AHOY MATEY!!!!

Wow!!!  It is hard to believe that the summer is almost over.  I can't wait to get back to school to start our wonderful year with some awesome kids!!  To get our year started off correctly, I wanted to let you all know a little about myself and our classroom.

All About Mrs. McAbee

This is my 15th year teaching.  I am married to my best friend Jason and I have one spoiled rotten second grade boy named Grant.  I am a Christian, a wife, a mother, a teacher, a sister, and a friend.  I love to work puzzles.   My favorite subjects in school have always been math and science.  I enjoy spending time with my family, camping, and reading. 

Our Classroom

This year, I classroom will be a place of learning and fun.  We will explore our wonders and find answers to our questions.  As a part of this learning, students will be reading and writing in all subject areas.  Students will have opportunities to use technology in multiple formats.  Students will work independently, in pairs, and in groups.  We will work together to find ways to meet the needs of all students. 

Important Dates

Wednesday, August 12th...1:00-6:00...Meet the Teacher Day (I can't wait to meet each child!!)
Monday, August 17th...First Day of School!!!  (Can't wait!!!!)

Tenmarks

On Wednesday morning, I attended a training at the District Office on a new math program that the district is piloting.  It is a supplemental program that is meant to aid in student learning and retention.  Our class was chosen to try out the program at Oakland.  I gave all of the students their log in and password information today in class.  This will probably change over the weekend when I have time to go in and reset everyone to their lunch number.  However they do have two assignments that they can complete.   If they complete the assignments by Monday morning, I will give them an extra 100 in math.  Please let me know if you have an trouble logging into the site below or any questions/concerns that might come up will your child is working on their assignments.  I am hoping this will be a very beneficial addition to our classroom.

TenMarks

Subtraction Strategies

The links below will go through the different strategies that we have worked on in class during our Subtraction with regrouping unit.  We are trying to help the kids to understand the why behind the marking out of the ten and the adding of the one in front of the ones place.  I hope this will be helpful as you review with your child at home.

Number Line

Base Ten Blocks

Hundreds Board

Expanded Form

Standard Algorithm

Expanded Form

Today in math we worked on Subtraction with Regrouping using expanded form.  I showed the students a video of myself teaching them how to solve a problem like this.  Below you will see the link for this lesson. 

Expanded Form Lesson

I hope this will help to make homework easier for the rest of this week :).  

March 2-6

Innovation and Invention

We are beginning our new PBL on innovation and invention.  Our driving question for this unit is "How can one idea change the world?".  We began our unit by looking at a series of quotes from some famous "curious" people such as Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison.  The kids began thinking about what it meant to be curious and was it okay to fail.  Be sure to ask your child what they have learned about these ideas.


After spending time looking at our quotes, we went on a "Wonder Walk".  The students were able to go to the Wonder Room to observe and wonder about some now common place inventions such as the light bulb and Velcro.  They were able to ask questions about these inventions and were able to observe these items using their five senses. 

Water Matters

Today we had a special visitor, Mrs. O'Hare, from the USC Upstate Watershed Ecology Center.   She taught the students about matter, its phases, changes in matter, and water pollution.  The students enjoyed becoming....

             SOLIDS

             LIQUIDS

     and GASES!

They sorted pictures into the three states of matter.

Lastly they created an oily ocean.  They experimented with feathers to see how oil spills affected ducks.   Then they tried to clean the "ocean" with a variety of tools.