Friday, May 11th

Friday, May 11th

Just a friendly reminder, the items for our MVP Celebration are due no later than MONDAY. As of today, I only have all of the items from half of our parents. In order for this special event to be a success, I need to be able to get everything prepared ahead of time. This isn’t a project that I will be able to put together at the last minute. Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
Reader’s Workshop:
In Reader’s Workshop, we continued to take a closer look at glossaries and indices. Nonfiction reading partners examined these important nonfiction text features from different books and discussed what they noticed together as a class. Then readers took some time to reflect in their reading journals how these important nonfiction text features helped them with their nonfiction reading.

Writer’s Workshop:
This week we have been PUBLISHING our bird feature articles! Students wrapped up their editing and revising as they took one last look at their rough drafts. Your child’s article will be displayed in the hallway very soon! Students who finished publishing their magazine articles were given time to work on their own blank books about “Birds”. We discussed including a detailed cover, table of contents, dedication page, about the author page, glossary, index and a blurp on the back.

Math Workshop:
Our mathematicians have been reviewing the concepts of mathematics we have learned this year. We’ve taken a look at time and different ways to write time notations, including word phrases (a quarter to four, half past twelve, etc.). Students also worked on telling time and looking at elapsed time. Next, we reviewed our addition and subtraction strategies and talked about the different ways we have learned to add and subtract, as well as which strategy works best for different kinds of problems. We also plotted data on a time line and students had the opportunity to practice their multiplication, single and double addition facts through fun math games. These are great concepts to be reviewing at school and at home!

Word Study:
In Word Study this week we took a look at words with spelling patterns such as: -ack, -ake, -ail, -ant and used them to spell new words. Students then sorted words with similar consonant clusters. We ended the week by practicing some very important high frequency words with a friendly game of GO FISH!

Social Studies:
This week in Social Studies we continued to be very busy! We started working on our Career Choices and even completed our first resumes. It was pretty neat to see the list of credentials the kids came up with for their qualifications for different jobs! Ask your child what job they selected. We also spent time reviewing for our Local Economy test which we took on Friday.

Important Dates/News:
We are in NEED of erasers... No matter how many new pencils we sharpen, erasers are a hot item. If you can send in any "pink" bigger erasers (not pencil top), that would be awesome! Thank you!

Monday, May 14th: 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 2nd graders and their MVP. Please make other arrangements for any younger siblings during this special event.

Monday, May 14th: 6:30-7:30pm - Meet n' Greet with Mr. Drewno (parents only)

Wednesday, May 16th: 9:30-10:30am - Meet n' Greet with Mr. Drewno (parents only)

Friday, May 18th: Field Day (We are on the field in the P.M.) - Email went out to use "Sign-Up Genius" to volunteer for a time - Second Grade needs to send in "Cookie Donations" - please no peanuts. Remember it is an all school lunch!
Thursday, May 24th: MVP Celebration @ 2:30-3:30 pm in Old Gym

Thursday, May 24th: PTA sponsored Ladies Night Out

Friday, May 25th: 3pm - Memorial Day Parade

Tuesday, May 29th: Neil Levin Cartooning Workshop

Friday, June 1st: Ice Cream Social

Friday, June 8th: Volunteers needed starting at 9am to help re-organize the Media Center for 2012-2013 school year

Here's an email I wanted to share with all of our 204 families! I plan on stopping by sometime tomorrow to see Chloe participate in her first Relay for Life. Aiming for later in the day!

Hi Mrs Weckstein



I wanted to thank for allowing Chloe to do her fundraising with her class! Relay for life is an event I started to be involved in since I was in 4th grade. Relay is something very close to my heart and I love seeing chloe and all of her friends supporting and involved with. I was told that some kids,families and teachers wanted to come to the day of the event and participate in the fun! Everyone is welcomed and invited to join all the involved teams. Their will be games, crafts, music and food for everyone to participate in for donations, all going to American cancer society. The event begins on Saturday may 12 at 10AM at Walled Lake's Geisler Middle School with a speech from Walled Lakes Mayor. Then the 24 hours of activities and games begin! Then at 9pm the ceremony of luminaria begins. Anyone who has decorated a bag can come see their bag along with the many others along the track. It's a very special and moving ceremony for everyone involved! Again thank you so much for supporting chloe in her first year in relay! I hope to see you and many of Chloe's class mates there!

Kylie Schiller


Team awkward turtle captin

Friday, May 4th

It’s been another fantastic week in Second Grade. I have noticed that many of the second graders are making their way into school on their own and I am excited to see them build their independence. They are ready to take care of morning routines on their own. Just a reminder from last week’s blog post, I would appreciate not having parents unpacking their child in the morning. It is their job to bring the necessary items into the room, unpack their homework and snack and then proceed with their Morning Work. If I have to ask you to leave, it is not because you are not welcome in our room, it is because they need to be prepared for the morning on their own and are old enough to do so. Similar discussions are happening in both Kindergarten and First Grade at Dublin.

Reader’s Workshop:

This week in Workshop we spent time working with Non-Fiction Reading Strategies. We brainstormed a giant list of questions we can ask when approaching new nonfiction as well as strategies we can use when reading a nonfiction text as they are all so very different! Next we took two days to zoom in on different “Table of Contents”. We compared several different examples from familiar texts as well as examples from our own texts. We found each Table of Contents to be unique to the book. We did a journal entry about how a Table of Contents can help us as a reader. Next we just began looking at the Glossary in nonfiction text and will also spend time zooming in on the features of a Glossary and its different uses.

Writer’s Workshop:

Our Writer’s have been busy, busy, BUSY this week in Workshop! We began the week finishing up our rough drafts of our magazine feature articles. Each child was given extra time on Monday to work on their “good lead” as this has been a central focus of writing this year in second grade. Then for the next three days we took a step away from our research reports to do a writing assessment called the Developmental Writing Assessment. The DWA asks each child to compose a piece through the Writing Process in its’ entirety. Our children were given the prompt: A Time I Got Hurt. First our Writers’ had to pick an example to share (a small moment in time) and then they had a time slot to fill in a story board with detailed illustrations and labels for the beginning-middle-end of their piece. Next they had another time slot to compose a draft of their story. On the third day we spent time using an Editing and Revising Checklist to fine tune our pieces. As we do the DWA in both September and in May, we are excited to see the growth our children have made as writers this year! These pieces are scored.

Math Workshop:

Multiplication is the name of the game! This week we have spent a considerate amount of time working on Multiplication Strategies. We completed a products table for all numbers, 0-10 multiplied by 0-10 and talked for a great while about the patterns we see in the Products Table. Next we cut out fact triangles to use to practice memorizing our multiplication and division facts. (Yes, we actually do this in second grade!) Students played games with a partner with the fact triangles and had a chance make a set at home this week in their Homelinks. Please make sure you have actually done this and your child is practicing with them. More will be coming home next week! As the week moved on we also took a look at the division problems we can solve easily using multiplication. To end the week we practiced all four multiplications strategies we have learned in anticipation for a Unit 11 Test.

These are the FOUR strategies we have been reviewing for multiplication. Four students demonstrated the: repeated addition, arrays, equal groups and number line strategies.

Word Study:

In Word Study this week we took a look at beginning and ending consonant clusters as we played a Dominoes game. Later into the week we worked on recognizing words with the –ou,    -ow and –aw vowel sounds. To review this concept we played games of “Crazy Eights”. Last we took a look at the sound of “a” in words that have an a-e pattern, -ay or –ai and completed a blind sort.

Social Studies:

This week in Social Studies we did all sorts of things! We continued working on our Career Choices and even completed our first resumes. It was pretty neat to see the list of credentials the kids came up with for their qualifications for different jobs! We also spent time preparing for and hosting our Market Day! Market Day was a great way for us to review major Social Studies Vocab (goods, services, producers, consumers, opportunity cost, scarcity and resources). After setting up our shops our kids spent time being the business owner, being the consumers and learning how to barter and trade! Did I mention, it was also a great way for them to practice counting coins and making change? In addition to Market Day this week, we did a special treat!  We made a sandwich using bread and butter… We used this example to discuss once more, all of the economics vocabulary from above. We also added on human resources, natural resources and capital resources!

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

New iPhone App :-)

Yes, you read that right! Today during our Market Day I tried a new app on my phone... there seems to be a minor glitch with a few of the photos, but I wanted to share what's here so far! It's called "Zapd" and seems pretty neat!

Enjoy!! :-) Mrs. W.

Click here to see our first Zapd!

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 :-)