Update 10/19

It is hard to believe it is almost the end of October and the cold weather is approaching. Please be sure your child comes to school with a jacket or sweatshirt to wear out to recess. We go outside everyday.

We have a lot to share about what's been happening in our classroom over the past two weeks...

In math, we are finishing up Unit 2, which focused on fact strategies. Near Doubles, Turn Around Facts, and the Making Ten strategy were some of the strategies we practiced. The children will continue to use these strategies while playing games during guided math and completing their math journal pages. The children will be taking the Unit 2 assessment next week. When the completed assessment comes home please be sure to sign and return it to school. In Unit 3, more fact strategies will be developed with a focus on solving subtraction facts.  Frequent practice of addition and subtraction facts will help second graders develop math confidence and fluency.

During writing, the children are working on their “Looking Back” stories. They are using the photos brought in from home and the brainstorming sheet to write the first draft of their stories. It has been so much fun seeing all the wonderful photos and the stories are off to a great start! Next week the children will create spooky monster stories where they get to design their own monsters. Be sure to ask your child all about it.

Daily 5 is up and running and the children are doing a wonderful job! We are currently focusing on retelling and identifying important story elements (characters, setting, problem, solution). The children will be using the “five finger” strategy in small reading groups to identify the elements and retell stories. These are skills that we will practice throughout the school year.

This week in science our class visited the rainforest! While in this habitat, the children learned about the animals and plants that live there and what they need to survive. Soon, we will be visiting the desert and the ocean habitats as well. We will then discuss how the plants and animals in these three habitats depend on each other to survive. The children have written a "blog" about their visit to the rainforest, will play trivia during their visit to the desert, and be scientific data collectors in the ocean habitat.

The second graders at Robinson will be participating in a school wide fall clean up. The second grade students will be raking leaves, weeding, and planting bulbs. It will be so exciting in the spring to see the beautiful flowers bloom from the bulbs WE planted! This is a great way for the second graders to give back to our school community.

Our first class celebration, the Harvest Party, will be on October 31st.  The children may bring their costumes in a bag marked with their name and will be allowed to put them on for the party. It is a Robinson rule that we don't allow weapons, face paint, or masks. If your child doesn't want to wear their costume, that's fine too! 

We are lucky to have Susan Sperry helping to organize the celebrations for us this year.  If you have any questions about parties, please contact her (her contact info is on the Friendship List).  Thank you for all the donations that have already come in to help support our classroom parties. If you have not yet sent in a $6 donation for the holiday parties there is still time. These donations will be used to pay for the crafts at each celebration.

Thanks for all you do and have a wonderful weekend!