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
