Owl Clan-  Grades 2-3
Patrick Wildermann

Current Expeditions:
October 11 - 6 to 8 pm Earth Hall Celebration and getting-to-know-you event

Owl Clan Syllabus

Reading

Reading Workshop begins with a mini lesson, usually accompanied by a read aloud. Reading strategies and concepts are discussed and recorded. An extended quiet reading time will follow, students get comfortable and enjoy reading books of their choice, recording information from their books along with their thoughts in reading workshop folders.

Students choose books from the classroom library, the school library and are welcome to bring books from home if they wish. The reading workshop ends with sharing time in the circle. Students are encouraged to share their experiences, responding either to specific questions posed during the mini lesson, or of anything of interest.

Students will construct art projects together based on their literature circle books to help foster discussion and build a relationship with the books they are reading. As they read the book and meet to discuss it they will answer comprehension questions and in depth questions I give them, they will also come up with their own questions to ask each other when they meet. I will read to the students every day. I will read a variety of genres and we will discuss each thoroughly as I read.

Writing

This year we will be writing daily as part of our Writers Workshop. In Writers Workshop students will be developing their own ideas and topics to write about. The class will brainstorm topics, plan their writing, write, conference, revise and edit then move to a final draft and publish. We will focus on the ideas, content and process more than we will focus on spelling during Writing Workshop. Students are encouraged to stretch words out to come up with a workable spelling for words they don’t know how to spell correctly. Writing Workshop will begin with a mini lesson and students will be actively engaged in the lesson contributing ideas that are recorded in front of the class. Mini lessons will focus on developing new writing skills and gaining confidence as a writer, focusing on the six writing traits: ideas, organization, word choice, voice, sentence fluency and conventions. Students will also write in other subject areas including math and science. The Owl Clan will be expected to explain their thinking in writing in all mathematical endeavors and to record and describe their experiences and thoughts in science, using charts and graphs as well as other forms of writing.

Math

Pathfinder uses the TERC Investigations curriculum for math. Most of our math curriculum is very active and hands on, meaning students will utilize manipulatives to help them in their understanding of concepts. We will also focus on group work, communication of ideas, and building new strategies for working on problems as a group. Students will acquire new ideas not only from their teacher and the material presented but from each other in group discussions while working on given problems, and at the sharing time at the end of each math lesson. The math curriculum is broken up into strands: number sense (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing), geometry and special reasoning, algebraic sense/patterns, probability and statistics, and measurement. We will focus on some strands more than others and build connections to the real world to make the work we are doing meaningful to students. We will spend a good deal of time on number sense this year so students can focus on the other strands in the future, feeling confident with their number sense.

Science/Expeditions

Our science units this year are Owls, Liquids, and Rocks and Minerals. In January we will begin our expedition, Storytelling Around the World, which will focus on different ways stories have been communicated in different places and learning the craft of storytelling. Science and expeditions are integrated as much as possible with other parts of the curriculum. The units are very interactive and provide students with the opportunities to predict and investigate. The units not only provide content information, but also develop critical thinking skills. Students do a great deal of expository writing (writing to explain) during these units.