Sample Student Portfolio 2nd Grade, 2015-2016
Language September 15, 2015 Gabriela did a pre-assessment for writing by answering the open-ended question, “How can you change the world to make it a better place in 2 ways?” Based on her response she is showing that she is able to respond to the question with applicable answers. Also, she is able to use correct punctuation by beginning her sentences with capital letters and using ending marks at the end of a sentence. As a goal, she will continue to work on adding more details to support her reasoning. September 17, 2015 Gabriela read a Level J book on Raz-Kids today with 94% reading accuracy. She read with with fluency but sometimes went too fast and was substituting and/or omitting words. She was able to retell the story afterwards orally but needs to work on organizing her thoughts/ ideas to show her overall understanding of the story. She scored a 12/18 on that section is at the beginning stages of becoming a skilled reteller. Lastly, she scored a 2/3 on the written quiz of the text and missed the question that pertained to main idea and details. This will be Gabriela’s goal to work on which will help improve her ability to retell stories orally and also answer questions to show her understanding afterwards. September 21, 2015 In reading today the students cooperated to listen and participate in a read aloud about a boy who had asthma. They were inquiring into the second line of inquiry to understand how asthma is a factor beyond someones control. They used the hamburger graphic organizer below to help them comprehend the story better. They developed sentences to summarize the main idea and details of the story. At the end, the students chose a book that interested them to read independently. Next time they will finish reading that book and use their own main idea hamburger graphic organizer to digest the story they read. October 2, 2015 The students did a Narrative pre-assessment by writing all about themselves. Gabriela’s strengths based on this writing piece were that she included multiple details related to the topic, she organized ideas in chronological order, and she also used her knowledge about sounds/patterns to spell words correctly. Some areas for growth in writing for Gabriela will be to add transition words to help her writing flow, adding a conclusion and beginning sentence, and also planning ahead to go through the writing process. October 19, 2015 Gabriela read a Level I book with 96% reading accuracy. She retold the story with a score of 18/18 which shows she is skilled in recalling what she read. Lastly, she scored a 3/3 on the comprehension quiz. Gabriella has shown commitment to working on her Reading goals and is moving up to a Level J!
November 16, 2015 Gabriela was reading different books connected to the unit that tell a story about a challenge/opportunity that exists in the world. She chose to read the book, One Plastic Bag and used a graphic organizer to help her record her thoughts. At the end she shared what the book was about with her classmates.
November 23, 2015 Gabriela read a book on Level J today. She read with a 98% reading accuracy! Her main goal to work on is slowing down while reading so she doesn’t skip words. She is able to sound out words when she is stuck and has a wide range of knowledge of sight words that she sees a lot. She scored a 16/18 on the retelling and was able to include her understanding of the passage of what the passage was mainly about. Gabriela scored a 2/3 on the comprehension and missed a question about main idea and details. She will continue to work on mastering this skill but she is ready to move up to level K! November 23, 2015 Gabriela read at a Level K today and scored a 95% for reading accuracy. Similar to the Level J reading, she was reading very quickly and was inserting/substituting words. She scored a a 16/18 on the retelling and included the main important parts of the story. Gabriela scored a 5/5 on the written quiz! She is ready to move up to level L but needs to continue work on slowing down to keep her reading accuracy consistently correct. December 14, 2015 Gabriela read at a Level L today and scored 94% for reading accuracy. This time she wasn’t reading as fast but she tends to miss the ending of a plural read when she does read fast. She has shown improvement at self-correcting herself! She scored a 10/18 on the retelling. She identified the main idea but did not include other key terms and details. Next time she could include more of this. Lastly, she scored 5/5 on the comprehension quiz and is definitely read to move up to Level M! January 14, 2016 Gabriela has been using a mountain map to help her organize ideas for her family story. She is working on editing her work to add literacy tools to make her writing more exciting/descriptive.
January 15, 2016 Gabriela read at a Level M today and scored 95% for reading accuracy. During her reading she showed confidence in reading words she knew but sometimes went too fast and substituted words. She scored an 18/18 on the retelling. Lastly, she scored 4/5 on the comprehension quiz as she missed one question on author’s purpose which will be a goal for her. She is definitely read to move up to Level N! Keep on soaring as a Reader, Gabriela!
January 20, 2016 Students were working on oral comprehension as they listened to 4 different versions of Cinderella in Spanish. They were able to make connections, ask questions, repeat the main words, and answer questions related to the story. They were working on being risk-takers by communicating with at least one or two words in Spanish , such as “El principe was triste�. January 22, 2016 On Tuesdays students listen to a read aloud book and work on a comprehension activity of the content of the book. Students were asked to write a sentence with details about where they live and a picture related to it. They were given a possesive, a noun and a verb, and students needed to add the information. During this learning experience, they worked together on some sentences, but they also could decide to write a different sentence related with the picture. Check out Gabriela’s descriptive sentences below! January 25, 2016 Gabriela reflected on her family story by doing a self-assessment with the rubric that we had collaborated on together. She found evidence of the literacy tools and transition words in her book. Gabriela is working on not rushing when writing and taking the time to edit independently. We celebrated today by having the students share their stories with the class! January 26, 2016 Students read a fairytale, a fable, and a folktale and then compared and contrasted the different stories. The students added information about these traditional books in Spanish to create a chart to compare the features of each book. February 24, 2016 Gabriela did a running record today and is still reading at a Level N. She scored 95% for reading accuracy. During her reading, she has shown improvement in slowing down but she still omits words, however she is starting to self-correct more often. She scored a 9/18 on the retelling. Next time she could include more details to display her understanding of the story. Lastly, she scored 3/5 on the comprehension quiz as she missed a question on compare/contrast and recall. She is right on track for her age as she should be at level P by the end of the year!
February 26, 2016 For the 100th day of school, we used an app called Aging Booth to show us what we might look like when we are older! The students showed creativity to write a story describing what his like will be like. After writing, the students dramatized their story by reading it aloud in an older voice!
May 31, 2016 Gabriela read a Level N passage on Raz today. She read this passage with 93% reading accuracy. She is able to read words quickly, however she needs to slow down while reading! She has a hard time taking pauses between sentences which leads to her omitting and substituting words. She usually can self-correct when she makes a mistake but slowing down would help her avoid this. She missed two questions related to the concepts of: missing vocabulary and author’s purpose. She will continue to work on this before moving on to the next level. June 2, 2016 Today the students worked on a second version of writing “All About Me”. They had done this writing at the beginning of the year and now you can compare the two pieces of their work to see their progress. Gabriela has shown improvement in including more details and making her writing more exciting for the reader. Going forward for Gabriela to improve as a writer, she needs to work on making sure her ideas connect to allow the writing to flow better. June 6, 2016 Today the students read and analyzed a text written by Roald Dahl in The BFG. They answered the three questions below to show their understanding of determining an author’s style and their perspective based on their writing. Also, they communicated their understanding of how images and text function together. June 16, 2016 Early this week Gabi read a Level O with 96% reading accuracy. She scored a 12/18 on the retelling portion which is skilled but she was still missing details. On the comprehension quiz she scored a 2/5 missing questions related to: main idea, compare and contrast, and recall. Today, Gabi read a level P with 99% accuracy. Her reading was much more controlled (not too fast) while also paying close attention to punctuation and her voice fluctuations. By going slower, she also was able to self-correct more frequently. In the retelling portion she scored a 14/18 which is still skilled but next time she can work on describing the problem and solution in more detail. Lastly, she scored a 5/5 on the comprehension quiz! She will continue to work at this level for the summer but for now she is exactly where she should be for the end of 2nd grade. Congratulations Gabi and keep reading like a champion!
Math September 21, 2015 Here is Gabriela’s pre-assessment for math to see what she already knows about basic addition and subtraction. Based on this assessment, she knows her 10’s combinations and is able to do addition and subtraction without borrowing or carrying over. She needs to work on addition when carrying over and subtraction with borrowing. This will be her goal to stay committed to work on this going forward.
September 30, 2015 Today the students started learning how to analyze nutrition facts. They used an example of a box of cereal which had one serving of 3/4 of a cup. They learned how to use repeated addition to figure out the amounts of grams or milligrams of something based on an eaten serving. Each student worked on inquiring into the amount of calories, sugar and protein in various items (can of pepsi, container of yogurt, one package of m&m’s) if a person had eaten 2 servings. October 7, 2015 Today when adding more sticks to our Kaboom games, Gabriela was a thinker when she decided to include algebraic problems. She learned that when there are multiple operations in a number sentence, the part that needs to happen first should be put in parentheses.
October 15, 2015 Today in math, Gabriela learned a new strategy to use when doing addition. She learned how to use the number line when adding the calories of two different items. October 26, 2015 Gabriela made her own place value robot! She used representations of hundreds, tens, and ones. She showed creativity by using these shapes to create a dress! Afterwards she used addition to see what was the total value of her robot.
November 15, 2015 The students have been using math skills through raising money for Limbs International. They have been organizing the money into groups and learning the different ways to make a dollar! November 17, 2015 “I was seeing how many hours ahead the Czech Republic is. I was also being an inquirer and I was showing curiosity.� -Gabriela November 25, 2015 Today the 2nd grade traced their feet and wrote numbers to put them together to make new numbers. They practiced stomping out the numbers to read numbers with 6 digits and demonstrate their knowledge of place value. December 7, 2015 Throughout this unit of inquiry the students have been using maps a lot and learning how to use coordinates find where places are on a globe/map. They have also learned about how to find the time zones of places around the world. Here, the students are making a connection to what they learned about coordinates by playing battleship and saying the coordinates in Spanish! January 27, 2016 During morning meeting, the students are working on problem solving by applying their knowledge of mathematical operations in a real-world context. In addition, they are working on their reading comprehension as the problems are in Spanish! They were able to apply their knowledge of a strategy they learned by using RURNS to solve. R- Read the problem twice U- Underline the question R- Rewrite the question N- Circle the numbers in the problem S- Solve April 5, 2016 Gabriela showed commitment when working on the fraction wall (see explanation in the first picture) by not giving up when inquiring into how to divide the sentence strip into an odd number of pieces.
April 19, 2016 Gabriela is challenging herself in Math by learning how to convert denominators in fractions so she can add them. She is applying her multiplication and addition skills. Last week she was working mainly with manipulatives and now shows proficiency to work mainly with the numbers. April 30, 2016 Gabriela is working on a word problem with decimals that her fellow classmate made for her to solve. She is using the RURN strategy to help her solve this problem. Gabriela has been learning about how natural disasters are measured which has led to us exploring how to add and subtract decimals. May 5, 2016 Gabriela has been working probability. She has learned that probability and fractions are very closely related.
May 15, 2016 Here Gabriela is working on proving a math statement to see whether it is true or false. She is practicing the skill of finding equivalent fractions by multiplying fractions to have a common denominator.
June 6, 2016 The students read a book about symmetry together to gain new knowledge about how symmetry works and where it can be found. Gabriela demonstrated her understanding of symmetry by reflecting a pattern over vertical and horizontal lines of symmetry. June 13, 2016 The students have been working on their symmetry skills in Spanish with Helena. They applied their learning to a real life context by creating beautiful symmetrical art work for the windows using their creativity and thinking skills. June 20, 2016 Gabi is playing a game called “Spoons� where she demonstrates her knowledge of how to find equivalent fractions.
May 25, 2016 The students were working on a review of recently learned math concepts. Gabriela is focusing on how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers.
Spanish September 15, 2015 Gabriela worked on her listening skills in Spanish by following verbal and written instructions of a description of a character. After the activity, she verbalized with the group other features that she included in the picture to make the character more unique. September 23, 2015 Gabriela has been practicing addition and subtraction skills in Spanish by playing enthusiastically in math. This is a board game that is motivating and to help her to speak in Spanish in a natural way. The students needed to create facts and say it aloud in Spanish, as well as counting points they gain in Spanish.
September 29, 2015 Gabriela has been working on her writing in Spanish by understanding actions and using visuals/informal conversations with the group. She wrote different actions that she does daily and compared this to a video they watched about someone’s daily routine. Then we discussed the importance of having breakfast and dinner. Now she is using Book Creator to elaborate her own healthy routine by adding pictures, sound and sentences in Spanish. October 7, 2015 Gabriela continued to work on making her own personal book, “Mi Rutina Diaria Saludable” more specific by adding details. More specifically she was adding sentences including information about the time, what she wants vs. needs, and what she likes and doesn’t like. October 23, 2015 “I was sharing Mi Rutina Diario book to my class. I chose to show this book because I wanted to show the steps of my day. I had to be committed to make this book because I needed to follow the expectations to make my book successfully.” -Gabriela October 23, 2015 The students have been very enthusiastic to learn vocabulary related to our unit of inquiry through the Spanish song, “Que Calor”. During morning meeting they have been tapping on the words as they hear them in the song which has helped them recognize the sounds of each word and understand what it means. They have been learning about climate, weather, temperature, and the climate zones with Helena. After they learned more about the vocabulary and what these words mean, they were able to make a connection to the ecosystem they are researching by analyzing the climate/weather in those places.
November 6, 2015 “We were playing a game using the directions like north, south, east, and west. Sophia was telling me where to go in Spanish to find a hidden item. I had an apron covering my eyes so I couldn’t see. I was showing curiosity by learning how to play the game.” -Gabriela November 6, 2015 Gabriela was showing her understanding of verbs in Spanish by recording herself acting them out.
January 6, 2016 Gabriela has been learning about how to analyze a family tree and refer to other family members in Spanish. In this picture she was being a thinker on how she wanted to show her creativity by making her own 3D model of her family tree and labeling it in Spanish. January 15, 2016 Students were asked to help Helena identify what room they were looking at in the picture. They were encouraged to take into account the objects and artifacts they could see in the image. They used the structure “Hay...” (There are...) to describe nouns and quantities that are shown in that image. This learning experience helped build their vocabulary of the different areas in a house and the objects/artifacts that are usually in those rooms. January 30, 2016 Gabriela was writing about items that she can find in different rooms in her house.
February 10, 2016 Practicing the song “Debajo de un botón” helped them to learn new vocabulary by singing and coordinate miming in Spanish.
February 15, 2016 Students were learning about the names of different shapes in Spanish and how to describe them.
February 23, 2016 Gabriela reading a book about who we are and where we come from. They created their own person that explains who they are based on their family heritage.
March 1, 2016 Gabriela was helping during morning meeting to count the days of the school and sorting straws into cups to represent place value.
March 10, 2016 The students created their own inventions and instructions to explain to someone how to use them in Spanish.
March 15, 2016 Students were comparing systems in a bike to systems in the school. Gabriela was able to make connections such as the “Head of the school” is similar to the “handle of the bike” because they both help steer the direction.
April 15, 2016 Students have been working on reading orally in Spanish by reciting poems of the week during morning meeting.
May 20, 2016 Students were playing games to learn about probability in Spanish “Piedra, papel o tijera game, a la de una, a la de dos y a la de tres.”
May 4, 2016 Students worked on mapping and connecting systems within New York City. They learned about the names of different jobs that exist within these systems in Spanish.
June 2, 2016 The students were analyzing Spanish poems after learning about different styles of writing. Gabriela is identifying which author wrote these three poems based on the text she reads.
June 2, 2016 The students have learned to write many different kinds of poems in Spanish. They have focused a lot on rhythm and rhyme.
Personal and Social September 11, 2015 The students brought in an “About Me” bag and presented their items to the class. They had a mystery item, an item that represented a goal or a dream, an item that represented something about health for our first unit, and an item that represents something that most people don’t know about them. This gave the students an opportunity to learn more about others in their class and also to work on their presentation skills. September 18, 2015 Today the students each made their own Peace Flower to help them understand the different elements of what peace is. They either wrote or drew their own interpretation of each element representing with the petals of the flower. They will continue to explore these elements which are: self-awareness, community awareness, cultural awareness, and environmental awareness. September 25, 2015 The students have begun the action cycle process by choosing a learner profile that they would like to focus on. They placed their picture on the learner profile displays in our classroom and also created this goal tent to remind them on their goal/intention. In about 2 weeks, the students will reflect on their actions and evaluate what they have accomplished. Gabriela’s goal is to be more of a risk-taker by being more confident when sharing in front of the class. October 19, 2015 Today the students reflected on the learner profile goal that they set at the beginning of this unit. Underneath they wrote how they have acted upon this goal and what else they might still need to work on. These are now posted in the hall for you to see so please take a look when you can. Next, the students chose a new learner profile and attitude goal to work on and make new goal tents. Gabriela chose to work on being more of a communicator and be more curious. October 29, 2015 Gabriela was appreciative today when her mom brought in fruit kabobs to celebrate her birthday. She was so enthusiastic to share the snack with the class and also listen to the book that her mom donated to our classroom library. November 2, 2015 “I was being an inquirer by being curious about the seeing station at the K/1 museum. I learned that sometimes when you look through glass, what is in front of you looks as if it’s below you. I learned that seeing is very very important because it helps you know where you’re going!” -Gabriela
November 23, 2015 Gabriela chose a new attitude and learner profile goal to focus on for the rest of this unit of inquiry as you can see below. December 5, 2015 Gabriela showed her ability to reflect and use meta-cognition during morning meeting. She was sorting pictures to our spotlight attitudes and learner profiles of our current unit of inquiry. She would explain what was happening in the picture and why she made that certain connection to the others to try and persuade them of her thinking. She also highlighted skills that she believes we have been working on thus far in our unit and was able to expand her thinking by explaining why she was thinking that. January 12, 2016 Gabriela set a new goal to work on cooperating and being more principled. She talked about how she sometimes can be influenced by others in a negative way and she wants to not do this anymore. January 29, 2016 The students have been committed to creating their own personalized interpretations of the attitudes/learner profiles through artwork. We had done this the first couple of weeks of school and the class decided to turn it into a book. However, reflecting now the students are seeing that their understanding and perspective of what these words mean has changed. This has led them to either re-create their artwork or add onto it. Come see them in our classroom! February 3, 2016 The students have made an agreement to using El Periรณdico by discussing the news every single Friday. Each student agreed to bring in some sort of news from either a newspaper, their iPad or something they saw on T.V. We are looking forward to learning how to read/listen to information from all around the world to build international-mindedness. February 9, 2016 Gabriela reflected on her learning in her physical portfolio. She wrote down what she now knows/understands (pink sticky notes) and she wrote about something she is still working on (orange sticky notes).
Taking Action! Unit 2: Sharing the Planet November 10, 2015 Gabriela brought in a book and pieces of a rainforest to share with our classroom. She was a communicator as she explained the different types of plants and animals that exist in this ecosystem. November 25, 2015 Gabriela was an inquirer when she took questions she has asked in this unit and researched more about nutrition at home and recorded what she found. December 1, 2015 Gabriela has continued to show commitment to researching questions that she wants to know more about! She researched some information at home and shared what she found the next day with her classmates. January 4, 2016 The students reached their goal of $900 which will provide 3 prosthetic legs for amputees around the world! Gabriela was committed to taking action by selling tamales during her lunch time with her mom!
January 4, 2016 Gabriela took action by taking a picture of a simile she noticed in a book she found in our classroom! We have been learning about literacy tools and the students were challenged to find examples in other books as they read and she found a simile!
February 15, 2016 Gabriela was inspired by an article we read about how the company that makes Barbie dolls is trying to make their product more diverse. She was curious about this and looked up Barbie dolls that have already been made with different hair color and skin tone as well as flatter feet than the original Barbie doll. March 5, 2016 Our class decided to use their learning from Unit of Inquiry 2 about Sharing the Planet by switching to re-usable silverware at lunch time instead of paper/plastic utensils. They are also showing responsibility by taking care of these items when cleaning them.
April 2, 2016 Gabriela took action by going to China Town this past weekend and exploring more about how people celebrate the Asian Lunar New Year. She also was committed to dressing in costume for our assembly to show her internationally minded spirit!
May 1, 2016 Gabriela is cooperating with her class to raise money for the recent earthquake in Ecuador. They are determined to raise $1,000. Gabriela was committed when writing information for the website they created as a class.
June 20, 2016 Gabi has been taking action by taking an active part in urban farming. She is passionate about taking care of the earth we live on.
Sharing the Planet Central Idea: People worldwide encounter a range of challenges, risks, and opportunities. Lines of Inquiry: Global ecosystems, Challenges and opportunities, Taking action Key Concepts: Form, Perspective, Reflection Attitudes: Appreciation, Curiosity, Empathy Learner Profiles: Caring, Reflective October 23, 2015 Today the students started to inquire into their new unit of inquiry. First, they laid down and closed their eyes while listening to sounds of different ecosystems around the world. After each sound, the students shared what they heard and tried to guess what what they thought the place was called. Afterwards, the students looked at a map of the world with Sasha for art to analyze where these places are in the world. October 26, 2015 The students completed a pre-assessment today to see what they know already. We asked them to use this map to show where the 5 ecosystems they are researching are located in the world and to label them using a key. Gabriela was being reflective to use logical reasoning to explain how she knew to color specific areas. October 26, 2015 Today the students went to Pixel Academy to watch videos from the Human Planet documentary. They were focusing on the skills of collecting and recording data by watching the video and answering questions that were related to the key concepts. They will be using this information to help them have a better understanding of what their ecosystem is like (key concept-form). October 29, 2015 Students were showing thinking and research skills by sorting the books related to this unit of inquiry. They thought about what they know about ecosystems and analyzing a book to see what it is about in order to organize them into categories. The students also became very curious to read more books about ecosystems! November 2, 2015 “In this forecast video, I was telling the difference between temperatura y clima. I was also saying where my ecosystems that I researched are in the world. I was showing curiosity by inquiring into my ecosystem and what it’s like.” -Gabriela November 4, 2015 “I was being a thinker by researching more about the grasslands. We are going to be making a non-fiction book about our ecosystems. I learned that in the savanna, it sometimes rains 50 inches! Also, I learned that in the winter time there are wildfires in the grasslands. This is a survival book because we are looking for some ways that we can survive in our ecosystem. I chose to learn how to get food in the savanna and also I chose shelter as a survival method. One text feature I want to include in my book is a glossary which tells you what a word means if you don’t know what it means.” -Gabriela
November 5, 2015 Here is Gabriela’s Forecast Video Assessment Rubric after she shared her video with us. She scored a 30/32, please read the comments below. Gabriela has reviewed this and knows how to make this even better for next time! November 9, 2015 “We were using the inquiry cycle after we came back from the field trip. We use the inquiry cycle when we reflect on what we have done in our unit of inquiry. The parts of the inquiry cycle are: taking action, tuning in, going further, sorting out, finding out, and making conclusions. Yo aprendí sobre los ecosistemas.” -Gabriela November 3, 2015 “I was being an inquirer by learning more about the tardigrades during our field trip.” -Gabriela
November 15, 2015 The students were doing a “See, Think, Wonder” when looking at different maps of how Manhattan has changed over time. They enjoyed sharing their creative ideas/thoughts about the various images. November 25, 2015 Gabriela and Sophia were showing cooperation by doing an experiment with temperature. They were putting food color into jars with water that were different temperatures. They measured the water to see the differences in temperature. Afterwards, then observed what was the difference between how the food color reacted with the different temperatures. They concluded, the hotter the water, the faster the food coloring will dissolve because the molecules are moving more quickly. November 30, 2015 The students worked extremely hard on their first written published book about how to survive in their ecosystem they researched! Please see the rubric below for Gabriela’s assessment. From here on, there will not be a due dates for assignments, but we are encouraging students to continue to improve on comments from their assessments after reflecting.
December 2, 2015 The students watched a very informative and captivating video about human rights and how they have changed over time. They filled in a t-chart with their pre-thinking of what roles, rights, and responsibilities are and different examples of each. After watching the video, they communicated about how their thinking changed after learning more about what human rights are. Then the students rotated around various though provoking questions that were connected to the key concepts which challenged them to be thinkers. The questions made them defend their opinion and it was interesting for them to compare and contrast their thoughts to the other students. Gabriela made a connection when reflecting on how challenges and opportunities have changed over time by focusing on the urban ecosystem that we live in. She recognized that now we have freedom but some people used to be slaves and also that a lot of people don’t have homes which is a challenge in NYC. December 4, 2015 The students read Stone Soup in Spanish with Helena and then compared it to a Chinese version of the story in English. Then they focused on the key concept, perspective, by choosing a character in the story and answering various questions by thinking from their points of view. December 5-7, 2015 After learning more about human rights, the students collaborated together to make an Earth map. They shared their thinking via words and pictures to express their thoughts about challenges, opportunities, and human rights.
December 15, 2015 Gabriela finished her green screen and stop motion videos to share her final understandings from this unit. In the green screen movie she described in detail the challenges and opportunities that exist in her ecosystem and how people interact with the environment. In the stop motion movie, she showed what animals exist in the coral reef ecosystem and how animals interact with each other.
Where We Are in Place and Time Central Idea: Our family histories allow us to discover our cultural origins and develop historical and geographical awareness. Lines of Inquiry: Our families’ origins and locations, Our families’ stories, Evidence of the past Key Concepts: Reflection, Connection, Change Attitudes: Appreciation, Respect, Creativity Learner Profiles: Knowledgeable, Reflective January 1, 2016 Gabriela showed creativity and commitment when she worked on her survey over the break and incorporated pictures as well as documentation. January 5, 2016 Gabriela was being reflective as she made a connection to our unit of inquiry after reading the book, Brave Girl.
January 8, 2016 The students’ looked at images of different types of ways to represent a family tree. First, the students made a 2D model and used information that they collected from their survey to do this. Then, everyone agreed to make a model by using clay for the tree trunk and then extended popsicle sticks from it to add pictures of members in their family. This began the conversation of 2D vs. 3D and what are the characteristics of each. January 13, 2016 Gabriela was being a confident communicator by reading a book with a buddy in the K/1 class. We were focusing on finding literacy tools in poetry which was a connection to the K/1’s unit on poetry. January 15, 2016 Gabriela traced back her family’s journey over time by using a map and yarn. She labeled each place by who lived there, what country and also what year if they knew it. January 18, 2016 Gabriela traced back her family’s journey over time by using a map and yarn. She labeled each place by who lived there, what country and also what year if they knew it.
January 18, 2016 Gabriela was drawing her understanding/interpretation of the central idea. She shared her thinking with her classmates and then after addressing misconceptions she had she altered her artwork. January 20, 2016 The students went to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty to discover more about families’ stories. The class recorded their pre-thinking of what they knew before we left and then added what they learned after the trip. January 24, 2016 In order to start thinking about how we will design our family history museum, the students cooperated to share their ideas about what the form of the museum will be like. They wrote down ideas of what they want it to look, sound, and feel like. Next week the students will start designing their own part of the museum and we will create a rubric together to identify the expectations. January 25, 2016 Gabriela published her final copy of her family story. She focused on adding literacy tools to make her writing more descriptive like onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, etc. She celebrated by sharing and reading it to the class.
January 27, 2016 Students were given a picture and were asked to guess the object is and what is it’s function. They drew the context of where you can find the artifact and explained what they thought the form/function is. Some students used they key concepts to help them describe the object. Then Helena explained to them what the objects are and where you can find them in a traditional house in Spain. This was a provocation for them to work on finding their own artifacts in their homes. They will describe a room at home and describe one specific artifact or object in Spanish. February 1, 2016 Gabriela has been working diligently on making a 3D printed version of an artifact from her family. After reflecting she thinks that it doesn’t look like the artifact and next time would work on making the top part look more like a crank with a handle.
February 2, 2016 Gabriela worked on creating a 2D draft of how she wants to design her museum for next week. She is showing her creativity and spatial awareness of how to organize everything she has worked hard on in this unit of inquiry.
February 3, 2016 After watching a documentary about the history of the Bose company over the past 50 years, the students watched a video about students reacting to older technology. Then the students showed curiosity as we brainstormed how other aspects of life have changed over time. Each student chose one aspect they want to research about. You can see below their prior knowledge of which inventions they already knew about. The end goal will be to develop a picture timeline that showed how that aspect has changed over time. February 4, 2016 This is Gabriela’s prior knowledge of transportation inventions over time. She will be making a picture timeline to segue into next unit which is all about systems. February 8, 2016 Here is Gabriela’s final family history museum and below that you can see her rubric with commentary feedback. February 9, 2016 Gabriela reflected through her physical portfolio and wrote down two reflections: the pink represents for something new she learned and understands and the orange represents something she is still confused about and is still working on. February 10, 2016 The class collaborated to summarize their unit in pictures and captions to add to our unit of inquiry timeline outside of our classroom.
How We Organize Ourselves Central Idea: Systems sustain our city and are interdependent. Lines of Inquiry: Systems and services, Components and sequences, Co-dependencies Key Concepts: Function, Causation, Connection Attitudes: Commitment, Empathy, Cooperation Learner Profiles: Inquirers, Principled February 23, 2016 Victor and Gabriela cooperated by working together to come up with a diagram of the structure within Pine Street School. They wrote the names of people who work at PSS and their roles. Next they will compare their initial thoughts with the official diagram and also categorize this system as natural, mechanical or social. February 23, 2016 Students showed their prior knowledge by doing a mind map about different systems they know of. Afterwards, Gabriela categorized the systems into the three main categories: natural, mechanical, and social. February 24, 2016 The students were learning how to build a circuit in Pixel Academy today. They were then challenged to design the shelter they will live in for the community they will be building as their summative assessment. It will exist in the ecosystem they researched in the Sharing the Planet. They will be in charge of this community so they are figuring out how to power their own shelter! February 29, 2016 The students compared their version they had made of a PSS diagram of who is connected to who within the school. They compared/contrasted it to the official document that the school uses. You can see their comments about what surprised them or what they didn’t know in the chart below.
February 23, 2016 The students have been reading about simple machines with Helena in Spanish. Today they were inquirers as they observed and analyzed her bicycle to classify parts of the bicycle as different simple machines.
February 23, 2016 These are the mechanical systems that Gabriela recorded.
February 29, 2016 After completing all of our provocations, the students revisited the original definition they developed last week and added/edited it this week to show how their thinking has changed.
March 1, 2016 Today the students were working Sim City EDU to learn about various parts of controlling a city. The first lesson they explored how to place bus stops within a city to ensure that people can get to school! They discovered that they couldn’t have too many or too little stops or the city wouldn’t be efficient. Then, they focused on placing different types of buildings within the city to make it function: industrial, homes, and leisure (shopping/entertainment). March 2, 2016 Students visited Victoria Emilia’s mom, Victoria Sanchez at her job at Time Inc. She is a Fashion Director for the magazine, Real Simple. She explained to us about the systems that work together within the company. We got to see how closely the writers, fashion editors/ designers, and photographers all have to cooperate to work together in order for the magazine to work. After our field trip, the students collaborated to make a map showing the connections of the systems within the company. March 4, 2016 After analyzing the PSS social system structure, the students matched the roles/names of people that work in PSS to the parts on the bicycle. They explained why they were making that connection based on what they know about that person’s role within the school. Afterwards, they connected pictures of simple machines onto the bike which allowed them to apply their knowledge of what simple machines are in a real life context. March 7, 2016 To show their understanding of the three different types of systems, the students drew a picture a natural, mechanical, and social system. Then afterwards they explained their understanding of how the system functions by explaining the process.
March 9, 2016 After visiting Real Simple, the students collaborated to map a connections map of all of the different people that work together in the company. They were thinkers as they communicated how certain systems need each other in order to function. The students also shared their understand that the company needs these systems in order to stay organized.
March 9, 2016 Then, after visiting Jubilee Market, each student made their own interpretations of how the systems are connected within this company. It was interesting to see how each student had a different perspective.
April 6, 2016 Here is Gabriela’s summative assessment presentation. The students included their final 3D community design, community advertisement book, their flag they made in art, and they presented their final advertisement trailers! Gabriela showed creativity by using recycled materials to build her systems.
How The World Works Central Idea: The Earth is constantly evolving which impacts the topography and life on the planet. Lines of Inquiry: Earth’s structure, Impact of evolving Earth on the planet, Impact of evolving Earth on living things Key Concepts: Change, Causation, Reflection Attitudes: Curiosity, Empathy, Independence Learner Profiles: Knowledgeable, Thinkers April 4, 2016 Students were thinkers when making predictions about how they think the Earth was created.
April 4, 2016 Gabriela used her thinking and organizational skills to show a progression of how the Earth has changed over time.
April 4, 2016 The students did their first experiment of the unit to learn more about the different layers of the crust and what their names are in Spanish/what the features are of each layer.
April 5, 2016 Students went to the Dark Universe exhibit to learn more about what we do/don’t know about the universe. They were thinking from the perspective of a scientist as they took notes throughout the museum. April 6, 2016 Students brainstormed what plate tectonics are like before watching a video on BrainPop and reading articles about how plate tectonics function around the world.
April 7, 2016 Students did an experiment to inquire into the different states of matter and understand the components of each one.
April 19, 2016 The students created a comic strip book to answer three main questions to show their understandings from the first line of inquiry, Earth’s structure. They were asked to answer: How was the Earth created? How has it evolved? What does it look like today? April 20, 2016 Gabriela is helping to paint the volcano to conduct an experiment to see how a volcano erupts.
April 23, 2016 Gabriela is helping to paint the volcano to conduct an experiment to see how a volcano erupts.
April 30, 2016 Gabriela has been researching all about hurricanes. She is learning how to use various formats of information like articles as well as online websites. Gabriela is using a highlighter to show important information in the article. She is also recording previous hurricanes and analyzing how they were measured. May 10, 2016 Gabriela has learned how to care for plants by going to the Battery Park Urban Farm. She learned how to plant seeds and what they need in order to survive.
May 15, 2016 Gabriela has been a scientist as she has been preparing for the Science Fair summative assessment. Here she is working on boiling different types of natural materials to create dyes.
May 15, 2016 In the picture below, Gabriela is creating crystals while following the scientific method.
May 27, 2016 Here is Gabriela’s final presentation including her poster board as well as the materials that she used from her three experiments. Below that is her rubric with feedback on her presentation.
How We Express Ourselves Central Idea: Authors and Illustrators use language and images to express ideas. Lines of Inquiry: How language and images work together, Styles of writing illustrations, Publishing process Key Concepts: Perspective, Function, Form Attitudes: Confidence, Creativity, Commitment Learner Profiles: Open-minded, Thinkers May 31, 2016 Today the students read an excerpt from The BFG. They analyzed the text to identify positive and negative words. Then, they sorted the words as either nouns, adjectives, or verbs. Afterwards, they created their own unique words like Roald Dahl uses in his books! June 2, 2016 Last week, Rita Gray visited us to explain her experience as an author. She shared a sneak preview of a book that is in the process of being published. The students also had the opportunity to interview Rita and record information based on her answer. Afterwards, they collaborated to transform this information into a group mind map! June 6, 2016 In Technology, the students have learned how to be producers, screenwriters, actors/actresses, and directors! They have been working on collaborating to accomplish a goal together. Since this unit started, they have been creating a trailer for The BFG. To be shared when completed! June 5, 2016 Gabriela and Sophia were committed to helping each other make the covers for their published books in English. Below is a sneak preview of the cover and one of the pages from her story!