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.