Update 2/16

The kids had a great time celebrating our 100th Day of School and Pajama Day on February 13h!!  Wednesday was our class Valentine's Party.  It was fun to see the kids giving and receiving Valentine's cards.  We are very grateful to AmyJo Koser and Ruthanne Madsen for all of their work coordinating our classroom parties this year!  

We have been enjoying our time in Asia and learning about the geography of the biggest continent of the World. We also spent time reading about Japan and learning about their culture. After vacation we look forward to teaching the children about Children's Day and how the people in Japan fly carp kites to celebrate. We are even going to make our own carp kites! We will also spend some time writing Haiku poems, which is a type of poem that originated in Japan.

The students ability to write opinion pieces is continuing to strengthen. After putting the final touches on our restaurant reviews, the children are now writing other reviews.  This time they got to pick the topic they would like to write an opinion piece about. Some children have chosen to review a game, toy, place, famous person, pet, or sport. We also reviewed how to use a revision checklist.  Many of their revised pieces will be included in their Writing Portfolios that they will be bringing home to share with you at the end of the year.

In math, the children have been introduced to various diagrams to help them organize their mathematical thinking in order to solve addition and subtraction problems. The diagrams we discussed were: Total and Part Diagrams, Change Diagrams, and Comparison Diagrams. The children used their knowledge to decide what diagram worked best for various word problems. We also spent some time discussing Ballpark Estimates and Strategies for Adding 2 and 3-Digit Numbers (including Partial Sums).  It is a lot of information at once, but our hope is that at least 1 or 2 of the strategies will stick with the children as they move forward.  Today was our Unit 6 Assessment.

During Guided Reading, we have read a variety of fictional texts. After reading the stories, we focused on 2 essential questions. The first being "What do you think was the most important event in the story? And Why? The second being "What do you think the author was trying to tell you in this story? These questions require the children to interpret and reflect on their reading. Next week I plan to begin checking in with each child and doing a DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) in order to get ready for the end of Term 2 and to adjust reading groups as necessary. I can't wait to share your child's reading growth with you at our next conference in March.

Upcoming Events:

February Vacation- February 17th-25th 

I hope you have a fun and relaxing February Vacation! 

Update 2/2

Wow, what a crazy few weeks with all of our snow days and holidays! It's been nice to be back in full swing these past two weeks and having 5 days of school each week! The kids have been working really hard in second grade.

During math time, the students finished up Unit 5 and worked on completing the Unit 5 Assessment, along with the Mid-Year Assessment. We have also begun Unit 6. The focus of this unit is on Whole Number Operations and Number Stories.  In the first lesson, we collected pocket data and learned how to organize into a tally chart. The students then created both a picture and bar graph of the data. In the second lesson, children solved comparison number stories about the lengths of fish.

The kids are doing a fabulous job with the Opinion Writing Unit! We have discussed the types of things that people have opinions on: restaurants, toys, places, movies, books, games, etc... The children have completed a couple opinion pieces. The first being a restaurant review. The children shared their thoughts on the food, appearance, service, and price. During Daily Five, the children have had the opportunity to practice more opinion pieces by writing about what they believe is the best superpower to have or what would be the best class pet. The children are encouraged to start by stating their opinion, then to have at least 3 supporting reasons with details for each, and a concluding sentence. We will continue with opinion writing throughout the month of February.

We have begun our trip Around the World! The students enjoyed a pretend airplane ride with all of the second grade students to our first destination. We flew from Boston to Mexico! The students have been working with maps and have learned how to use a compass rose and key when reading a map. We have also been learning the names of the 7 continents and the 5 main oceans of the world. We ended the week reading and discussing North America. Next week we will focus our attention on the culture in Mexico.

During our literacy blocks, that children learned a new non-fiction comprehension skill which is to "have questions in their mind while reading." This allows for the children to not only read informational texts with a purpose, but to also monitor their reading comprehension. We discussed that all of your questions might not be answered in a single book and that there are times that you need to do more research or read another book about the topic.

A friendly reminder about Valentines Day- Your child is not required to bring in Valentines. However, if they choose to do valentines, they need to do one for every child in the class. Also, it is a Robinson School policy that the valentines can't contain any food products. A pencil, sticker, tattoos, etc... are acceptable if students want to include something with their valentines.

Upcoming Dates:

February 6th- School Store for 2nd Grade
February 7th- Early Release for Professional Development
February 12th- Living Lab visit

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Go Patriots!!