Weekly Update 4/25

  Welcome back!  I had a wonderful, relaxing vacation with my family. While I didn’t get away, it was nice to have a change of pace and get outside.  I hope you also had a chance to spend some time outdoors with friends and family. 

  I am VERY excited to welcome a new student to our class today!  I’m sure the kids will come home and tell you all about our new friend.

Here are some highlights of what we have planned for this coming week in second grade…

During our Reading time we’ll get back to reading some more fiction texts with our guided reading groups.  We’ll discuss and practice some of the skills we’ve talked about throughout the year.  Some of our discussions will focus on vocabulary, predicting, and re-telling. 

We had a great 1^st day of research the week before vacation.  The kids were really excited to begin looking at the books about their country.  Everyone had a chance to find information about something they were wondering about.  On Friday during our Writing time we began using that information to write informational paragraphs.  This week we will head back to the library to research our next question.  So fun!!

We’ll be traveling from the very cold continent of Antarctica to a MUCH different place this week, Africa.  Our Social Studies time will be spent learning about Africa’s location, landmarks, animals, and land features.

This week in Math we’ll complete unit 8.  Our lessons will look at Equal Groups and Arrays (an introduction to how multiplication works).  We’ll also review what we’ve learned during this unit about 2-D and 3-D shapes, Polygons, and Equal Parts.  All of this work will help prepare the children for the Unit 8 Assessment, which we will do next Monday.

Have a wonderful week!

Weekly Update 4/11

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Hopefully the weather will start to warm up this week and finally feel like spring! 

Here's a look at what we will be doing in class this week. 

During reading groups, we will continue to work on main idea and finding the supporting details from the text to back it up.  This work will be very useful with our upcoming country research.

We are excited to begin our country library research this week. The children will be picking their own "I Wonder..." question to research. They may choose to find out about the foods, schools, holidays, festivals, etc. After doing our first research session, the children will learn how to begin writing their first informational paragraph. It's amazing to see the work the children do on this special project! 

In math this week, we will continue our Geometry unit. Our focus will be on using manipulatives to partition rectangles into same-size squares. The children will also solve number stories about equal groups using arrays to help them solve the problems. 

We are enjoying our time in the coldest continent, Antarctica. The children will be writing facts that they have learned about Antarctica. We will also spend time learning about various types of penguins and the areas in which each type of penguin lives. 

Reminders:

Tuesday, April 12th is school store for second grade

Wednesday, April 13th is an early release for professional development

*Last week I sent home a notice requesting volunteers to help out with our country research in the library.  One of those dates unfortunately has changed because of an all-school assembly.  The new dates/times are listed below.  If you are able to help out on any of the days, it would be much appreciated.  Just send me a quick note or email letting me know you are available.  Thank you!!

Wednesday, April 13^th 11:15-12:00

Friday, April 29^th 9:30-10:15

Thursday, May 5^th 10:00-10:45

Thursday, May 12^th 1:30-2:30

School Store Update

I wanted to inform you that I made an error on my last post.  School store WILL NOT be tomorrow, April 5th.  Second grade school store WILL be on April 12th.  I apologize for the confusion.

Happy Monday!  We made it through the long month of March and look forward to an April full of sunshine and warmth (hopefully!).   Here is a look at what we have planned for this week…

For writing time we will finish up and bind our poetry books.  We’ll then be moving on to an informational writing unit.  During this unit the children will be writing information about a country of their ancestry.  They will be doing research about topics that interest them most about their country of origin.  Thank you to all who have turned in their ancestry information.  We would like those back for Tuesday so that the librarians can begin pulling books.

The children did a nice job over the past few weeks with paraphrasing.  Reading time this week will be spent discussing Main Idea and details that support that main idea.  We’ll do some whole group and small group lessons to practice this comprehension skill. 

We’re moving on to our 5^th continent already in Social Studies- Antarctica!  We’ll get to know a bit about the continent during our lessons over the next few days.  The coolest part about this continent is that no one actually lives there!!  We will discuss why.  In addition, we’ll talk a lot about which animals inhabit Antarctica.

We got off to a great start last week on Unit 8 of our Everyday Math program.  Please continue to reinforce the ideas of parallel sides and square corners with your child.  These are newer concepts for some.  Our lessons this week will continue to talk about 2-D shape attributes.  We will also begin discussing 3-D shapes.

Important Reminders for this Week:

Tuesday, April 5^th is School Store for Grade 2

Thursday, April 7^th will be our first opportunity to walk the Robifulli Trail and meet our 3^rd Grade Buddies.  We will be visiting Crisafulli to see the 5^th Grade Chorus perform.  Please watch the weather so that the children are prepared for an outdoor walk (the performance is first thing in the morning).  Thank you!