October 22- November 5

Hello Families! I am happy to announce that we have found a fabulous long term substitute teacher to fill my shoes while I am on maternity leave. Her name is Michelle Schlesser and she is currently filling a long term sub position in 4th grade in the district. After interviewing her, I knew that she would be the perfect fit to step in and seamlessly transition as the facilitator of your child's continued growth and development in second grade. Michelle will get to know the kids and classroom routines by shadowing me for a couple days before I leave. If you have any questions, please let me know. We can also talk at conferences. FYI I am due Dec 11 and plan to return in early March.

Reading: We are all working on our own personal reading goal in reader's workshop. We have also started talking about Story Elements. This week, we have been discussing character traits and using examples from the book to support our ideas. We will then explore story setting and then problem and solution. We are also working on retelling a story with details, listing events in sequential order.
Writing: We have been writing small moments in writer's workshop. Small Moments are seed stories from our lives stretched across the pages with lots of details. We have been working on organizing our stories, writing beginnings that hook readers, adding feelings and writing exciting endings. We will begin to revise and edit our favorite piece to be published for our Author's Celebration.
*Note: There's a change in the Author's Celebration date- it will now be Tuesday Nov 2
Math: We just took the Unit 2 test in math. We are now moving on to Place Value, Time, Money. Unit 2 focused a lot on adding and subtracting strategies to help students use mental strategies and increase fact power. Please continue to practice math facts at home using the fact triangles and links from the blog to practice websites.
Science: We have been exploring motion in science through spinning and rolling. We learned that objects need a force to be set in motion. Ask your child which type of spinners spun the fastest and which rolling wheels rolled the fastest and furthest (The ones with more mass)
Other News:
*Field Trip Fee and Permission slip is due Tues. Oct 26
*Thank you for all the donations for Mrs. Dahms store. The store will open for the first time next week. Students earn pennies for completing homework on time, having materials ready and making good choices. Students then exchange their pennies for nickels, dimes or quarters to be used at Mrs. Dahms store which opens at the end of every month.

*No School Thursday and Friday

October 8-October 22

Hello Families! We have been working hard in 2nd grade on following our school rules and classroom social contract. We have agreed as a class that the areas in most need of improvement are Attentive Listening and Following Directions. While we are working on those two areas, we agreed that we do a good job of using polite words, cooperating, keeping hands, feet and body to self and trying our best. We did just fill our pebble jar this week. Our class earned lunch outside. We had a beautiful day on Thursday to sit outside and enjoy being with our classmates!

Reading: We have been working hard to enhance our fluency as readers (reading with a talking voice, reading punctuation, reading with expression and reading dialogue) This week we talked about the strategies reader's use to figure out words (skip and come back, think does it make sense, find chunks you know, use pictures for clues, look through teh whole word- beginning, middle and end). Next week we will start leaving thinking tracks in our books and studying character traits.

Writing: Our author's Celebration was huge success. We were able to share our favorite favorite writing piece and then toast our success with a glass of juice. We were able to celebrate our first piece as second grade authors. We have now started writing small moments/personal narratives. We are taking a small moment from our loves and stretching it across the pages with lots of details.

Spelling: Another little change for spelling next week: You will get the green sheet with the pattern and high frequency words and the sort on Mondays still. However, now it will be stapled to 2 practice sheets. Please cut out the sort to do at home (this does not need to be returned to school). The rest of the staples packet, including the top part of the green sheet will be due on Fridays. Thank you for being so flexible.

Math: We are in the middle of our 2nd math unit: Addition and Subtraction Facts. We are working very hard on improving our fact power- knowing facts automatically. We have been learning shortcuts like the +9 shortcut (think +10 then take away one), think doubles plus 1 (if you know the double 6+6 then 6+7 is 6 doubled plus one)... We have also started our addition timed tests this week. We will do 3min addition timed tests once a week for the 1st quarter. Then we'll move into subtraction second quarter. You can see your child's 1st timed test along with the second grade expectations for the year in your child's red folder.

Science: As scientists we finished exploring balancing and have moved on to exploring the motion of spinning. We made a version of tops. These helped us discover that everything needs a force to be set in motion. We also learned that the spinners that spun the fastest and the longest had the most mass.

Other News: The October/November Scholastic orders were sent home today. All online orders and checks will due next week Friday.

*Starting Monday, students will start to earn pennies in the classroom that can be saved to exchange for bigger coins to shop at Mrs. Dahms Store. The store will open once a month and the kids will be able shop. If you have any items at home that are not used anymore that you would like to contribute to the store, I would really appreciate it.

*We finished our read alouds Magic Tree House Dark Day in the Deep Sea and Nate the Great and the Haunted House. Ask your child to retell both stories to you.