January 22- February 5

Hello Families! Checkout the new addition to the blog to the right. O am now posting the units we are currently studying in each subject area. If you have any ideas for the blog, please send them my way!

Reading: We have just begun focusing on fiction books again. I am encouraging kids to "Climb Into Books"- to really escape and feel like they are really in a new place with the characters. We have also been taking about story plot and events. We are using words like first, next, then and last to retell story events.


Writing: Our Flat Stanley's have been mailed. We are all spread around the United States, one of us even went to Thailand! We anxiously await the return of all our Flat Selves to hear about our adventures! We did finish our letter writing unit with a fun celebration. We have now started writing How To books. This unit compliments our Nonfiction Study in reading. We are enjoying teaching our readers how to do something. We are learning that it is very helpful to have a partner act out the steps in order to find areas where we need more detail to clear up any confusion. We will turn these books into slideshow presentations in KidPix in a couple weeks.



Math: We are close to finishing Unit 6. The test will be next Thursday (January 28). The kids are doing a great job with multiplication! Some were skeptical and afraid of the term, but when they found out it was simply repeated addition of equal groups, they thought it was simple! Looking to the near future, your kids will have home links with double digit subtraction- please do not teach them the borrowing algorithm yet. I will send home a reference to show you some of the strategies we have been learning in class.

Science: We have now planted brassica seeds and rye seeds which will grow into grass. It has been fun to observe the plant life cycle so far: seed-seedling-buds-flower. We will begin discussing how seeds travel: wind, animal, human. It has been an exciting unit so far.

Brassica Plants

Grass and Brassica under the growing lamp

SS: We are finishing up our unit on Mapping. We studied the continents and oceans, landmasses vs water, the equator, reading a map, map key and map grids.

Other News:

• No School Monday for kids
• The quarter officially ends today. Report cards will be sent home next week Friday
• 2nd Grade has raised almost $200 for The Milwaukee Rescue Mission by donating pennies and other change!
• We will be starting to learn keyboarding next week. Using small keyboards, called Alpha Smarts, the kids will practice correct typing skills.
• We are in need of glue sticks and pencils. If you are willing to donate extras for our class, that would be wonderful!
• Have a great weekend!

January 8-22

Hello Families!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday and New Year. It's 2010 already- yikes! The kids came back to school with a variety of emotions: excitement, fatigue, a little grumpiness...but as the day went on I think everybody was genuinely glad to be back at school with their friends. Now that the new year has begun, the end of quarter 2 is upon us and our first semester of second grade is nearly complete. We have a lot to do in the next couple of weeks (Quarter 2 ends Jan 22). Here is what we have been up to and where we are headed:

Reading: We are immersed in our Nonfiction Study. It has been so wonderful to see kids be excited about what they are reading and share their new learning with the class. We did complete a Nonfiction book club where kids were placed in small groups to study one topic and discuss. Now, the kids have choosen a new club to participate in. Ask your child what book club he/she is a part of and also ask what are some feautures of nonfiction.

Math: We just took our Unit 5 Test this week. You will see those in home folders on Monday- a couple of kids still need to finish. This was a harder test than other units. Remember, the white areas on the scoring sheet are expected to be mastered, while the gray areas are more guiding inofrmation for future learning. We are moving on to adding larger numbers, more than two numbers, Just a reminder: The Family Letter in the front of your child's home link packet, contains the answers to the home links. Recalling math facts is a standard on the reprot card. This quarter that score will reflect the subtraction facts tests. Second grade proficiancy is a 54 on the test.

Writing: Before winter break, we were able to celebrate as writer's the hard work we did in our letter writing unit. We had our Author's Celebration where every kid shared their favorite letter he/she published. It was a great success! We are officially ending our Letter writing unit with the Flat Stanley project. A note was sent home Wednesday asking parents to help your child find an address of a family member or friend who lives out of state. Along with the address, please send 1 stamp to school. We will be addressing envelopes and sending out Flat selves away on vacation. The project is inspired by The Flat Stanley book series.

SS and Science: We will be finsihing up or mapping unit before the end of the quarter. We did a lot of fun work in the computer lab with coordinate grids and cardinal directions. Ask your child what 4 directions are on a compass rose. In science, we just started our New Plants unit. We planted or first seeds: brassica. These seeds are specially designed to have a quick life cycle so school and students like us can observe all stages in a short amount of time. They are pretty cool. Ask your child what a plant needs to grow. Also, ask what types of everyday thinsg come from plants (We learned lots like gum, t-shirts, coffee...)

HELP:

We are in need of pencils and glue sticks. If you are willing to donate some to our classroom, that would be great! Thank you!

Reminders:

No School for kids Mon Jan 18 or Mon Jan 25

Flat Stanley address and 1 postage stamp by Monday

Health Center Field Trip

Thank you to our chaperones!

Hello Families! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I was wonderful to see everyone at conferences! This will be the only blog post until after winter break. For winter break, the only homework will be an optional writing journal and to read everyday. The winter break journal should just be a couple sentences about your child's day and an illustration. I hope everyone is staying warm!

Reading: We temporarily finished our study of comprehension strategies: visualizing, making connections, questioning and predicting. We will continue to discuss the strategies we have learned and then finish the rest after break (synthesizing information, inferring and finding the main idea) We have started an exciting non fiction unit. We have discussed the differences between nonfiction and fictions, as well as, learned the features and their purposes in nonfiction (ie captions, photographs, glossary, index...) Ask your child to show you a feature in a nonfiction book. We have started non fiction book clubs also. Groups of 2-4 kids chose a non fiction theme to research and learn more about. In their groups, they discuss what they already know about the topic (their schema), any new facts, ask questions and talk about misconceptions they had. It has been a great start to the unit-excitement is high!

Writing: We have immersed ourselves in a writing friendly letters this month. The kids are doing a nice job remembering the 5 parts of a friendly letter: heading, greeting, body, closing, signature. I hope that you will notice an improvement in their TGIF Journal this week!

Math: The kids did a great job on the test last week. Thank you to all parents for supporting your kids with the "new" algorithm for math. I know that it is very different from what we learned in school, but the kids do develop a much better understanding for place value and numbers. Keep using the online Everyday Math resources for support. We are now working on Geometry. There are some difficult concepts, like line segments and parallel lines.

Social Studies: We continue to study continents and oceans. We have also begun learning about directions and grids. Ask your child to name as many continents as they can.

Other News:

*Field Trip next Tuesday to the Health Education Center. We will spend the morning learning about safety and bullying through interactive lessons and activities. We will be back in time for school lunch.

*Winter Party- Dec 22 1:00-2:00pm

*If you have not read the Tonawanda Tales from last week, I encourage you to read the front page about future district money saving possibilities in relation to our school.

November 20- December 11

Hello Families! We have had a busy couple of weeks. The daylight is getting shorter and the weather is getting colder (The kids say they are freezing- I keep telling them winter hasn't even begun!) Here is what we have been up to in 2nd grade:

• Mrs. Loyd came in for Art for Youth this week. Ask your child what he/she drew.
• We filled our pebble jar. The class voted on watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and having popcorn.
• The leaves on our Kindness Tree have all fallen (it's a good thing!). For every day that people used kind words or received kind words, a leave fell from our "Kind Words Are Falling Out of Our Mouths" Tree.

Reading: We have been busy making connections with our books. The kids have been working very hard making Text-to-Self and Text-to-Text connections. They have even begun comparing their personal traits with the characters they read. We started a bulletin board titled "Characters You Should Meet". Each child got to introduce the class to a book character they think others should "meet". Ask your child who he/she chose. The kids also had the opportunity to work with their reading partner to compare two similar themed books. They read the books and completed a Venn Diagram comparing the two. The kids had a lot of great ideas. It is so fun to see them have meaningful conversations about books with each other!

Writing: We have been working on writing good beginnings, exciting endings and using adjectives to make our writing more exciting. As writers, the kids have also started using more voice and thinking about their word choice. I have noticed a big improvement in every one's stories. They are so exciting. When we return from Thanksgiving, we will begin a letter writing unit. Throughout the unit, we will continue to use the tools good writers use and also have time to write fiction.

Math: We are working hard making change, making estimates and measuring. We will be having our Unit 4 test the Friday we return from Thanksgiving (Dec 4). At conferences, I am handing out a resource sheet to parents that demonstrates how we are teaching double digit addition. The math program does not introduce the borrowing algorithm until the end of the school year. The purpose behind this new method is so that kids are understanding place value. I ask that you please reinforce the math methods of the program so that you child does not get confused.

Science and Social Studies: We finished our excitement filled Balance and Motion unit last week. The kids had a great time balancing mobiles and pencils, spinning tops and zoomers and rolling cups and making roller coasters. This quarter we will studying Maps for social studies. We'll learn the 7 continents and oceans, directions, reading a map and working with grids.

Reminders: No school next week for the kids

Conferences Mon evening and Tues AM and PM

Field Trip Permission slip and $4

I hope you and your kids have a lovely Thanksgiving. Enjoy the days off with your family.

November 7-20

Happy November! Wow did October fly by. The first quarter of school ends today. Wow! Conferences are right around the corner. I am sending home a parent survey for you to fill out about questions and/or concerns you'd like to address at your conference. If there is anything you would like to talk about prior to conferences, please let me know. I hope everyone had a great week. Here is what we have been up to:

Reading: We are working on thinking before, during and after we read books. We have worked on making predictions and asking questions. We have started to leave thinking marks in our books using post its- we write down any thoughts or questions we have as we read. Prompt your child to ask questions while they read. You can model this in your own reading aloud too. The students are doing an excellent job thinking about books!

Writing: Did you know that your child is now a published author? We had our very first Author's Celebration! It was a success. Each student chose their favorite Small Moment story to edit, revise and publish. Then last Tuesday, we celebrated our hard work by sharing our stories and having a toast at the end. Everyone's story in now prominently displayed in our classroom library! Look for your child's story drafts from the first 2 months in their folders today. This month we are now focusing on what makes a good story: ideas, organization, word choice, voice, sentence fluency and conventions. We are currently working on Organization: writing strong beginnings, middles and ends.

Spelling: Quarter 1 has concluded. The spelling lists sent home for the rest of the year will still have the 5 high frequency words, but now only a list of connecting words for the spelling pattern. This means that the list I send home will not have any of the spelling pattern words your child will have on the Friday test. Rather, the list will have connecting words-words that have a specific pattern that can be learned and transferred to new words. The reason the list is changing is to promote a deeper understanding of the spelling pattern rather than memorizing a list and not being able to transfer the knowledge.

I introduced the kids to a website called Spelling City (spellingcity.com). It is a great site where kids can enter their spelling words and then practice through games or computer tests. Try it out at home sometime. The website also has a link under Educational Links to the right.

Math: We took our Unit 3 Math Assessment yesterday- just in time for report cards! The kids are doing well. We are now learning. As you have noticed, I had had to assign homework on a Friday, always making the link due Tuesday in case your family would like the weekend homework free. The reason I have to do this is because of the Everyday Math timeline. For scheduling purposes, we may have to do a math lesson instead of math games on Fridays. When that is the case, there is a home link that supports the lesson so I do have to assign it on Friday. Thank you for your understanding and support continued support at home!

Science: We will be finishing our unit on Balance and Motion early next week. It has been a fun and exciting unit. Our final experiments involved motion. We built and observed different wheels on axels and cups rolling down a ramp. Our final experiment involves building a roller coaster using the knowledge gained throughout the unit about motion. Ask your child what type of wheels roll straight and which type turn. We will take a break from science until after winter break, as we study Mapping in Social Studies.

Have an absolutely wonderful weekend!