Friday, December 13, 2013

Friday, December 13, 2013

All the second graders have been busy these last few weeks.  The weather is getting colder and children need to be prepared for school each day.  So please help your child have boots, snow pants, hats, mittens ready each day for outside recess.   Gifts of Reading books need to be sent to school this Tuesday, December 17th to open during our winter party.

Writer’s Workshop

Our Summary unit is going strong.  We have read many books and shared many good examples of summary writing and talked about what a good summary should look like.  We used three books from the series In The Days Of the Dinosaurs, two good examples were shared with the class.  The third book had the children take a poor example and make it better.  A summary should include the beginning, middle, end, and the characters names.  We talked about The Fab Five: who, wants what, what happens, what does the main character do, and then how does it end.  These help our writers write a written summary piece about a book or chapter they have read in complete detail. The students had the chance to try out their own summary.  Before they began we talked about what makes a great summary… not telling too much for each section.

                                           

 

Reader’s Workshop

These past few weeks in Reader’s Workshop we shifted our focus onto punctuation we see within text. We’ve taken a specific look at the: period, comma, quotation mark, exclamation mark, question mark, hyphen, elipses, and apostrophe.  Some readers even found other punctuation marks during Reader’s Workshop to share with others.  We spent time creating a huge anchor chart about: how the punctuation mark looks, what the job of the punctuation mark is and gave examples of the punctuation mark used within text.  Our 2nd Grade Readers each created their own smaller version of this anchor chart to keep in their Reader’s Response Logs. 

We’re also beginning to a take a closer look at dialogue and strategies that help us as readers.  When students pre-read a story, they benefit greatly, it gives the reader background knowledge of the story, which helps the reader make connections and predictions even before they read the text.  Pinky and Rex books were used to look closely at dialogue. Reading partnerships had to figure out who was talking by using the many clues given in the story.  Some clues could be the simple word of said or a more complex word of muttered.   We continued to use the terms simple dialogue, no-said dialogue, and continuation dialogue when we dug deeper to figure out who was talking and how did we know?

                                  

 

Math Workshop

Second graders have spent a great deal of time learning different strategies to solve addition problems, these strategies include using base ten blocks pictures, partial-sum algorithms, and ballpark estimation.  The mathematicians made two animal pictures with base ten blocks.  They had to write the two numbers for each animal and then solve the difference, some kids even added the numbers together.   The mathematicians are learning to add three or more numbers together.  Students can use the number chart, draw tally marks, mental math, number line, or parts-and-total diagram.  Students practiced this skill by playing Three Addends with their math partner.  We are moving on to multiplication, which goes nicely with addition.  Students are learning about multiples of equal groups- 5 triangles = how many sides? 5x3=15 or count by 3’s.  We are beginning to build math arrays with chips, pictures, and geo boards. Our mathematicians are starting to solve multiplication problems and write the number model too.

We have been working very hard this year on basic math facts, please help your child with math facts up to 20.

       

  

Word Study

Students made connections with words that had the same ending- these are just a few examples: boxes & buses, looking & making, and rain & plain.  This continued with the next lesson where the students played Go Fish with their phonics group and had to match up word endings.  We also learned that sometimes two consonants letters stand for the consonant sound in the middle of a word.  The students played Follow the Path to read and sound out new words.  Students noticed parts of a word, which makes it easier for them to break apart the word.  We used the word part – -ink and –ing to brainstorm words with these endings.  Then the students practiced these words when they played Lotto.

     

 

Social Studies

In Social Studies we are completing our unit on the geography of our community.  We are learning about good and bad changes a community faces.  We also are working on finding absolute and relative locations on a map.  This is a challenging, but fun concept for students.  In addition to winding down this unit, we are spending a short time each week looking at winter holidays that people from our community may be celebrating.

         

         

Science

The botanists continue to observe their grass, brassica, wheat, and the potato.  The scientists are always amazed at the growth our plants are making.  These young minds are always ready to learn.   The potato has many roots and continues to grow each day.   Next week students will be challenged to make a new plant from the stem cutting of a mature plant.  If you have any plant cuttings, please send in next week.  We’ll continue to observe these over time.

                                   

Special News & Reminders

·        Monday, December 16th-Social Studies Test- Room 202 & 205

·        Thursday, December 19th - Social Studies Test- Room 203

·        Friday, December 20th - Social Studies Test- Room 204

·        Friday, December 20th  – All school sing a-long at 2:30-3:00

·        Friday, December 20th – classroom parties

·        Winter Break- December 21st- January 5th

·        School starts- January 6th

·        Thursday, January 30th – 2nd  Grade field trip to the Walled Lake Outdoor Center- more details to follow

November 22nd

Friday, November 22nd 

Writer’s Workshop

We have started working on persuasive writing.  Some of the great mentor texts we have been reading are Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late and Click Clack Moo. Your child has been working hard on their persuasive piece all week. They pretended that they were a turkey and had to persuade people not to eat them for Thanksgiving. They did a wonderful job, and we have hung them in the hallway. We will continue to work on persuasive writing next week. Next, your child will be choosing the topic and whom they would like to persuade.

       

Reader’s Workshop

We are finishing up our study of dialogue.  Your child has been working hard on being a reading detective.  Students searched their books during independent reading for examples of different types of dialogue. They learned about simple dialogue, no-said dialogue, and continuation dialogue. We noticed one book can have all three different types of dialogue such as Junie B Jones and Henry and Mudge! They have also learned the difference between 1st person dialogue and 3rd person dialogue. We will now be starting our punctuation unit. Your child will be learning the names of punctuation marks, what the punctuation marks looks like, the job of the punctuation marks, and examples from different texts.

Math Workshop

We have begun unit four by taking the unit four pre-test. We are working on story problems and different ways to solve them. They have learned Change-to-More diagrams and Parts-and-Total diagrams to help them organize and solve the story problems. Many of our story problems have involved temperature changes. Your child has learned about degrees Fahrenheit, degrees Celsius, and degree marks. Another math strategy we have been working on is using estimation to solve problems. We have done this by using Ballpark Estimation. This can be a difficult concept to learn, please continue to do HomeLinks with your child.

Word Study

We continued learning about Onsets and Rimes by looking at words that end in -ice, -ide, and –ine. Then, we reviewed high frequency words by playing Follow the Path. We also learned what antonyms are. They played Concentration, which is like Memory using antonyms. We finished up the week with talking about syllables. Students played Syllable Lotto. They also learned how to make singular words plural using -s and -es endings.                      

Social Studies

We are working on the Geography of Our Community Unit. As cartographers, we made a pirate map of where there is buried treasure. We also learned about man-made features and natural features on a map.

 

Special News & Reminders

·        Thursday, November 28^th – NO SCHOOL – Happy Thanksgiving!

·        Friday, November 29^th – NO SCHOOL

·        Monday, December 2^nd - NO SCHOOL

Friday Nov. 8th

Friday, November 8^th

Writer’s Workshop

We started the week by reading Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill.  It’s a book that is filled with color poems!  Each poem demonstrated different ways to think about colors using your senses… How would a color look? How would a color taste? How would a color feel? How would a color smell? Using the author’s craft from these poems, we have been working to create our own color poems.  Our poets also selected one of their favorite poetry pieces to bring to publication.  They edited and revised their poems to make them “just right” and conferenced with the teacher.  On Friday afternoon, all of the second grade classes were divided into four groups.  They took their poems to share with other second grade friends during our Second Grade Poetry Jam.  Thanks to all of you who donated water bottles or Oreo cookies…they were delicious!  We’ll be working on persuasive writing pieces during the next few weeks.

Reader’s Workshop

We are beginning our study of dialogue.  Your child should be able to tell you what dialogue is and what types of books have it.  Students searched their books during independent reading for examples of dialogue.  They also are learning about patterns of books that use dialogue.  We used Cynthia Rylant and Kate DiCamillo books to compare how authors choose to use or not to use dialogue in a book.  It was interesting to see that her series Mr. Putter and Tabby  uses no or very little dialogue in them while Henry and Mudge books seemed full of dialogue.  Additionally, we spent time looking for ways writer’s use “said” alternatives in texts. We brainstormed a giant web of different words for “said” and nearly found over 25 variations! We spent time looking at how these ‘alternatives’ can influence how we read a passage, such as if a character whispered or yelled. Students spent time acting out passages from their texts to continue their look into dialogue and using contextual clues from the author to signal dialect changes. Last we spent time looking to see if all books have dialogue. We made some big generalizations, such as non-fiction tends to not have dialogue while chapter books are loaded with conversations.

Math Workshop

Assessments, assessments, assessments!  At the beginning of the week, we reviewed for and our students took their first Benchmark Assessment.  Families will receive the scores during parent teacher conferences.  I was impressed with how well our class scored!  Mid-week, we reviewed making change by counting up.  Making change is a difficult concept. It’s something that needs to be reviewed often at home in order for mastery.  We ended our week by taking the end of the unit assessment for Unit 3.  Our next unit will focus on addition and subtraction facts.

Word Study
We began the week looking at words that have “oo”. Students learned that “oo” can sound like /oo/ as in moon or /uh/ as in look. We also tried adding on the silent ‘e’ to words to see how new words could be created. We ended the week by looking at words with the –am, -ate and –ake word endings.

Social Studies
Our second graders reviewed the cardinal directions and the use of a compass rose. We learned the acronym: “Never Eat Soggy Waffles” to help us remember the cardinal directions. Next, we explored the different elements and uses of maps through some hands-on stations.  As cartographers we used and atlas and explored, globes, and various types of maps.   Students will be given a homework assignment earlier that requires them to draw a map of their bedroom.  These maps will be due on Monday, November 18th.

Special News & Reminders

·        We have been blogging... check it out! http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog_edit.php?userid=118873

·        Thursday, November 14^th  – NO SCHOOL – Parent/Teacher Conferences All Day

·        Wednesday, November 20^th  – Bedroom Map DUE

Jennifer Weckstein and baby Liam

Here's More Halloween :-)

Create a photo slideshow

Happy Halloween from room 204!

Week of October 21st

Parents,

 

Thanks for your support last week with the Fun Run!!!

 

Word Study
Last week we worked a bit with syllables.  These are important as they help your reader/writer chunk words for spelling and decoding.  We’ve also continued to look at how words are similar such as looking at consonant clusters at the beginnings of words.  Making these connections between words again help us to read and write more effectively.

 

Reader’s Workshop
Our goal bags are up and running.  Last week your child had an individual conference to discuss steps towards meeting his/her reading goal.  Some students have several easier books to practice fluency (I’ve been emphasizing that the one way to increase fluency is by reading easier or familiar texts).  Some students brought home a chapter book with which they will practice retelling. Please remember there are no time limits on the bags.  However, we also started reading groups this week sending yet another bag home with your child.  This bag must be returned daily with your child.  This week we shared how readers select just right books by using strategies such as the 5 finger rule.  We also discussed when and when not to abandon a book.  We ended the week reminding students how readers take care of our classroom libraries. 

Writer's Workshop
Our students are loving writing poetry!  It’s fun to see their excitement and hear them read their poetry with pride.  We used Pumpkin Eye as a mentor text last week.  We found the adjective and noun patterns throughout the book, made charts of similar words and recreating similar poems.  We also learned a bit about form poetry where we borrowed a Hello/Goodbye format from a Goodbye Spring/Hello Summer poem and changed it to create a Fall/Winter poem.  Writers also took a break from some poetry to learn about persuasive writing.  In social studies students were asked to write a persuasive for the community they liked to live in.  So we first introduced a persuasive through writing sales advertisements for a haunted house.  What fun they had with these!!!  They will  be hanging in the hall beginning next week. 

Math Workshop     

I hope your child has shared with you how we run math workshop!  Whenever possible (and lessons align to this model) we teach math in a workshop model.  We started this last week.  Students have been placed in like ability groups and are taught lessons through a large group mini-lesson and then a small group lesson.  While I’m teaching a small group students are at various math stations practicing similar skills in a variety of ways.  Ipods are one of the stations, but Monday –Thursday they must choose math games on the ipod.  On Fridays we have math explorations which are different and any app can be played on the ipods then.

We completed unit 1 last week by learning about fact families, name collections (Other names for 50 would be…25+25, 49=1, 60-10 etc.), frames and arrows where we follow an addition or subtraction rule to skip count and finally function boxes where students have to decode the rule for numbers going in and out of an imaginary function box (if 3 goes in and 5 comes out, the rule would be +2).  We ended last week with explorations about weight with a spring scale and a balance and also the introduction of multiplication through and egg/nest activity.  This is also a time when we put out familiar math games for students to practice.

This week students took their unit 2 progress check.  They did fairly well and the results went home with your child this week.  Please be sure to review this with your child.  Many students struggles on the last page with the function box.  Next, we started unit 3 with coin practice.  We started simple with showing coins to represent values.  Then it got a bit more challenging with making change.  This is a concept we will continue to work on throughout the year.  Please try to practice this at home with your child using loose change.                                                                                                                                                                  

Social Studies                                                                                                                                                                          We completed our “Community” unit and took our unit test.  Our next unit is about the geography of our community.

Important Dates and Reminders:

-Thursday, October 31^st:  Halloween Parade at 2:30.  Our classroom party will follow from 3:00-4:00.

-Tuesday, November 5^th :  Walled Lake Schools Safety, Security and Technology Bond Election.  Please remember to vote!

-Thursday, November 14^th:  Parent/Teacher Conferences

Friday, October 11th

It has been another fantastic few weeks in 204! As many of you are aware, I am going to be rescheduling Parent-Teacher Conference times in hopes of guaranteeing that I can be there! With an upcoming due date of November 18^th, I have spoken with Mr. Drewno and I will be holding Parent-Teacher Conferences on November 4^th through 6^th, (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). Monday and Wednesday will run from 4:30-7:30pm and Tuesday will run from 4:00-7:00pm. I will be sending home info with your child to pick dates/times. Thank you for being flexible! I would much rather be able to have a P-T Conference with all of you, then leave this in the hands of Janelle Bensek (our long term sub) because she will just be getting to know your children.

Additionally, we need more people to help plan and work our Halloween Party on the 31^st. The party will run from 3:00-3:45pm. Right now we only have two parents which is concerning! If you can help, please email me at: JenniferPhillips@wlcsd.org ASAP! Thank you! :-)

A fun pumpkin painting project in anticipation of Halloween!

Word Study
In Word Study this week we have taken a look at forming possessives in words. Second graders learned that to show ownership of something, you add ‘s to a word. Then we worked with words with double consonants. Students worked on identifying two-syllable words with double consonants in the middle (lad/der, muf/fin). Children sorted word parts to create their own two-syllable words! Last, we learned about forming past tense in words by adding –ed or –d to the end of words.

Reader’s Workshop
In Reader’s Workshop this week, each child set reading goals for themselves. Time was spent talking with each child about their goal and the importance of setting goals for their reading. Ask your child the two reading goals that they set for themselves.  Look for a special reading bag to come home with your child …  Inside you will find the specific reading goal that your child and I have drafted, “just right” books and materials to help your child reach their reading goal. Please spend time with these books; do not return them the next day! Your child’s bag will have materials inside for them to either complete orally, written or use your help to answer questions, practice fluency, accuracy, etc.   I would expect the bags to come back to school one time per week if not twice. Each marking period, your child will set two new reading goals.  Your child also met their Reader’s Workshop partner and learned different ways to read and discuss books with their partners.  Ask your child about their new Reader’s Workshop partner.

Partners read side-by-side, with a book in the middle!

Writer's Workshop
This week as writer’s we spent more time with mentor poetry texts looking for similes and onomatopoeia’s! We then began drafting our own poems using different formats. Some were free verse while others were composed of a given topic – Halloween was one we did as a class using adjectives and nouns. This type of poetry will help us to create list of “Juicy” words we can use in future poems! The kids have especially loved our share time each Workshop where they have been given the chance to share a poem with their classmates.

Share time with the Pink Team!

Our Halloween adjective-noun poem!

Math Workshop                                                                                                                                                                      In Math this week our students spent time gathering different strategies for addition and subtraction using their doubles facts as a guide. We taught our students a chant that can help them to remember their doubles facts to the tune of “The Ants Go Marching”. Ask your child to sing the chant for you.  Once we had our doubles facts, we were able to learn the +9 strategy for addition. Put simply, if you can easily add 10 to any number, you can add 9 just as easy. Add 10 to the number and take away one. We also spent time with turn-around facts. Turn-around facts for addition is a reminder that 4 + 6 has the same sum at 6 + 4.  Next we spent working on counting strategies for subtraction, subtraction from addition and short cuts for harder subtraction facts.  We ended the week by exploring more with numbers in our math stations.  Look for a set of fact triangles come home with your child during the next week.  These are for you to keep at home.  It’s important for your child to practice their addition and subtraction facts on a weekly basis.  This will only make future math concepts easier for your second grader.

Social Studies                                                                                                                                                                          To continue our look into “Our Community”, we took a look at the region in which we live and zoomed out to see how our house is in a neighborhood, our neighborhood is in a city, our city is in a state and our state is in a country. We then moved on to “Needs and Wants” and talked about how needs are things we need to survive compared to wants simply being things we want to have. Try using that at home with your child – is it something you need or something you want? They probably won't appreciate me telling you this (wink wink).

Important Dates and Reminders:

-Friday, October 18^th: Fun Run- We will be running from 1:50-2:05 on the soccer field. All are invited to come and cheer us on! Please make sure to check the weather and dress your child appropriately.  Also remember to return your donation envelope as soon as possible.

-Thursday, October 24^th : Pumpkin Sale from 4:30-7:30 in the new gym.

-Thursday, October 31^st:  Halloween Parade at 2:30.  Our classroom party will follow from 3:00-4:00.

-Monday, November 4-6^th : Parent-Teacher Conferences in 204

-Tuesday, November 5^th :  Walled Lake Schools Safety, Security and Technology Bond Election.  Please remember to vote!

 

We love Dublin!

Friday, September 26th

Fall was in the air this week though our room temperature felt a bit like winter most mornings.  I mentioned to the children that they may want to bring sweatshirts in their backpacks until the heat is turned on here. 

We continue to settle into our routines in all subject areas and I’m hopeful that you’re hearing about our learning first hand from your child.

Word Study

This week we studied our first lessons with long and short vowel sounds.  Your child should be able to tell you two ways to know when a word will likely use its long vowel sound.  We used word cards to make long vowel words.  Students also worked again with consonant blends.  As a teacher I appreciate that our word study program spirals back to concepts covered for review and to deepen understanding.  For many students in my class I have discussed with them the benefits our word study lessons will have on their reading and writing skills. 

Reader’s Workshop

I completed most of the DRA testing this week and will be analyzing the data this coming week.  I’ve found that most students maintained their reading comprehension and word decoding skills, but have fallen with fluency.  Fortunately, this is often easily remedied with practice, practice, practice.  It is important for children to read “just right” or appropriately leveled books when reading to increase fluency.  In fact fluency building happens when reading texts that are familiar to the reader.  Please encourage daily reading at home.  Research shows that the number one way to increase reading is simply time spent reading regularly.  We kicked off our workshop this week learning about 3 types of classroom readers…the “Wow” reader, “So-so” reader and the “Oops” reader.  We created charts for our classroom to remind us what these readers look like.  Of course we are all striving to become “Wow” readers where we stay on task, are involved with our books, are quiet, use our known strategies, find comfy spots quickly etc.

Writer’s Workshop

Our class enjoyed several wonderfully written stories this week, which we explored for the author’s craft.  We spent time looking at Cynthia Rylant’s writing using repetitive text, lists, and circle backs (where the other comes back to  a particular phrase/ part of the story).  Students attempted using some of these crafts in their writings.   We also looked at Kevin Henkes’ stories again for similar crafts.  I was amazed to hear some of the pieces written this week during our workshop time.  Students enjoy  the sharing component of our workshop too!

Math Workshop

Our unit 1 (review of beginning math concepts) finished up this week.  Students seem more comfortable with coin counting, time telling and skip counting than they were our first week of school.   Most days I am able to check journal pages completed, but  I will take these home over the next week and complete any that I missed.  Once these are sent home it will be beneficial for you to review these with your child and have him/her redo any pages with which s/he struggled.  You’ll notice that it’s not always the concept that is misunderstood, but the directions (something we will be working on throughout the year asking students to slow down and process before jumping in too fast).  We completed the unit 1 review assessment Thursday.  This is only a unit review and not the benchmark test I referred to during curriculum night.  Remember that when the benchmark test is coming up, a study guide will be sent home.   

Social Studies

Students began our unit on Communities this week. We spent time brainstorming places we can work, live and play in a community. We read the book On the Town to look into all of the places and workers a person finds within a community. We generated a huge list of the workers and places in our community. Next week we will be learning about groups in our communities and create a map of our own neighborhoods for homework!

Important Dates/Reminders

-I am still missing several student faces for our face project. Please make sure these are turned in ASAP.

-In Friday packs this first week in October, please pay attention for papers with a “B” for beginning on them. These need to be reviewed, fixed and returned in a timely manner.

Friday, September 13th

Hello Weckie Families!

What a most awesome 8 days we have had so far in Second Grade!! The energy level in the room is contagious and these kids are ready for some learning and some fun!! Thank you to everyone who made it out to either the: Meet and Greet, Welcome Back Picnic or Curriculum Night. It was great to meet so many of you and fun to reconnect with familiar families as well! We have been busy, busy, busy in 204 as you have probably heard!

Reader's Workshop:
This week we launched our Reader's Workshop. We spent time talking about our favorite books as we all shared our own favorites. We have created a display in our classroom library of these books and have been enjoying the chance to read our classmates favorites. Then we talked about our favorite reading memories. Look for your child's favorite reading memory in this week's first Friday Packet! We ended the week talking about "Comfy Reading Spots" and what makes an area a good reading spot for comfort and for noise/distractions. Please look for homework to come home on this topic!

Writer's Workshop:
In Writer's Workshop this week we began a fun writing project called a "Summer Sandwich". The Weckies each created a rough draft first of: how their summer began (lettuce page), something they did with their family (meat page), something they did with friends (cheese page) and how their summer ended (bread page). They spent a great deal of time creating each page with neat handwriting and colored illustrations. Look for these books on the big picnic blanket bulletin board out in our hallway next week!

Word Study:
We began our word study lessons this week by learning first about consonant clusters. We created words that began with two or more consonants in what we call a "cluster". This helped us to review consonants and vowels from first grade. Then we did an activity that helped us to notice the difference between long vowels and short vowels ('a' in apple compared to 'e' in egg). Periodically lists of words will come home for each month that are a great thing to review at home with your child, and in particular the patterns or parts to the words. The list that just came home showed us how to break a word into chunks when looking at familiar endings.

Math Workshop:
In Math this week we took time to do lots of neat things! Our mathematicians learned about their math tool kits and all of the different tools they will use this year (calculator, ruler, deck of Everyday Math cards), tape measure, hundreds grid, pretend money, pattern block template and more!) We worked on Number Grids this week and created a giant number scroll with partners. Each group was responsible for one hundred boxes and together we created a grid that counts from 1 to 1,500! As the week went on we took a look at equivalent names for numbers as we learned to play a game called "Broken Calculator". We also worked with time this week - both on a calendar and on a clock. We reviewed the hour hand (short) and the minute hand (long) and practiced on our own smaller clocks. Math games introduced tihs week included: Addition Top-It, The Number Grid Game, and Clock Concentration.

Look for Math Homelinks to begin next week! :-) If you were not at Curriculum Night, please be advised that we spent a great deal of time talking about our new re-aligned math curriculum. To better match the Common Core State Standards and research about student learning, the district has re-organized our lessons. This means we are no longer going 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. in math but rather, jumping around. This week we covered 1.8, 1.9, 1.2 and 1.3. You will notice too that Homelinks may appear to come hom out of order. Please look for more info on this in the coming weeks!

Important Classroom News:

• Please make sure to pack your child a hearty and healthy snack. Lunch at 1:20pm is late and the kids are hungry! We have snack midway through the morning and healthy snacks will help them to last this long morning period.
• If you were not at Curriculum Night, you can sign up for a Parent-Teacher Conference time on the bulletin board outside of the Office.
• If you were not at Curriculum Night, materials came home about 2nd grade curriculum and classroom routines. There was information about classroom volunteers. Please make sure to send these forms back in a timely manner if you would like to help in the room as I am going to start getting volunteers in towards the end of next week and you must have a "Criminal Background Check" form on file before coming in to help!
• Additionally, we are short MANY volunteers for classroom parties. If you are able to help with either our: Halloween Party, Valentine's Day Party or End of the Year Picnic, please email me at JenniferPhillips@wlcsd.org immediately. I'm worried about our lack of participation! Additionally we also need two parents to work our Market Days month (one day on a Friday afternoon in a month to be told soon) so that our class can have important funding towards our Field Trips this year.

Thanks for everything you have done in making these first two weeks so fantastic! It's going to be an awesome year to be a Weckie, for sure!

:-) Mrs. Weckstein

Congrats on Becoming a Weckie!!

Welcome to the land of the Weckies!! 

I am so excited to have you in my second grade class! If you have typed in the blog address correctly, you have found one of our many websites that we will use throughout this year!

Check back here over the weekend for a look back at my summer break and some important info about the weeks to come!

Get ready for a fantastic year... Because it's gonna be a FABULOUS day each and every day, to be a Weckie!

:-) Mrs. Weckstein

Field Day 2013

It was another fantastically fabulous day to be a Weckie

This picture slideshow made with Smilebox

Friday, May 10th and Friday, May 17th

Teacher Appreciation Week was PHENOMENAL this year at Dublin!!! A HUGE thank you to all of our 204 families for all of the love I received last week... Carnations, cards, snacks, school supplies, gift cards... You sure are the BEST!! Then add in all of the extra meals/snacks/drinks PTA provided for Teacher's.. it was quite a week! I love what I do, and wouldn't want to spend my days any other way than with your kids. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :-)

 

Word Study

Last week students worked on spelling patterns with long a sounds and also ending consonant clusters such as st and nk.  They also worked with high frequency words playing a “Go-Fish” game.  This week we’ll be working again with homographs, words that sound the same but have different meanings.  Students will also revisit plural words looking at plural endings we’ve learned such as –ies while looking closer at irregular plurals such as mice, children, feet etc.

Writer’s Workshop

While we are still in progress with our non-fiction writing unit we have had to take a break to complete our end of the year DWA writing piece.  Students were asked to write a personal narrative about a time they were hurt.  We took a few days to walk back through the writing process from start to finish.  It was rewarding to compare the progress made from fall to now.  We also completed our poems about our mothers.  Hope you enjoyed them.

This week we’re back on track with our bird investigation.  Students will be turning note taking facts into paragraphs for our bird articles.  Once students have a complete article ready to publish we will be asking parents for help from home with the typing.  Each student will bring his/her piece home, a parent will type it and send it back electronically so that I can put it into a word document.  More details will be coming as this draws closer.

Reader’s Workshop

It has been interesting studying Gail Gibbons and Joanne Ryder.  To quote one of my students, “I love getting to know new authors!”  It doesn’t get any more rewarding than that!  These students amaze me when I see them analyze an author’s style.  We made anchor charts for both authors and they are quick to point out the similarities and differences.  We’re working on a Venn diagram that shows this comparison.  We will continue to look at authors and styles as we end the year.  Students are learning to fit books we read into genres we have studied.  I would say that informational fiction has become a favorite genre in our room this spring.

Math

We have begun our final math unit of the year.  This is a unit that reviews and extends concepts we’ve been working at throughout the year.  This past week we practiced telling time and also worked towards understanding elapsed time.  We also looked closely at the calendar memorizing the number of days and weeks in a year.  Ask your child if s/he can tell you either of those.  Multiplication continues to be a focus as we end second grade.  I’ve been preparing my students with the fact that these will need to be memorized next year.  I’ve encouraged them to work very hard next year with these as they are a basic building block for all future math learning.  As for now, our goal is for them to understand what multiplication is…simply adding multiple times.   This week graphs are coming back!  These too are important for students’ future learning in all subject areas. 

Social Studies

Our Walled Lake history unit is coming to an end.  I think this unit was enjoyable for students.  They were most amazed to find out that Walled Lake used to have a large amusement park here.  We looked at the land it once occupied and had discussions about who might or might not want to have an amusement park here now.  Students will be happy to know that this unit and our next do not have tests!  Our last unit is titled “Leading our Community”.  We will learn a bit about government and patriotism.

Important dates to remember…

·         Book fair purchases this Thursday during our morning media time (Tuesday it will be open till 5pm for parents and Thursday until 6pm)

·         Field Day this Friday (2^nd grade participates in the morning hours…Hot dog lunch is provided and please don’t forget your cookie donations! 

·         June 7^th: Ice cream social!

·          May 18^th: Mom to Mom sale

·         May 21^st: Volunteer Tea