Friday, October 5th

Hello 2^nd Grade Families!

It has been another fantastic week in 2^nd grade!! As the seasons have changed, please make sure to dress your child appropriately for school. I know I have mentioned this before, but many are still coming without coats or in proper clothing. The building can be cold and we do not have complete control of the temperature in our classroom.

Our daily reporters began this week and we enjoyed hearing from our first five reporters! Here's a look at the cool Science Reporter than John did this week on the Scarab Beetle. Let's just say that all of the Weckies now understand what a "dung" beetle is and boy did we have a good laugh first thing Wednesday morning!

As a bonus this week, we spent time playing a fun game up on the SmartBoard called "Kooky Carnival". This reading comprehension game helps to not only build team-building skills, but students understanding of reading a passage and answering a question about it's meaning or a missing word from within the text. The Weckies LOVED playing the game this week!

The Pink Team was our victorious team!

Reader’s Workshop

In Workshop this week we spent time working on our Reading Logs. We are learning that as “Wow” readers, we should be spending time keeping track of the books that we read in our Independent Reading Logs. As the week progressed we took a look at learning about the reading styles of other people. Each child was asked to interview someone at home about their reading habits: favorite place to read, favorite book, favorite reading memory, etc. It was great to hear the kids share all of the awesome advice they got as young readers from the pool of people we interviewed! Now that reading assessments are complete, I am anticipating starting guided reading groups in the next few days! Look for book bags to come home and please pay attention to the group schedule that will be in your child’s bag.

Writer’s Workshop

This week we began our Poetry Unit in Writer’s Workshop. Moving away from our launch unit, our students spent time being immersed in books filled with wonderful poetry. Students worked with partners to look for similes in poetry. Mentor texts were abundant this week including: Crazy Like a Fox, My Many Colored World, Owl Moon and more! We love beginning the year with Poetry so that all writers’ have a chance to experiment with words, sentence structure and not a lot of literary rules!

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”. 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 subtraction strategies: comparision and change to less strategies. Each strategy uses a visual to help show subtraction. Look for information on these strategies on Home Links that come home with your child! To end the week we worked on our Unit 2 Math Explorations. Students got to experiment with: pan balances, spring scales, dots on dominoes (looking for odds and evens) and play math games on the iPads and SmartBoard.

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 read the book Me on the Map to help create the visual of a “bullseye” featuring each region in the bigger picture as a bigger ring zooming out from ourselves in the center. Next we discussed “needs” and “wants”. We spent time learning that “wants” are simply things we “want” to have but do not “need” to live. We then learned about “needs” as things we “need” to survive (shelter, food, water and clothing). We brainstormed needs and wants and spent time talking about how our needs and wants can be met in our community.

Word Study

In Word Study this week we did several things. We spent time working with high-frequency words for October and played a LOTTO game.  Our students learned about synonyms this week (words that mean about the same thing) and had an opportunity to play a concentration game with a partner to practice their understanding of synonyms.

Important Dates and Reminders:

We have sent information home about a class directory. Please consider participating in this option to help your child to arrange social activities with their classmates. It is important that we ask you once more not to pass out birthday invitations at school. We have had to stop several parents in the hallway as of late and can only distribute invitations if everyone in the classroom is invited. While we get that you are being “secretive” by putting them in backpacks, we are the ones responsible for dealing with hurt feelings when students find them in their backpacks, dig them out and share their enthusiasm with peers who may not have been invited. Thank you so much for your help with this matter!

-Friday, October 12^th: Fun Run @ Dublin – We run at 1:30-1:45pm 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.

We hope you have a fabulous weekend – and stay warm! :-) Mrs. Weckstein