Sunday, February 28, 2016

Fantastic!

Fantastic, fun, adorable, productive, engaging...these are just some of the adjectives that come to mind when I think about our return from February break. 

We hit the floor running as always. It was great to listen to all the different things that our friends did over vacation. It was even more great to be back together again! 

We're half way through Unit 6 in math focusing on both addition and subtraction story problems, key words that help us determine the operation to use, and continuing to understand how place value plays a large role in our double and triple digit addition and subtraction. 

We've also begun an informational and/or nonfiction writing unit. Our first task was to interview a peer using at least five questions that we came up with-even before we knew who we were going to interview. This was a blast! Students interviewed one another, then wrote their first informational piece about their friend. We got some good laughs and some sweet moments from these stories. Your second grader even practiced their oral presentation skills as they presented their writing to the class. 


Upcoming: Our first "real" research project! We begin this week. 

Remember: Have your child wear/bring their sneakers to school on Monday, February 29th. We will be having PE Monday rather than Wednesday. 

Helpful hint: Book talks are so much fun. Did you know that they can also help your child dig deeper in their understanding of what they're reading. Engage your child in talking about what they're reading, what they like about it, whether or not they'd recommend it and why, talk of a favorite or least favorite character, and/or tell what questions they now have from reading. 
Using PVC piping as a whisper phone so students can hear themselves read. This helps them hear and reflect on their reading fluency and tone. Our color coded chart helps us visualize a clear beginning, middle, and ending to the book we've read. 

More fun! Partner work digging through nonfiction texts together to determine whether a ladybug or frog goes through a complete metamorphosis. 

As we approach Dr. Suess's birthday and Read Across America week, we had fun decorating our door to represent a favorite series of ours: My Weird School. 
Be sure to check it out if you're in the building. 
We've got Talent! Above your second grader created some of their favorite characters from the Weird School series, along with adjectives that best represent why we love these stories as much as we do. 





















Monday, February 8, 2016

Valentine's Day

Happy Monday Second Grade! 

I hope that everyone enjoyed our snow storm on Friday. I certainly did not expect that! 

I am writing to inform all of our Valentine's /Friendship party we will be having on Friday afternoon. 

We will exchange Valentines in the morning then have fun opening them and enjoying a few treats before we enjoy our time with our fifth grade learning buddies. 

Please be sure that Valentines are in the classroom no later than Friday morning. 

We have 21 friends in our class. 

Please look for an updated class list in your child's backpack today. 

If you would like to donate anything for our celebration, please let me know. We could use cups, cheese, crackers, chips, salsa, and/or anything you'd like to send. We do try to stick to a healthier choice. 
Thanks so much! 

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

A very delayed update

Dear Second Grade Families, 

It feels like weeks since I've been able to log in and update you all with the fun we've been having in second grade. 

Thank you for understanding. 

We continue to persevere as we work with numbers, quantities, word problems, money, tables, interpreting data, the writing process, spelling, verbs, adjectives, and thinking about our own thinking when we read. These are just some of the skills we are currently practicing. 

Math kicks off our day every day. We implement time, money, and place value into our daily morning meeting. Lately we've been targeting coin exchanges and word problems involving key words that tell us to subtract and even word problems involving money. This gets tricky because it means we are adding and subtracting double and TRIPLE digit numbers. Therefore we've been practicing various strategies to use when adding and subtracting with borrowing and carrying over. Otherwise known as the traditional method or stacking method. 

We are nearing the end of Unit 5 targeting the creation of charts, tables, and graphs. Along with this comes the practice of reading and interpreting this data. 


NO GO TELL with Kurt. 
Most recently we have completed our no go tell unit with Kurt. This led to great practice and conversation with strategies on how to handle strangers and safety. 

I interrupt this update to show you how adorable this second grade class is! We ROCK! 
Our first selfie! Not an easy task. 

The writing process is a very big job in second grade. We continue to work on pre-writing, organizing ideas, writing with paragraph, inserting quotation marks and various punctuation to show dialogue and voice, and finally revising to make our story even better and editing to share our very best work. We do this independently as well as together as a whole group, and even one on one with myself and/or peers. 









We have completed so many various fiction stories that we have now completed our very first book. Your second grader has written a fiction story of their choice, followed the writing process, and is now publishing their book including fiction text features using an app called book creator. Excited is an understatement for your children. These books will be published in print for them to share with you. We cannot wait!! 






One more reminder...these next two weeks are parent-teacher-student conferences. If you are unsure of when you and your child should be here, please reach out to me. I look forward to seeing you all.