We have been working hard to show our mathematical thinking when solving story problems.  We are trying to really understand what the question is asking and to answer that question.  
We have learned about 2 types of problems- "put together" problems and "take apart" problems.  In a put together problem we are told the parts, but we need to find out the total or whole.  In a take apart problem we are given the total or whole and we need to find the parts. This is a hard concept which takes a ton practice to master.  We will continue to practice in the third trimester and we will throw subtraction into the mix!😎

This is a "put together" problem.  4 blue kites and 3 red kites make 7 kites in all. 

This is a "take apart" problem.  We know there are 6 kites in all, but how many are blue and how many are red?

We learned so much about elephants! We read tons of nonfiction and charted our new learning.  We also read "Horton Hears a Who".  Horton is an elephant with a big heart who stands up for his little friends. We read this in honor of 
Dr. Seuss's birthday on March 2nd. We are learning the difference between fiction and nonfiction and the features of nonfiction and story elements of fiction.

Horton was helpful to his Who friends.  We wrote about being helpful. 

We started with charting our schema. Then we charted our new learning about elephants. We learned some amazing facts! 

Did you know that there are two kinds of elephants? Yup! African and Asian. 

Our elephant fact book. 

Each flap opens up!

We learned about "inferring". That's when you figure things out!

We learned about text features of nonfiction.  One is labels. The other is a caption- a little extra information that goes with the picture. 

First we discussed and wrote about our schema , then after reading we wrote a new fact that we learned.