Pathways to 100!

Dear Families,

It was an exciting week of firsts in Second grade!  In Reading Workshop we began exploring a variety of nonfiction texts like maps, diagrams and informational texts.  In Writing Workshop we chose a small moment narrative text to publish and used an editing checklist to begin the revision process.

On Wednesday we celebrated filling our Marky Mark container a third time, by making slime! On Thursday we enjoyed popcorn delivered by Marky Moose to celebrate filling our school wide tank. 

This week we began our new math unit.  This unit will help the children learn strategies for adding ones and multiples of 10 to two-digit numbers.  These lessons rely primarily on using the hundred-pocket chart, which is a visual organizer to help students see why the numerical patterns make sense, thus developing their number sense as they learn to compute. Here is a fun game that helps children start to see patterns on the one hundred chart!

http://www.abcya.com/one_hundred_number_chart_game.htm.

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Landforms and Bodies of Water
~Rolling for Minutes in Number Corner
~The Storm
~Word Study (switching classrooms!)

Have a great weekend!
Katie

Readers Share Advice

Dear Families,

We've had a short but productive week in Room 16!  Don't forget there is no school tomorrow or Friday!

This week in reading we celebrated how much we have grown as readers.  Students reflected on what they had learned during our first reading unit, and left advice for future readers of the book. Here's some of the advice student's shared: "Watch out for tricky words!" "Pay attention to what the authro is trying to teach!" "Stop at the end of each chapter to retell what you've read so far!" Our next reading unit will be Nonfiction.

Check out some of the activities the children enjoy doing during Ketchup time!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Crafternoon
~Atlas scavenger hunt
~Author's message
~The Bandaid Lesson

Have a wonderful weekend!
Katie

Busy Week in Room 16!

Dear Families,

It was a wonderful morning for our school wide Fun Run! The children had so much fun cheering, running and walking.  Thanks to our PTO for a great start to our day!

This week concluded our first unit in math: Figuring the facts.  In this unit, students learned fact strategies for addition facts to 20.  We have utilized the number rack tool to visualize these numbers and to help us create mental images that match the fact types.  For example, we have learned that when solving Add Nine facts, we can just imagine taking one from the other number and adding it to 9 to make a 10, which is much easier to add.  Please look for your child's math post-assessment next week.

 Mrs. Wheeler wrapped up her first guidance unit by incorporating all aspects of our school wide expectations.  Students had to be respectful. mindful and cooperative in order to be successful  putting together a puzzle.  You will find a notice in your child's folder today about the next guidance unit.

In our second Farm to School lesson, we learned how important honeybees are for providing pollination to so many of the foods we eat.  We taste tested two foods honeybees help produce - apples and honey!

Blindfolded taste testing apples

Blindfolded taste testing

Yum~apples and honey!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Ways to retell a book
~Mercy Watson to the Rescue
~Matter stations and making ice cream
~Practice for the end of unit math assessment
~Keyboarding on the Chromebooks

Have a great weekend!
Katie

Matter is Everywhere

Dear Families,

It was nice to see so many of you at Open House last night.  The children have been working extremely hard.  It was so fun to see all of their excitement and pride as they gave a tour of our classroom!

The second grade presented the monthly PBIS assembly this morning and did a fantastic job!  All 60 second graders took part in either the planning or presenting of the assembly. Student jobs included: playing the singing drums, modeling our school chant or greeting, writing about or presenting on a Peter Reynolds book, and finally singing the Dot song.

During Science Workshop this week, Miss McMorrow began her unit on matter.  Students were first introduced to a RAN chart which is a graphic organizer used to organize thoughts and learning through an inquiry.  To start, students were asked to record any prior knowledge or wonderings they have about matter.  Students then learned that there are three states of matter - solid, liquid and gas. Finally, they completed a matter sort in their science notebook.  Next week,  they will learn how there are reversible and irreversible changes in matter.  Ask your scientist about it!

RAN chart

Sorting states of matter 

Today our class enjoyed a wonderful field trip to The Farm at South Village, with Miss Meg, our Farm to School Educator.  We we were able to feed the chickens, taste different herbs and harvest carrots and tomatoes.  It was a beautiful morning to be outside!

Harvesting Carrots

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Five Minutes a day
~Adding character thinking and feeling to a story
~Those Darn Squirrels
~Addition fact strategies
~Readers check themselves (ask your child about jokes!)

Have a great weekend!
Katie