How The World Works Summative

This week, Grade 2 students were excited to engage in a summative assessment that involved building with a variety of materials! Students were given an environment (a building site) and asked to design and build a model structure. Students also needed to identify the forces at work in their structure. These forces included:

• Squeezing / pushing
• Stretching / pulling
• Bending
• Sliding
• Twisting

Learning Intention: I am learning to build a structure that withstands forces.

Materials you can use:

paper, unifix cubes, pattern blocks, sticky tack, tape

Success criteria:

Structure has to withstand the force of wind from a fan

Structure has to withstand the force of a shaking table

Structure has hold the weight of one PET bottle

Students used this HTWW SOLO to ensure their success in this summative

Students will be assessed on their written reflection and their oral explanation of how they designed their structure based on this Success Criteria. Grade 2 students look forward to sharing these summatives at Student-Led Conferences on March 20!

Stable Structures in Ballet

How can we use stable structures in ballet?  Grade 2 students have brought a lot of knowledge about ballet to our current unit.  By connecting their prior learning with their classroom unit How The World Works-- Stable Structures, students are discovering new ways to strengthen their dancing.

First of all, we looked at ballet positions from First Position to Fifth Position.  Students explored the stability of each position.  They tried each position then in a plié position and in relevé.  Students discovered that not all ballet positions are stable, and explored ways to strengthen each position.

Next, students explored axiel movement steps from ballet.  Each time they practiced a step, they reflected on how stable the step was and how stable they felt.  Again, students explored ways to make these steps stronger.

Students tried locomotor movements in ballet, such as waltz steps, leaps, and turns. 

Finally, students explored various ballet poses from pictures of professional dancers.  They wondered why many of these poses were so difficult and unstable, and how professional dancers could perform these so easily.  Students will choose their favorite poses for their own dance sequence.

You can watch a video of students doing some of these poses in a sequence.

What are our next steps?  We will be watching some videos of professional dancers to learn more about strengthening poses, axiel, and locomotor movements.  Students will begin to create a dance using the various movements they've learned so far.

2B Learning the keys to Striking and Fielding!!

Central Idea: Learning to strike an object using hand eye coordination, while understanding the importance of fielding an object. 

Key Concepts: Form, Function, Connection 

Learning objectives:

-Student explores different ways to strike an objects with various implements (paddle, noodle, hand, bat, racquet) 

-Students discover how to field a ball and what playing defense looks like and feels like

-Students learn about teamwork on moving the ball and accomplishing team goals in game play

Success Criteria for striking a ball:

1). Strong grip on the bat

2). Eyes on the ball 

3). Triangle feet (wide stance)

4). Swing through and hit the ball! 

Success Criteria for fielding an object:

1). Get in ready position 

2). Shuffle my feet towards the ball

3). Ice cream scoop it up!! 

Success Criteria for throwing a ball:

1). Make the letter "T" with your arms 

2). Make the letter "L" with your throwing arm 

3). Follow through and across your body as you release 

Representing Data with Graphs

In grade two, the students have been learning how to organize data and make real graphs and picture graphs. Graphing is a way to present data in a concise and visual way that makes it possible to see relationships in the data more easily. "For younger children, graphing experiences best begin concretely", according to Marilyn Burns. Our class started out by making a real graph out of our shoes on the carpet. This created a concrete graph to help students build their understanding of more and less.

Real graphs are concrete. Bar graphs are more abstract, but they smell better than the real thing.

Our next step was to make a pictorial representation of a real graph, which we refer to as a 'picture graph'. Later, the girls learned how to conduct a survey to collect data. Each student came up with a survey question to ask their friends in class.


For example: What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Students then brainstormed a list of 4-6 choices, such as:

vanilla, strawberry, green tea, chocolate mint, banana

What is your favorite sport? Swimming is popular in Class 2A.

What is your favorite color?

What is your favorite sport?

What is your favorite animal?

An important part of a graphing activity is the discussion and interpretation of the information. The girls are learning to compare data by asking questions such as these:

Which column has the most?
Which column has the least?
Which flavor of ice cream is the most popular?
Do more students like banana ice cream or vanilla?
How many more students like swimming than kendo?
How many shoes have laces?
How many shoes are there altogether?

The students practiced interpreting each other's graphs by asking and answering questions with a partner.

Questions you can ask your daughter at home to extend her learning:

What's the difference between a real graph and picture graph?
How do graphs help people communicate?
What's a survey? Why do people use surveys in real life?

Thanks for reading!

Co-constructed Success Criteria in Grade 2

For one of our Writer's Workshop lessons this week, the learning intention was:

We are learning to write an interesting informational text introduction.

Students were given the task of constructing success criteria for this learning intention. According to Shirley Clark, author of Outstanding Formative Assessment:

The impact of co-constructed success criteria is that:
* Pupils become more independent
* Pupils have more ownership over their learning and ongoing assessment
* Pupils can decide criteria for which help is needed
* There is higher achievement when pupils have seen good examples and can follow or choose from the success criteria they have generated
(Outstanding Formative Assessment, page 86.)

To begin this lesson, I showed students an example of a bad introduction. Students thought it was hilarious! They started thinking of how it could be improved and shared their ideas on Grade 2's Google Docs account. Students wrote Success Criteria based on how they decided to improve the bad example of the introduction. Some students noticed that the Success Criteria that they created was similar to the Information Writing Checklist.

Instead of saying "Cheetahs are fast," get your readers' interest by writing: In this informational text, you will learn about cheetahs. They are very fast creatures. 


Success Criteria: I wrote a beginning in which I named a subject and tried to interest my readers.

Initial Success Criteria created by students. They compared it with the Information Writing Checklist to add to it and put it in their own words so they it was easily understood.

Class-written informational text based on the Success Criteria they created. Many students were experts on how to take care of dogs. Can you notice the improvement?

Yura reviews her research about cats and compares it with the class-constructed Success Criteria. She is thinking about writing strategies that she will use to make her introduction interesting for her readers.

Semester Two Learning Outcomes

Below you will find the Semester Two intended learning outcomes for all subject areas.  Click on the links to view and download the documents.  If you have any questions about these learning outcomes, please contact your child's homeroom teacher, our PYP Coordinator (Michael Hughes), or our Elementary Principal (Sandra Mulligan).

Click here to view the Grade 2 intended learning outcomes for Semester Two

Becoming Better Readers (and Mathematicians)

Today Mr. T., a science teacher from the high school, came down to visit 2A for "Feed and Read". He shared a story about one of his favorite story characters, Whinnie the Pooh. That's why he's sitting on a tree stump rather than the chair. It's Whinnie the Pooh's "thinking spot". We aim for each of our girls to become life long readers. "Feed and Read" is an opportunity for the girls to model from adults who are passionate about their favorite stories. Would you like to be our next guest reader? Please let us know!

“Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating..."
― John Wooden



Today in small group, we practiced reading orally with expression. In small groups, we sometimes read books slightly above level so we can practice using the word decoding strategies we've learned to read tricky words.

During class read alouds this week, the students have been working on making text-to-text connections with their reading partners.

This is an example of a text-to-text connection from today's story:

When I read the words "a girl can't play baseball",  it reminded me of Grace when she wanted to be Peter Pan but the boys said she can't because she's a girl. --2A student

Each day, the girls take a minute or two to fill out a "mini report card" to keep track of their progress as a reader. Before independent reading practice time, we remember our 'next step' from the previous day to focus on. Our goal is to make a small improvement each day-- in the end all those small improvements add up! By keeping track of their progress, the girls can see their growth which adds to their motivation to get even better. 

"What gets measured, gets managed." -Peter Drucker

Kaizen 改善 =  the practice of continuous improvement (one of Toyota's core values). 

As a pre-assessment before starting our Mathmatics unit on data handling, 2A students put their "mini reports" in order by date and were prompted to make a graph to illustrate their progress as a reader. Before every math unit, we assess what students already know and plan instruction to build upon their background knowledge and previously acquired skills.




This graph is still in progress. She has added some labels to her graph without being prompted. She has also chosen to use a ruler to make her lines straight.



This student has also begun to add labels. It's interesting that her graph reads right to left like a Japanese book. A next step for her is to add a title to describe what her graph shows. You can see that she has made progress as a reader with three days of all fives. Awesome.