions such as: How many incisors does the skull have? How many canines and molars? Are the teeth sharp or flat? As a follow up to this lesson your child created a skull out of paper, determined what their animal was, and then added the appropriate kinds of teeth for the diet the animal would have.

Math for second graders has consisted of several word problems helping them to identify patterns that are occurring, and keeping track of running totals as they create charts to keep their information organized. Some of the problems asked us to find the "trend" of temperature changes over a period of time. Others asked us to find out what would happen if a particular pattern continued for a two-week period. An example of this type of problem reads: If Ann scored two points on Monday, three points on Tuesday, two points on Wednesday, three points on Thursday, and this pattern continued, how many points would she have scored altogether in a two-week period? There are many things a child needs to know in order to be successful with this problem. It’s necessary to know how many days are in a two-week period, that there is a 2,3,2,3 pattern and how to set this up in chart form with a running total, the order of the days of the week beginning with Monday and ending with Sunday, and to repeat this days of the week pattern again, or find that you can double the answer after 7 days have been listed on the chart. Once the solution is reached, a child needs to know how to answer the question that was asked by writing a complete and accurate statement. Children are also asked to think about and communicate a "connection" to these problems. For example, "IF this pattern continued for a third week, Ann would have scored a total of ____ points."

Other types of word problems we’ve worked on are called "accrued time" problems using minutes and hours. These problems require knowing that 60 minutes equals 1 hour, and that two hours is 120 minutes. They also encourage being able to add groups of minutes, such as 10’s 15’s and 20’s in order to find exact hours and minute amounts. An example of an accrued time problem is: If Jimmy had 1 hour of free time and the following activities take the allotted amount of time, what are two different ways he could fill an entire hour?

Draw for 10 minutes

Read for 15 minutes

Build with Legos for 20 minutes.

Using a chart that is set up with the activity, time spent and running total of minutes used is one way a child can demonstrate how to solve this problem. A connection might be stating, "If Jimmy had 1 ½ hours of free time, he could also build with Legos for another 20 minutes and draw for 10 minutes."

Just this week, we began to look at combination problems that ask us to find ways of keeping track of our work so we can find all of the different combinations a problem presents. For example, if Jen has three different colored shirts and two different colored shorts, how many different combinations of outfits does she have before she has to repeat an outfit? Many of us attempted to make an organized list to show our work, which led us to finding out about a new strategy called a "tree diagram." We are finding out that a tree diagram helps us find all of the different combinations without repeating any. Several of us also discovered that we can prove our answers to these combination problems by using multiplication. If there are three shirt choices and two short choices, we have a multiplication problem of 3 x 2 =6 or 2+2+2=6. Seeing these tree diagram problems as multiplication problems has been a discovery made by several children without any coaching from me!

The first graders continue to practice making a table or T-chart as a strategy one can use in order to find solutions to problems that have contain a pattern. We call it a T chart because we construct the chart using the letter T. The children are working on problems such as: "Farmer John was planting his garden. In the first row he planted peppers. In the second row he also planted peppers. In the third row he planted cucumbers. In the fourth row he planted peppers again. If this pattern continues, what will he plant in the tenth row?" There have been several challenges for the children while learning to construct a T-Chart. The first challenge is how to write the words first, second, third, fourth, etc using mathematical notation(1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, etc.) Perhaps the biggest challenge is to figure what to label each column. For the problem above, the T-chart would be labeled with rows and vegetables. We’ll be finishing up our work with these types of problems shortly. We have also played a card game called Money Compare. In this game children took turns flipping over cards. Each player counted the money on the card and then decided which player’s card had the most money. Money Bingo has also been another way we have practiced counting groups of coins. Did your child show you his or her paper with a menu from Orr’s Restaurant? The children had to pick an appetizer, main course, dessert and a beverage. They had to figure out how much their meal would cost and show the coins they would use to pay for their meal( Orr’s Restaurant happens to be a very inexpensive Restaurant where a meal costs less than a dollar!) This activity was inspired by a book we read called Pigs Will Be Pigs. In this story, the pigs wanted to go out to dinner. They didn’t have any money so they hunted around their home and found coins in many places. They added up the coins they found and had enough money to go out to dinner and order the "Special". We had quite a discussion about what a "Special" meant at a restaurant. Another day, there were many toys at the" Orr Store" and the children had to pick out toys and show which coins they would use to pay for the toys. Again, this was an inexpensive toy store! Please ask your child to tell you about some of these math activities.

Mr. Drake sent home Jump Rope For Heart Forms on Tuesday. Your child’s participation in collecting pledges is optional. The children will be jumping rope during P.E. class. If you do decide to have your child collect pledges, please turn in the forms BEFORE February vacation. If you have more questions, just let Mr. Drake know.

I look forward to seeing you this evening at the concert!

Questions to ask your child this week:

Do all solids dissolve in water? (we found out that pepper did not)

How can we get a solid out of water that did not dissolve? (we used a filter and a funnel)

What is hanging up in our windows (sun catchers that were made by dissolving a solid (gelatin) in water.

What are you working on in math?

We read a book about a little girl losing a tooth in Africa. What is different about losing a tooth in Africa? (they put their teeth under a gourd and they can get a chicken rather than money as we do)

Where is Africa on the globe?

Do you think you’ll get your spelling words correct when Mrs. Orr checks you tomorrow or Monday?

DATES TO REMEMBER:

January 31^st: Winter Concert with Mr. Close at 6:30. My students should be here at 6:15 and take their seat in the gymnasium.

February 4^th: PTN meeting at 6:30 here at school.

February 5^th: 100^th Day of School!

February 13^th: Early Release for students

February 14^th: Make up Library Day due to early release on Wednesday. Please send in your child’s library books on this today.

February 14^th: Valentine’s Day activities. I’ll be sending home a list of class names soon along with a request for help with ingredients we’ll need to make a treat at school for Valentine’s Day. We’ll be supplementing our explorations of solids and liquids by making ice cream!

February 18^th: School Assembly: 2:15. You are welcome to attend.

February 19^th: Last day to return Jump Rope For Heart pledge forms to Mr. Drake. He is in our school on Tuesday and Fridays so forms may be sent in on these days.

February 25^th: Vacation Begins

March 5^th: School resumes

EVERY THURSDAY: Reading chart (homework) is due.

EVERY FRIDAY: We’ll try to write in our home/school journals to you. Therefore, please return them to school by each Wednesday.