Friday, October 21st

It has been another fantastic week in 2nd Grade! We have been busy doing all sorts of neat things…

Math Workshop:

In Math this week we completed our second unit as we practiced short cuts for subtraction problems. After taking our Unit 2 Test and Unit 3 Pre-Test we moved on to look at place value using base-ten blocks. We also took time this week to look at money and created a “Table of Equivalencies” using different coin combinations. Throw in a few math games and it has been a great week in Workshop! *Just a reminder that a review packet did come home for our upcoming benchmark assessment on October 27th. This does not need to be returned to school.

Reader’s Workshop:
This week we continued to build our understanding of how partnerships work. Students helped brainstorm a list of ideas of ways they can talk about books with their partners and learned how to solve problems that may come up in their partners. We talked about noise levels and kind reminders we can give our classmates when they are making noise or distracting us from learning. Last our Reader’s got to experience Reading Conferences and find out what they will do when they meet individually with me.


Writer’s Workshop:
We did two different things in Workshop this week. We began the week with a grade level project creating cards, letters and a banner for U.S. Soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. We have a connection with one of our second graders to a man from Detroit who is currently stationed in Afghanistan. Each class worked on their own project to say “Thank You” and show our support. The second half of the week was spent writing poetry. We learned about the “Hello, Goodbye” poem, we looked at samples of kid poems and we talked about features we might put into our own poems. We have FANTASTIC poets in our class!


Social Studies:
This week was spent focused on “Needs and Wants”. We talked about the definitions of each word, read the book, But I Want It, and created a giant list of needs and wants. We spent time looking specifically at our needs as the four main things we need to survive: food, water, shelter and clothing.


Word Study:
Word Study this week focused in on the –ed and –d endings added to words in the past tense. We practiced making words that end with –ed or –d and also looked at the sounds that we get from words with these endings. Last we spent time looking at how we can break words apart into syllables to help us read new and tricky words.


Important Upcoming Dates:
-Monday, October 31st: Halloween Party – Parade at 2:30pm and party right after in our classroom


-Tuesday, November 1st: PTA Meeting – 7:00pm in the Media Center – ALL are invited to attend

Stay warm this weekend… It looks like the sun will reappear! Mrs. Weckstein