Friday, March 1st

It’s been another FANSTASTIC week in Second Grade… And we all decided that a Snow Day midweek was the perfect way to adjust back to school life after February Break!

Reader’s Workshop:

Our readers have continued their look into Non-Fiction books. Independently they are shopping for an assortment of books that are just-right for them as well as books that are non-fiction. Partners this week have been working on comparing books that are fiction and non-fiction on the same topic, such as alligators or frogs. We have spent time reading It’s a Frog’s Life by Steve Parker as a class and noticing how this story, while told by the frog, is filled with information about frogs and life in a pond. Partners have been using different graphic organizers including a t-chart and a Venn Diagram to compare different books. As a class we have been discussing the different features of texts that are fiction compared to Non-Fiction.

Similarly, in our Interactive Read-Alouds this week we have taken a look at a book called The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola that depicts his own childhood as an artist and how he learned about art as a young child starting elementary school. This book also appears to be fiction until we learn that the story is true about Tomie’s childhood and the teachers he interacted with in school, helping to shape his artwork today in the stories he creates.

Writer’s Workshop:

Our writers have been deep in composing personal narratives this week. Our writers’ have been looking at adding more details to their written work to help their audience better understand their story. We have spent time talking about how as a writer on one hand you tell the events of the story and on the other hand you need to tell the feelings/emotions that you were feeling as the events of your story were playing out. Most of our writers’ are preparing to take one of their narratives to the revising and editing stages, a part of the writing process that we have begun to introduce at the end of this week. In conferences, I have been able to take time with each writer to focus on either their lead or the details of their written work. It has been awesome to see such growth in their writing across this unit of study.

Math Workshop:

Fractions! Fractions! Fractions, oh my! This week we have spent a great deal of time working with fractions. We have spent time talking about equivalent fractions as we learned to play games like “Equivalent Fractions” and “Fraction Top-It”. We have worked on fraction number stories and explored different ways to draw fractional amounts. This tends to be a tricky unit for many students! We took our Unit 8 Assessment this week and are now moving onto a unit on measurement! As students learn the Metric and US Systems of Measurement, look for a Study Sheet to come home with equivalencies they will need to know.

Word Study:

This week our students have taken a look at high-frequency words with the use of a word search game. Then we moved onto homophones, words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings (ie. no and know). We practiced writing sentences about the homophones to review our understanding. We also played a word grid game to practice different homophones.

Social Studies:

This week in Social Studies we have been doing a couple of different things. We have spent time talking about producers and consumers. We have talked about times when we were producers and when we were consumers. Then we moved into a fun activity on jobs! We determined your child’s future! Well not quite, but each child selected a profession out of a bag of ”mystery” professions. Students worked in cooperative groups of three to talk about what they would like and what they would not like about their job selection. Please make note of the homework assignment, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” This needs to be colored and look neat for the hallway! J Remind your child to do their personal best!