Friday, March 2nd

 

Reader’s Workshop:

This week in Reader’s Workshop we did several different things! Students spent time working on a comprehension strategy with their independent and partner reading work. We practiced visualizing, making a picture or mental image of the text we are reading to help us comprehend the story. We also spent time welcoming in “March is Reading Month” as Friday, March 2^nd is Dr. Seuss’ Birthday! We took a look at two of his books, The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and then did a written retelling about the sequence of events (including illustrations) as well as used a Venn Diagram to compare the two texts!

Writer’s Workshop:

In Writer’s Workshop this week our writers’ finished putting their final touches on to their Small Moment pieces.  Once more students revisited their “Editing” and “Revising” Checklists looking for ways to improve their writing. In Conferences I worked one-on-one with students focusing on their content and ideas, making sure they have fully developed their story with good details. We are eager to see the illustrations they are going to create next week!

Math Workshop:

1 foot….18 inches… 5 decimeters… 6 yards…We’ve been learning about standard and informal units of measurement (2nd graders). We’ve measured just about everything in our classroom including our classmates and our teachers! We began this measuring unit talking about standard and non-standard units of measure, such as why an activity we did using 2^nd graders to measure the length of our classroom was not a “great” way to measure our classroom.  A “cheat sheet” came home with your child explaining the conversions they will be responsible for knowing using both the Metric and the Standard Units of Measurement.

Word Study:

 In Word Study this week we spent the first day looking at the –ight ending in words. We brainstormed a giant list of –ight words prior to playing a “Follow the Path” game that involved only being able to complete a turn when you could read the –ight word on the card. Then we spent time working with high frequency words by creating a word search for a partner to solve. Lastly we spent time looking at homophones, words that look the same but can have two different meanings.

Social Studies:

 In Social Studies this week students learned about timelines by working together to create a picture timeline of some of Walled Lake’s history.  While working on the timeline, students learned the concept of decade and then practiced placing events in order by decade.  They were also introduced the concept of decade and were able to include 1800, 1900 and 2000 to our picture timeline.  Students then completed a simple timeline about Walled Lake to reinforce what they learned.

Science: 

This week the scientists explored air using syringes and flexible tubing.  We talked about how air takes up space in the syringe, but when the plunger is pressed the air is compressed.  The plunger moved back without any help, the kids were so amazed with this.  The next lesson the students had two syringes and one flexible tube.  The scientists “air wrestled”, explored, and then they had to make one plunger “pop off” with only using air pressure.  We learned… the plunger can’t be pushed in all the way when air is trapped inside the syringe.  Plunging one syringe creates pressure and pushed the other syringe out.  In our writing observations we’re using the “cause and effect” terms.

We also talked about weather words and what is a meteorologist.  Your child has been assigned a day (during the month of March or April) to be the class meteorologist, so be on the look-out for this sheet.

Important Upcoming Date/News:

-Tuesday, March 6^th – NO SCHOOL – Professional Development for Teachers 

 Only      

**I wanted to extend a HUGE THANK YOU for all of your help and support with our Surprise Party for Miss Danielle Mossoian on Friday! While her time was way too short with us, we REALLY enjoyed our last 8 weeks with Miss M. in the room. Thank you for taking the time to do the book pages at home as well as for picking up a Children's Book she can use to start her own classroom library! We totally shocked Danielle on Friday and had a blast sharing the book we made, sharing the books we brought in as well as eating chocolate cake and ice cream! :-) JEN**        

 Now, take a look at all of the fun we had on the 100th Day of Second Grade...

This free picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox