Weekly Update 3/17

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! This has been a busy couple of weeks with the Alice Drill, Living Lab, Snow Day, 2 Hour Delay, and Play Rehearsals. Although there have been a lot of special activities, we have also been hard at work in the classroom.

Last week we worked on making inferences and visualizing while reading books. We began with a whole class lesson that not only reviewed these reading skills, but also introduced the kids to poetry which is our March writing unit. This reading skill was reinforced during our reading groups.

In terms of Poetry, we spent some time talking about what the kids already knew about poetry, read a few fun poems, and wrote couplet poems to get us started. The kids enjoyed writing their 2 line poems that rhyme. Over the next couple of weeks, the kids will get the opportunity to write several different types of poems. Some of which will rhyme, some of which will be template poems, and some will be free verse.

In math we finished up Unit 6 and have started Unit 7 which focuses on whole number operations, measurement, and data. The children practiced finding differences between 2-digit numbers and multiples of 10 by playing a game called Hit the Target. We also spent some time talking about adding multiple numbers in a logical way to make the problem easier. The children were encouraged to look for "friendly numbers" which could be a multiple of 10 or a doubles fact.

Last week we finished up our travels to Australia by visiting the computer lab to learn more about the Great Barrier Reef. The children then created their own coral reef scrapbook page and included facts that they learned in the computer lab. After Australia, we traveled to the amazing continent of Europe. The kids learned about Europe as a whole, and next week we will focus on the country of Italy!!

The Second Grade performance is coming along nicely and we are excited to perform for you next Friday, March 24th at 1:45 in the Robinson Cafeteria!

I look forward to meeting with you all during Parent Teacher Conferences March 29th and 30th.

Upcoming Events:

• Tuesday, March 21st - School Store for Grade Two (rescheduled due to Snow Day) 
• Wednesday, March 22nd- Performance for the School 
• Friday, March 24th- Performance for Parents at 1:45 
• Wednesday, March 29th- 2 Hour Delay for Parent Teacher Conferences
• Thursday, March 30th- No School for Parent Teacher Conferences