Friday, April 27, 2012

A word about our Second Graders:

Expectations are higher for second graders as we approach the end of the year.  We need to make sure that they are ready for third grade.  For example, your child should be putting capitals at the beginning of sentences along with the correct punctuation at the end.  Basic sight words should be spelled correctly.  Do they know their basic addition and subtraction facts?

My expectations for quality work and social skills have also increased.  I know your child pretty well by now and am aware of what they are capable of in order for them to produce their “personal best”.  I also know that they are all capable of being respectful listeners.

Second graders should also be able to come to the classroom unassisted by an adult.  Backpacks, lunches and Everyday folders should be taken care of by the student, not a parent.  We are trying to instill a sense of accomplishment and responsibility in your child, and this can’t happen if they are unable to complete these simple tasks independently.  I promise you that your child will feel loads better about themselves knowing that they are capable of doing things on their own.

I ask for your support in encouraging these higher expectations for your child. I also ask that homework to be returned in a timely manner.  I realize that spring is a busy time for everyone, but school work must come first.  Together we can!

Reader’s Workshop: This week in workshop we continued our look into “informational fiction” books as we finished reading Salamander Rain and Wacky Plant Cycles.  As a class, we completed a Venn diagram talking about the two book’s nonfiction text feature similarities and writing structures. Next, we talked about nonfiction and informational books having  to either be read from “cover to cover” or as a book you can “dip in and dip out” of as a reader. We also created questions that all good readers ask themselves before approaching an unfamiliar nonfiction book.  Students were sent off to see what questions they asked themselves before reading a “just right” nonfiction text of their own.

Our comparison of two different Informational Fiction books!

Writer’s Workshop This week we took all of our bird research and transferred the collected information into a newspaper article format. Students spent time making the facts that they collected “interesting” for their readers as well as making sure that their facts were put into complete sentences. We worked on our physical description, habitat and nesting, food and three interesting facts for the birds. Our week ended by crafting an interesting lead that will “hook” our readers.  We are VERY excited about birds! Look for a note coming home about helping type out your child’s writing. 

An example of one piece we shared where facts were turned into interesting sentences for a magazine article!

Math Workshop: We continued to review different strategies for multiplication and division by solving story problems.  The students were pretty excited to be learning these new facts.  A student set of multiplication/division fact triangles will come home soon.   Please keep these triangles handy when reviewing multiplication and division facts this summer. 

Word Study:  This week we have been forming plurals for words ending in –f, -lf, -fe as we learned to change the ‘f’ to ‘v’ and add ‘es’. Next we learned how to form comparatives by adding –er and –est to words.  Students then had to draw pictures to show their comparatives:  tall, taller, tallest.

Social Studies: This week we have spent time learning about the economy in our community by introducing the terms opportunity cost and choice and scarcity.  Opportunity cost is the value of the next best choice that one gives up when
making a decision.  Scarcity is when there is not enough of something that everyone wants.  Students had to select two items that they would like to have such as their favorite food.  If they selected the first choice, then their opportunity cost would be their second choice.  Students ended the week by taking a closer look at different types of careers that are available to them.  They were assigned a homework assignment where they needed to interview an adult about their career.  Next week students will decide upon a career that they would like to pursue and complete their very first resume!

Can you guess which career each Weckie was for our sample careers?

A glimpse at our hallway if you haven't been by lately...

Our cloud poems from our Air and Weather Unit in Science!

A giant list of ways we can help save the Earth for Earth Day!

Important Dates/News:

Tuesday, May 8^th:  PTA Meeting @ 7:00pm

Friday, May 11^th:  Mom’s and Muffins @ 8:30am, Dublin Spring Clean-Up 4-6pm

Friday, May 18^th :  Field Day

Monday, May 14^th: Items that are due:

-MVP person selection form

-2 different pictures of your child and their MVP (no computer printed copies please)

-A digital copy of those photographs emailed to my school email.

-$5.00 to cover the cost of the project and celebration

­-Please also note that the MVP Celebration is strictly for 2^nd graders and their MVP.  Please make other arrangements for any younger siblings during this special event.

Friday, May 18^th :  Field Day

Thursday, May 24^th:  MVP Celebration @ 2:30-3:30 pm in Old Gym

Reader’s Workshop: This week in Workshop we introduced our readers’ to two new “Informational-Fiction” books. We spent time looking at Salamander Rain by Kristin Joy Pratt-Serafini and Wacky Plant Cycles by Valerie Wyatt. Both books exhibit many different non-fiction features and were used to model journal entries that our students completed. Each reader was asked to write about the features they found in a non-fiction book they were reading and explain how the features help them to better understand the topic. We spent time sharing strong examples of journal entries and even practiced fixing up a not so strong ‘teacher-created’ entry! Please look for book bags to come home with your child. The bags give detailed instruction for how they should be used at home!

Writer’s Workshop: In Workshop this week we spent A LOT of time completing our bird research. We made sure that we had collected lots of facts about our birds including: physical description, habitat, nesting, food and interesting facts. There’s an excited buzz in the classroom at the mention of Writer’s Workshop as the kids are EAGER to dig into the field guides and bird specific books to become an expert on their bird! Next week we will start writing the rough drafts for our Non-Fiction Magazine Feature Articles.

Math Workshop: The theme this week is… MONEY! We have spent a great deal of time learning different strategies for comparing monetary amounts and making change. We have practiced counting up using coins and numbers as well as practiced learning how to subtract where we may need to borrow multiple times. Towards the end of the week we began working on a subtraction strategy that uses the “trade-first” algorithm.

Word Study:  This week we did a couple different activities in Word Study. We spent time looking at the endings of words including: -ain, -ight and –eam. Next we spent time working on homographs. These are words that look the same but have two different meanings. The kids created pictures and corresponding sentences to explain the differences between the two words.

Social Studies: This week we have spent time learning about four main words: goods, services, producers and consumers. We spent time talking about goods and services and their relationship to producers (who need goods) and consumers (who receive services). We read the book, From Cow to Ice Cream and created a diagram to retell the process the goods must go through to become the final product, ice cream! For a special treat, we then taught the kids how to make their very own ice cream! It made for a great surprise and treat on a Friday afternoon. Thanks for helping to supply funding for the ingredients and for sending in ice!

Important Dates/News:

Friday, April 27^th – Dublin Talent Show

Tuesday, May 8^th – PTA Meeting @ 7:00pm

Friday, May 11^th – Mom’s and Muffins @ 8:30am

Not just an ORDINARY week in 204...

Here's a preview of some special visitors we had in 204 this week...

Customize a free picture slideshow

Reader’s Workshop

What a fantastic week in Workshop! Students continued to look at Cynthia Rylant’s book, “The Whales” and Faith McNulty’s book, “How the Whales Walked” and compared Rylant’s book to McNulty’s piece on the topic of thinking that whales do and think.  Students noticed that Rylant’s words were more poetic, while McNulty’s were more factual.  Our readers also thought of many creative names for the new genre of “On-the-Fence” books.  Some of the most creative were: fictnon, nonfict and a little bit fiction and a little bit nonfiction.  We voted and decided that informational fiction would be the best name for this new genre of books.  Students then searched through our classroom library to find informational fiction books for our new book tub.

Writer’s Workshop

In computers this week students got a chance to visit the Cornell Ornithology web page to take a closer look at their birds.  They watched videos and heard the sound of their bird call.  Our writers began researching their birds to learn about the physical description, habitat and nesting of the birds. Thank you for sending in such great information from home! The enthusiasm that overcomes the room during Writer’s Workshop is evident at how much our kids love to write!

 Math Workshop

Our students were shocked to find out how parentheses are used in math earlier this week!  They learned that mathematicians should do the math work inside the parentheses first.  We took our Unit 10 math assessment mid week.  Next, we took the data that we collected from our March weather calendars in science and created a bar graph.  We looked at the bar graph to write three true fact about our weather bar graph.  Our week ended with some fun math explorations and iPod Touch apps!

Word Study/Writing Skills

This week the kids took their handwriting assessment. It will be very interesting to compare their handwriting on the same assessment from the beginning of the year until this point in the year. To end our "Switch Days" we played a fun reading comprehension game on the Smartboard called, "Kooky Carnival".

Science

We talked about clouds this week and what kind of rain they could bring.  Cumulus clouds we’re the favorite type of cloud, these clouds bring no rain, just clear skies and puffy white clouds.  The scientists of 2^nd grade showed they learned so much from their Air and Weather Unit; the results on their science tests were spectacular!  Sadly, our science units have come to an end, however, taking nature walks, exploring lakes or rivers, and doing various experiments will encourage the love of science within your child.

Social Studies

Students shared their homework about local businesses in White Lake and decided if they provided a good or service to our community.  Partners then selected one business in White Lake to create a business guide.  Students needed to write about their local business and talk about what goods or services their business provided to their community.  They also illustrated a picture of their business.  Please look for your child’s business guide page to be displayed in the hallway in the near future.  This was our final week switching with other second grade classes.  Next week students will be continuing social studies with their homeroom teacher.

Important News/ Reminders

The students had a wonderful time learning about birds during our “in school” field trip on Thursday!  They got to hold and examine all types of bird artifacts including:  wings, feet, eggs and nests!  Students learned how birds fly and why you aren’t able to hear an owl in flight.  They also got to visit seven different bird stations and practice “hands on” how different birds catch their prey and eat their food according to their special beaks and talons.  This was a perfect opportunity for our ornithologists to accumulate knowledge about birds for their research.

·       Friday, April 20^th:               Bingo Night

·       Friday - April 27th:              Dublin’s Talent Show

·       Friday, May 11th:             Mom’s and Muffins at 8:30 AM-10:00 AM in the cafeteria

Friday, March 30th

Happy Friday 2nd Grade Families! It has been a fun-filled week here in 204! We ended the week with a special celebration for “March is Reading Month”! Not only did we go to Camp Read S’More (aka The Weckstein Woods) we also had a few visitors from the Detroit Free Press! Mrs. Weckstein’s Mom, Patti Phillips generously donated an assembly for “Reading Month” which brought us the Free Press mascot, the Yak! Three ladies from the Free Press read us stories, helped us write a story about our school and led our teachers in a dance with the Yak! Thank you Mrs. Phillips!!

Reader’s Workshop
This week in Workshop we’ve been focusing on two different texts, Cynthia Rylant’s The Whales and Faith McNulty’s How The Whales Walked. Both lend to great conversation about texts that can be both fiction and non-fiction. After looking through the actual text of both books, we spent time talking about The Whales and worked to figure out which sentences of the book were fiction and which sentences were non-fiction. We are getting very close to naming this category of books! As you may have noticed, Reading Groups have not been meeting the past week or so as during our Independent and Partner Reading times in Workshop, the kids are engaged in meaningful activities with partners, which would be hard to interrupt with reading groups. Your child should still be reading each night at least 20 minutes!


Writer’s Workshop
We are diving deep into our Non-Fiction Unit on Birds as our kids did several things this week in Workshop. First they completed a T-Chart listing all of the information they know about their specific bird and listing all of the questions they want to answer by becoming experts on their bird. Next we took a look at a bird diagram and learned to label all of the common parts of a bird using “bird” language. Then our Writers’ had the chance to create, color and label their own diagram for their bird. As the week ended, we began talking about the physical descriptions of our birds. Please take time over break to continue researching your child’s bird with them. We have sent home a list of five excellent websites you can also use at home!


Math Workshop
“Money, Money, Money, Money… MONEY!” We have been working all week with coins and dollar bills in Math. We have practiced making ballpark estimates with monetary amounts, we have practiced adding money and now we have been working on making change with money. This is a tricky concept for our students and one that you can practice at home usually actual coins and money or the next time you are out shopping! We ended the week with work reviewing place value in numbers up to the ten-thousands place.


Word Study/Writing Skills
This week in Word Study we have been playing letters in words. First we worked with combinations of vowels in words (i.e. –ai, -oa, -ea, -ee) and reviewed the rule which says: When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and the other does the walking. We did a sort with these vowel combinations and played a game of Crazy Eights using word cards with these vowel patterns. Next we reviewed consonant clusters in the beginning and endings of words and did a blind sort. In Writing Skills this week we wrapped up our mini-unit on “Good Leads”. Each child has now created a “Good Lead” scoring 4 points on a 4 point rubric that include one dialogue example, one wondering example and one action or sound for the topic, “My Most Memorable Trip”. It is important that we continue to encourage them to begin any piece of writing with a strong lead.


Science
This week the scientists talked about many things that are seen in the night sky… the list included- moon, stars, planets, comets, planes, and clouds. Then we discussed how we know when it’s windy. They shared many things, including looking at a weather vane, an anemometer, or even looking at trees moving in the breeze. Everyone had the chance to use a thermometer and record the temperature on a paper thermometer. The amazing meteorologists have been telling the class about the daily weather. Thank you parents for your help! The Air and Weather Unit is coming to an end soon, we’ll have a science test on Thursday, April 12th. Look for the study guide after vacation.


Social Studies
We started a new unit in social studies about Our Local Economy. Students reviewed the concepts of goods and services with at sorting activity. Then they wrote to the prompt “Are goods or services more important to our community?” Students needed to support their opinions with three detailed reasons. Next, students learned about consumers and producers in their families and community. They listened to a West African folktale, The Hatseller and the Monkeys and learned the importance of producers in a local community. When we return from break, we will be creating a Business Guide of White Lake. A homework assignment was sent home on Thursday that will help your child prepare for this assignment. The homework assignment is due Monday, April 9th.


Important Dates/Upcoming Info
-April 2nd – 6th – No School – Happy Spring Break
-Monday, April 9th – School Resumes
-Monday, April 9th – Social Studies homework DUE
-Thursday, April 12th – Science Air & Weather TEST

Have a FANTASTIC Spring Break!! :-) Mrs. Weckstein :-)

Friday, March 23rd

Reader’s Workshop:
We continued working with our nonfiction reading partners to complete a Venn diagram about our fiction and nonfiction text sets. Students also shared interviews about reading nonfiction in our everyday lives. We ended the week by noticing and naming different nonfiction text features and discussed how to use these features as readers.


Writers’ Workshop:
Our writers’ have transitioned this week from writing personal narratives to exploring non-fiction books about birds! Our next unit takes an in-depth look at non-fiction writing as we begin to research Michigan birds to create magazine feature articles. To familiarize our students with the types of books we will be using, students explored books that were: bird field guides, general about birds, or specific to one type of bird. We then took time looking at ways that these different types of non-fiction books can help us in our research. Next we practiced finding facts within these books and recording the facts we learned in our own words onto post-it notes! This is a tricky skill to learn but an important one to practice. Look for info home this week on the bird your child will be focusing on for their research.


Math:
Our mathematicians have been doing lots of shopping in math! We have been working with reading and writing money amounts in decimal notation, using equivalent coin amounts to show equivalent amounts of money, and even using a calculator to compute money amounts. We’ve played a game along the way called “Pick a Coin” which your child could teach you at home!


Word Study/Writing Skills:
This week in Word Study we did a couple of different things when looking at the beginning and ending of different words. We played with ways you could either add to or remove letters from the beginning of one word to make a new word (i.e. chair - hair). Then we took a look at the ends of words and found ways to add letters to change the word (i.e storm - stormy). In our Writing Skills we continued our work on “Good Leads”. This week we focused on the “Action/Sound” lead. Students are learning what makes a “Good Lead” and earns them a 4 out of 4 on a four-point rubric. As we prepare your child for writing prompts in the future, we want them to learn to start out with a lead that INSTANTLY hooks their reader.


Social Studies:
Students spent time putting their finishing touches on their Then and Now assessment. They were required to use some of the information that they learned about Walled Lake’s history to do comparison writing. Students will be assessed not only on their content, but also on their sentence structure and quality of work. We ended the week by sharing some very interesting pieces of history in our Artifact Museum. Students shared many wonderful artifacts, some of which included: a 50 year old toy train, old photographs, books, jewelry, an alarm clock, a beverage crate, and a cherry knot maul that was 125 years old!


Science:
The scientists explored the wind this week. We made a class anemometer and students made their own with paper. An anemometer shows how fast the wind is blowing. We also made a pinwheel, which is similar to an anemometer. The scientists had fun exploring with the pinwheel! There are so many ways to make it work. We talked about the moon phases and how the moon is always changing. The moon is always a big ball, but we only see the part of the moon that’s lit. The sun shines on the moon and lights it up. The scientists also had fun exploring “bubbles in the wind”. With this experiment the students could see where the air was moving.


Don’t forget- Night Sky homework is due on Monday and the weather calendar on Friday.


Important Dates/Reminders:
• Monday, March 26th- Night Sky homework DUE


• Friday, March 30th- Weather Calendar DUE


• Friday, March 30th- Camp Read S’more! Don’t forget you donations for our trail mix, books to read, flashlight, blanket and pop-up tent!


• April 2nd-5th- SPRING BREAK! NO SCHOOL


• Monday, April 9th- RETURN TO SCHOOL


Here are some fun photos from the end of our week :-).
 

A special THANKS to ALL that came out to eat dinner at McDonald's on this past Thursday night... what an experience for the Teachers!

Here's how cute we looked on picture day/30th Birthday Day in 204!

  

We had a SURPRISE visitor from California - Mrs. Weckstein's sister Rachel showed up out of the blue... GROUP HUG!!

Mr. Weckstein came as our Guest Reader on Friday as well!

And Mrs. Simon's provided us with a DELICIOUS Birthday treat for my 30th!

THANKS FOR ALL OF THE LOVE 204!!! :-) MRS. WECKSTEIN

Friday, March 16th

A leprechaun is small and green,

He hides where he cannot be seen.

But if you catch one on this day,

He must give his gold away.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!

Reader’s Workshop
Is this book fiction or non-fiction? Can some books be both? This week we started comparing fiction and non-fiction texts. We took a look at Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel and compared the frog and toad, to the frog in, It’s a Frog’s Life by Steve Parker. We began talking about the characteristics that define a fiction book from a non-fiction book. Students began working in partnerships with text sets that presented them with a fiction and a non-fiction book on the same animal to compare.


Writer’s Workshop
Calling all bird experts!! We are just beginning our Non-Fiction Unit of Study on Michigan Birds! If you have any field guides, books, magazines, etc. at home that have information about Michigan Birds please send them to school (with your child’s name visible on them). We will be spending the next few weeks sifting through field guides and bird books as well as listening to bird calls, watching for them outside and even learning about their nests and more! This week students began learning about different types of books we use for research and created wonderings of their own about birds.


Math Workshop
In Math this week we wrapped up our Unit of Measurement by working with weight. We learned about ounces and pounds as we explored measurement using a spring scale. Then we took our Unit 9 Test and began preparing for the Math Benchmark we took on Friday. We spent extra time reviewing fractions, ballpark estimation, area/perimeter, measurement units and more.


Word Study
We did two different things this week in Word Study. While we spent two days working on word endings (-s, -ed, -ing, -ies, -es) we did a make and write as well as a sheet comparing plurals. The second class with Mrs. Weckstein was spent working on something entirely different. As a grade we are working on a project to improve the “good leads” our students use in their writing. This is a major component to the scoring on the Writing portion of the MEAP test. We spent time working on crafting a 4 point (the highest score you can get) good lead using a dialogue opening for “My Most Memorable Trip”. We learned how to start with dialogue and then establish the setting and the characters in the written piece. This is something we will continue working on throughout the rest of the year and something we began working on in September!
Social Studies

In social studies this week, the students continued to explore different perspectives about historical events by discussing the increase in pollution caused by population growth and a new amusement park in Walled Lake.  We brainstormed ideas why the amusement park polluted the air, land and water around Walled Lake.  They also discussed how the cities of Novi and Walled Lake cleaned up Walled Lake in 1979 in order for its citizens and visitors to enjoy the lake again.  Students ended the lesson by choosing a partner to create an illustrated booklet about how people could protect the environment in the Walled Lake area, so history won’t repeat itself.

Important News/Dates


• Thursday, March 22nd – Author Visit – Author Mark Newman of “Sooper Yooper” will be visiting Dublin. Book order forms have come home with your child.


• Thursday, March 22nd 5:00-7:00pm– Dublin McDonald’s Night The Dublin Staff will be working from 5-7pm volunteering time behind the counter at McDonald’s. Come for dinner and help support the Literacy Libraries at Dublin (where we get ALL of our guided reading group books from).


• Friday, March 23rd – Spring Pictures are FIRST thing in the morning


• Friday, March 23rd – Money DUE for “In School” Bird Field Trip – Please remember to send in $2 to cover the cost of this project we will be doing with Indian Springs Metro Park


• Friday, March 23rd – Big Catch Party in the afternoon… Info coming home next week! If you haven’t heard, we’ve filled the Big Catch once again. We are working on our plans for the party and will send info home at the beginning of next week!

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