December 17th 2019

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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! :)

We have been very busy the past few weeks, despite the unexpected snow days. We enjoyed an all school assembly last Wednesday. During this community meeting the children were reminded how important each and every one of them is to the Robinson School community. The whole school enjoyed a beautiful read aloud by Mrs. Rivet titled Your Here For A Reason by Nancy Tillman. At the end of the meeting the kindergarten shared with us how many hats and mittens have been donated. Then they challenged the whole school to bring in even more. I am proud to say that as a whole school we met that challenge in just two days!!

We have been enjoying our new social studies unit on Mapping Skills. The children have learned about the cardinal directions, map keys, and how to "read" various maps. They have also created maps of Robinson School, including symbols, map keys, and a compass rose. They used their maps to direct someone how to get from the library to the nurse’s office. They recorded themselves giving the directions on Seesaw. Afterwards, we discussed how important it is to give detailed directions, such as walk south until you get to the cafeteria or turn east and walk until you get to the hallway on your right. We are now beginning to learn about the names and location of the 7 continents and the 5 major oceans. We learned a song to help us learn the locations and names of the continents. You can find the song here. These are skills that will lead us into our next social studies unit, Migrations and Cultures.

We are looking forward to starting our next science unit, Earth’s Surface, after vacation. The children will explore the earth’s surface and how it changes. Students will be engineers while they build and test ways to protect a road from a landslide. They will also create a 3D clay model of land and water on earth. This is a fun and engaging unit for the children.

In math we 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 in 5 minute intervals. We have also worked with place value. The children have built various numbers with base ten blocks. They have also 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. This past week we also spent some time measuring using feet, inches, and centimeters.

During reading, we have spent some time enjoying holiday books. We have also been learning about making inferences and visualizing while reading fictional texts. The children have learned that when a reading makes inferences they use the words from the book along with their own background knowledge to make inferences about the story. While visualizing the students learned to make a picture in their minds about what they have read. These are skill that the children will continue to practice as they begin to read longer texts.

During writing we have been learning about character traits. Discussing character traits led us to 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, we wrote letters to Santa explaining which character traits would make them an excellent helper at the North Pole. After the writing the children created their own elves (with real photos of their faces). I will be sending these home soon for you to see! After winter break we will begin our next writing unit on opinion writing.

I hope you find this update to be useful. I want to wish you all a wonderful winter break, filled with lots of fun and family time!!


Upcoming Dates:
December 19th- Winter Party
December 20- Pajama Day Spirit Day and Whole School Dance Party
December 21-January 1st- Winter Vacation