January 25th

A HUGE Thank You!

Thanks to all the families that gifted our classroom this Holiday season!  We got beanbag chairs, a new soft rug in our meeting area, new playdough, cookie sheets for spelling, and some cool magnetic shapes for building with!  I am always amazed by the generosity of the UID community!

Be sure to check the pictures below of our gifts.

Spelling

Second graders have been learning about and practicing "Bossy R" spelling patterns ar, or, ore, er, ir, ur.

A gift for the classroom!  Cookie sheets for word building!

Building words with partners on Thursdays

Reading

Second grade readers are growing knowledge across nonfiction books!

As they read different books about a subject, they notice what information is similar and different to add to what we know about that subject.

A gift for the classroom!  Beanbag chairs!

Mr Baron just received new books for the Library! 

Our class and the fourth graders got together on 

Pajama Day to explore the books before they get put out in the Library.  

We made little forts and read!

Writing

Second graders have been hard at work writing teaching books.  This week we learned  different ways to begin and end our teaching books.  We also learned that authors take the time to think about who their audience is and to anticipate what they want to learn.

Our goal is to write a new teaching book every week!

Math

Data Unit - Second graders have been learning how to create line plots and bar graphs with Titles and Labels.  Next week we will learn how to compare data from different graphs.  We are also learning how to tell time to the quarter hour.

Creating a bar graph on how many teeth lost in a class

Creating graphs and telling time to the Quarter Hour

Science

Our next science unit is Light!  

The essential questions for this unit are:

• How does light travel?
• What happens when light strikes (shines on) an object?
• How can I make a table to record my data?

Students will understand that Light maintains direction of motion
until it interacts with an objects and that light can be absorbed or reflected.

Sorting Sources of Light

Fun Times in Second Grade

Running the Red Carpet for a motor break!

A gift for the classroom!
Playdough

A gift for the classroom!  A nice soft rug and magnetic blocks!

Snow Friends

January 12, 2018

Second graders have been hard at work since returning from vacation!  

Sorry, no pictures in my Blog this week.  I was busy too! :)

NOTES

• Just a reminder that there is no school on Monday, January 15 for Teacher In-service
• Please be sure to send your child with indoor shoes everyday. 
• Homework will be starting Tuesday, January 16th.  More info will be coming home with your child on Tuesday, with their homework.

Spelling

For spelling we have been practicing the spelling patterns for long o.

This week we practiced building and spelling oa and o-consonant-magic e (o-e) words.  We are also learning and practicing high frequency Trick Words, also known as Red Words.  Trick words/Red words are high frequency spelling words that usually cannot be sounded out.

Next week, I will begin sending home spelling homework.  This will consist of practicing the Trick Words and the spelling skill being taught at school and/or a spelling practice sheet.

Math

This week in math we have building numbers with tens and ones, adding 10 to any number and counting by tens starting off the decade (4, 14, 24, 34, etc).

Please see the parent letter sent home Friday for more details.

What can you do to support your child at home?

• ask your child to count by 2s,  For a challenge ask your child to count by 2s starting at 24 or 36.
• ask  your child to count by 5s.  For a challenge, ask your child to count by 5s starting at 65 or 110.
• Ask your child to count by 10s. For a challenge have your child start at 110 or 46.
• Identify and count coins efficiently to 50 cents

Writing

Second graders have been working on writing informational teaching books.  This week we practiced "squeezing our brains" in order to teach our readers a lot of information.  We also looked at mentor texts to see how nonfiction books begin.  We noticed that a lot of nonfiction books start with questions, from the beginning of an organism's life, or with what a person is famous or well known for. We then used those ideas to write beginnings for our teaching books.

Reading

Our reading unit is so closely tied in with our writing unit.  We are learning how to read non-fiction books.  This week we learned that when we read non-fiction, we can anticipate keywords/vocabulary/Lingo that the author might use in their books and how the author will teach us what that word means through a "buddy" sentence (ask your child to give you an example of this), a keyword box or through a glossary.

In small group work, we have been really delving into what is the author trying to teach us in the book and in each section of the book.

Social Studies

This week we will be finishing up our unit on Founding Families.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Social Studies

Second graders have started learning about what life was like in early colonial times.
We are finding out what daily life was like for children from chores, to manners, to work and school and games that children played.
Ask your child what chores children long ago had and how dinner was served in Colonial times!

The essential questions for this unit are:

• How does life in the past compare to my life today?
• Why do people move?

Spelling

We are beginning to learn the spelling patterns for long vowels.
Before vacation we brainstormed words that have a long e sound. We then sorted the words based on the vowel team that made the e sound. We noticed that the long e sound is mostly spelled with ee ,ea or ey.  We then used letter tiles to build both short e and long e words. We finished the week with doing a long and short e find a word.
This week we will be exploring long o spelling patterns. We noticed that long o is spelled mostly with oa as in boat, ow as in snow, and o-consonant-e as in hope (magic e)

Reading

In Reading we have been exploring the features of Non-fiction books.  Before vacation, students looked for non-fiction text features such as bold text, photographs, label and arrow, diagrams, and maps to name a few.  We then discussed the purpose of the non-fiction features we found.
We are now moving onto reading non-fiction text to grow knowledge. Children are learning to notice details, put information together, and question.  Children are focusing on, "what is this book trying to teach me?"

Writing

We spent December writing poetry.  We chose our favorite poem, word processed it and published it in our very own Class Poetry Book that went home before vacation!

Our next unit is writing Non-fiction books!  In this unit, students will writing many books about a topic that they are already experts on.  The purpose of our writing will be to teach others and include details that answer questions that the reader might have that answers who, what , when, why and how.  We will be using Non-fiction text features that we have noticed in reading to add to our Teaching books.
Please help your child add topics that your child already knows a lot about to his or her Teeny Tiny Topic Notebook.  Some ideas we have come up with are: sledding, the UID playground, animals that are pets, gymnastics, and cub scouts.  What else is your child an expert on?

December Fun!

ECHO Trip

Pajama Day!

Hot Chocolate and Cookie Day!

Thanks PTO!