Happy December! I hope you are all surviving and enjoying this busy and exciting time of the year! The energy is certainly felt in 2nd grade! :)
In second grade we have been very busy. We enjoyed an all school assembly last Friday where we kicked off the letter A in CARE which stands for Acceptance. Mr. LaCoste will be visiting our classroom next week to read our next Care to Read book which focuses on the concept of acceptance.
We have been enjoying our new social studies unit which is on Mapping Skills. The children have learned about the cardinal directions, map key, and how to "read" various maps. They are also beginning to learn about the names and location of the 7 continents and the 5 major oceans. These are skills that will lead us into our Around the World unit which we will begin the end of January.
Next week we are looking forward to starting our next science unit which is Materials and Their Uses. The children will have the opportunity to learn the various materials that objects can be made of and will investigate why certain materials are used for different objects.
In math the children have been learning about telling time on an analog clock. This can be a difficult concept for some, so we encourage you to reinforce this concept at home. This is an area that we will continue to review throughout the year. At this point, the expectation is that the children can tell time to the hour and half hour. The expectation for the END of the year is that they tell time to the 5 minute interval. We have also worked with place value. The children have built various numbers with base ten blocks. Also, the children have explored the value of each digit in a 3 digit number along with comparing which number is largest by looking at the value of each digit.
During reading, we have been enjoying some holiday books along fictional texts and talking about the character traits of the main characters in the book. We began this topic by doing an activity where the children brainstormed character traits that describe themselves. The children did a wonderful job reflecting upon their own personalities.
The character traits concept has also led us into a fun writing activity. We received a letter from Santa explaining that he was looking for some friends to help the elves at the North Pole. The children brainstormed the character traits that they felt Santa would be looking for and the reasons why those character traits would be important to Santa. Next, they will begin to write letters to Santa and create their own elves to be displayed in the classroom.
Upcoming Dates:
December 11th- Second Grade School Store
December 20th- Winter Party
December 22nd-January 1st- Winter Vacation
