Winter Party

We had a wonderful time at our Winter Party. Thanks to Mrs. Fruscione and Mrs. Sperry for organizing the fun! The party was very well organized and creative! Also, a big thanks to all the parents who volunteered their time to help at the party and to donate items.

Making Snow Measuring Sticks! 

Yummy Healthy Food! Check out this tree, amazing! 

Working together in groups to build a "snowman" 

Finished Product! 

Crazy/Winter Hat Day!

We all enjoyed the past Spirit Day! The crazy/winter/seasonal hats were so much fun! 

Weekly Update 12/21

This is going to be a quick week! Although the winter break is right around the corner, we will still have plenty to do in 2nd Grade.

We will spend a lot of our Daily Five/Reading blocks reading holiday stories and responding in writing to the stories. The students will have the opportunity to sequence events, answer questions, and follow-up with creative writing for some stories. We will also spend time during our reading groups doing readers theatre to practice our oral reading fluency and expression.

In math this week we will be doing exploration activities where the kids get to really work hands-on. The students will be exploring ways to measure long paths, working with arrays, and matching math facts with addition/subtraction strategies that work best.

We will have our class Winter Party on December 23rd! We will also have a school sing-along assembly this week!

Spirit Day- Wednesday, December 23rd

Crazy Winter Hat Day - Wear a favorite winter hat, headband or seasonal hat

Wednesday, December 23rd is an Early Release. Students will be dismissed at 12:20 pm.

I wish you all a fun, safe, and relaxing Winter Break! Merry Christmas to all those families who celebrate. School will resume January 4th. Happy New Year!

SPIRIT DAY- Friday, December 18th

Dress as Your Favorite Holiday 

Students may pick their favorite holiday to dress like 

for example:

Valentine's Day - Wear Pink, White, Red or Hearts

Fourth of July - Wear Red, White or Blue

Columbus Day - Dress Like Christopher Columbus

Halloween - Wear Black and Orange or one part of the Halloween Costume (no masks, make-up, weapons or dangerous accessories)

Weekly Update 12/14

Excitement is definitely in the air!  We will have lots of fun this week, while trying to stay focused on routine.  Here is a look at what's ahead…

Math- Math will be very hands-on the next few days as we discuss and practice measurement.  We will look at feet, inches, and centimeters while we measure all around the classroom.  

Reading- We began discussing character traits in our reading groups last week.  After reading a book, the children chose a character and brainstormed a list of traits to describe that character.  The next step will be to discuss and write down evidence from the text to support those traits. 
Some groups will also be doing some readers theatre to work on their fluency and expression while reading.  We hope to “perform” some of those plays this week for the rest of the class!

Library Research/Posters- Last week we had the opportunity to review Non-Fiction features by looking at books about various holidays around the world.  With the help of Mrs. Dierks and Mrs. Lavoie in the library, the children explored the following holidays:  Diwali, Ramadan, Christmas, Hanukkah, Chinese New Year, and Kwanzaa.  This week the students will work in groups to explore one of the above holidays in more depth.  They will then create a poster and teach their class about the holiday.

Writing- Last week we received a letter from Santa saying he was hiring some new elves.  The children have come up with character traits they feel would be important for an elf to have, and they have been working hard writing letters back to him trying to persuade Santa to hire them for the holiday season!!  This is a great introduction to our persuasive/opinion writing unit, which we will focus on after the winter break.

Upcoming Dates:

• Winter Party- Our party is scheduled for December 23^rd
• Winter Break- December 24^th- January 3^rd

First Day of "Read to Someone"

The children have really built their stamina over the past few months during our Daily Five block. Today we practiced "Read to Someone." The kids really enjoyed it! We will practice for a few more days and eventually this will become a choice for our Daily Five rotations. Read to Someone helps the kids work on their oral reading fluency and expression!!

Melting Race!

Can you change an objects state of matter? 

The children explored this concept by having a "melting race." The children worked with partners to see who could melt an ice cube the quickest. Their strategies included: using warm water, putting coats over the ice cube, putting it in the sun, and simply holding it in their warm hands. Fun was had by all!

Weekly Update 12/7

Happy Monday! It's hard to believe that we only have a little over two weeks until Winter Break! The excitement is high in the classroom :)

For homework this week, the students will be asked to write a personal narrative story about a holiday family tradition. If you don't celebrate a winter holiday, it can be a story about any holiday throughout the year. This assignment will take the place of the weekly Reading Log. The children will be encouraged to share their stories with the class. In addition to the writing assignment, your child will have a math worksheet 2 nights this week and their Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe.

This week we will be focusing on making words plural during our phonics lessons. The students will learn the combinations that require you to add -es instead of just s.

We will also do a lesson on Character Traits which will lead us into a seasonal writing in which the kids will get to pretend that they are an elf and have the opportunity to use character traits to write a persuasive letter to Santa telling him why he should hire them.

During reading groups this week, we will continue talking about character traits by describing the traits of the main characters in our Guided Reading books.

Math this week will focus on using place-value and expanded form to compare 3-digit numbers. We will do a practice Open Response question where the children will make sense of a 3-digit number represented by base-10 blocks by making trades or counting. Then we will come together on the following day to analyze explanations and drawings and then the children will have the opportunity to revise their work.

We will be finishing up our unit on Matter this week by continuing to sort objects (solids, liquids, and gases) by their scientific properties (color, shape, size, odor, texture, and weight). The students will be taking their Matter Assessment on Thursday.

Reminders:
Tuesday, December 8th is School Store for Grade Two
Thursday, December 10th is an Early Release (Professional Development)

I hope you have a great week!

Weekly Update 11/30

I hope you all enjoyed some relaxing family time.  I enjoyed meeting with you all for parent/teacher conferences last week.  We are heading into new month of learning with a FULL week of school!  Here are a few things we will be doing…

In math we are beginning a new unit which focuses on measurement.  At the beginning of the week we'll discuss telling time on an analog clock.  We'll review clock vocabulary, as well as practice telling time to the nearest hour, half hour, and 5 minutes.

For writing this week we will look more at editing strategies writer's can use to make their writing sound better.  We'll discuss how to use a variety of sentence beginnings, as well as how to write with a variety of sentence lengths.  We will do some practice with these skills as we fix up our own and other's writing.

Our guided reading groups continue to go well.  We will continue responding to reading in both words and writing.  The children will have ample opportunity to practice their independence during Daily 5 each day.  We will also get to try out  “Read to Someone” during some of our Daily 5 rounds.

Our next few science lessons will be focused on gases.  We will learn that gases actually have weight and take up space.  We will also be reviewing all the states of matter, as well as practicing sorting matter using the properties we've been discussing.

Weekly Update 11/23

A friendly reminder about the following:

• Monday, November 23rd- 2-Hour Delay for the students due to Parent Teacher Conferences
• Tuesday, November 24th- No School for the students due to Parent Teacher Conferences
• Wednesday, November 25th- Early Release for Thanksgiving Break 
• Thursday and Friday- No School for Thanksgiving break 

Although this will be a quick week for the students, we will have some time on learning. We plan to read the poem "Over the River and Through the Woods" and discuss the rhythmic pattern that is repeated throughout the poem. Then the students will be writing their own stanza and will get to create an artistic scene to go with it. We hope to also write about what we are thankful for!

Last week we focused on the properties of science (color, shape, size, odor, texture, weight) in regards to solids and liquids. We also had a melting race to see how quickly the kids could melt an ice cube to see the change from a solid to a liquid. This week we are excited to explore gases. 

Our math time this week will be spent reviewing previous skills and playing a few games. 

I look forward to meeting with you during conferences this Monday and Tuesday.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families! 

Weekly Update 11/16

Happy Monday!  Here is a look at the week ahead in 2^nd Grade…

I have completed all of the individual reading assessments, so I look forward to getting back to our regular reading groups this week.  I have changed up the groups a bit in an effort to best meet the needs of all the children.

We started a new science unit last week, Properties of Matter.  The students were introduced to what matter is and we discussed the 3 states of matter- solids, liquids, and gases.  Ask your child about the experiment we did to prove that matter can change from one state to another!

This week we will finish up unit 3 in math with some more subtraction work.  We will also explore a few new games and activities to practice addition facts, counting coins, and the concept of area.  We will be doing the unit 3 check-in this week as well.

For writing we will take a short break from personal narrative stories to do some fun Thanksgiving-themed writing.  We look forward to displaying this work for you to see at conferences.

One last note…
I hope you received your conference slips back with your confirmed conference time.  If you haven't seen this confirmation come home with your child, please let me know.   I look forward to meeting with you all very soon!

Weekly Update 11/9

It's hard to believe that this is the first week of Term 2! Here is a look at what we will be doing in class this week.

We will be discussing the author's message, lesson, or moral through read-aloud's this week. We will also follow up with these discussions during our guided reading groups over the next couple of weeks. Most of our guided reading time this week, will be spent doing individual reading assessments.

The kids are really enjoying writing personal narrative stories. This week the kids will begin a new story and we will discuss what it means to add "voice" to their writing. When they add voice, they should include feelings and make the writing come to life with sparkle and excitement!

Last week we finished our Apple Economics unit. We are excited to begin our next science unit this week, which is Properties of Matter. The kids will be introduced to the term "matter" and will learn that there are three states of matter- solids, liquids, and gases.

The main focus during math will be on subtraction. The children will find missing numbers and missing rules in "What's My Rule?" problems, learn to use the doubles facts to solve subtraction facts, and will use the going-back-through-10 strategy.

* Reminder that there is NO SCHOOL on Wednesday, November 11th for Veteran's Day.

Economics Play Pictures

Harvest Party Photos!