Week 9

 Dear Parents,

       This week in math we have been working hard on learning two digit subtraction, with and without regrouping. Thank you for your support at home and working with your child. This is always confusing at first, but we’re getting it! 

        In writing your children have taken off by planning his/her individual narrative writing project. The children are excited to write about their experiences and are doing an excellent job so far. We also have learned about nouns, Proper Noun s, plural/ singular nous and abbreviations! 

         In Social Studies/ reading we read Big Red Lollipop and took a comprehension check. We discussed how the story was written in first person. We also discussed what it means for a story to be written in  third person .We listened to The Compromise Kid video and discussed how we can compromise when we are having a disagreement. We used words like compromise, decision, and disagreement. We talked about antonyms and synonyms for these words. In science we continued with our unit on sound. We used tuning forks to see and feel vibrations. We talked about volume as loud or quiet sounds. We listened for low or high pitches and talked about how the sound waves differ for those pitches. We read and highlighted an article about sound. On Thursday, we put together a book about sound, highlighted it and glued it in our science notebooks.

Week 8

 Dear Parents,

      In math this week we began two digit subtraction with and without regrouping. At first they confuse it with the addition we have been doing, but practicing at home will help with this transition. The class is getting more independent with their problem solving skills each morning!

      In writing we wrapped up our class project about the first day of school and published it! We are very proud of the writing we did together. We are looking forward to launching our individual narratives next week.

       In reading and social studies we read a story, thought about the words, read questions and decided the best answers to those questions. We went back to the text to prov e our answers. We went back to the story and highlighted words that described sea stars. We figured out the author’s purpose for writing the story. Soon we will be taking these assessments on our own. We read Being a Good Citizen  and figured out the author’s purpose in writing this story. We filled in a graphic organizer together. We began researching our book about Texas Symbols and worked hard filling in missing information, writing sentences and drawing pictures.

        In science we began our investigations about our new unit, Sound Energy. We listened to what happened when we strummed a rubber band on  a box with a hole cut in the top. We predicted how it would sound when we made the rubber band tighter. We realized that sound energy causes vibrations. We also used a drum to make vibrations. We wrote about our observations in our science notebooks.

Action Items

• We have only three days left for stuff the pantry- see below items that can be brought to school. We have not had any donations in our class.
• Thank you Madeline and family for bringing in more individual bags of goldfish!
• We still need a few more pumpkins on our vine!
• Cultural dolls are due Oct. 15^th- see below
• Please send in $3.00 for our Fall festival grade level basket for the silent auction

Week 7

 Dear Parents,

            In math this week we continued adding two digit numbers with and without regrouping. We also added number strings which is adding four two digit numbers. In problem solving we focused on the two step problems. They were working very hard and earned many sparkly stars for their charts. We are also getting charts filled up and are making trips to the treasure box. 

             In writing we began a class narrative about our first day of second grade. We are taking this paper through the process of brainstorming, writing our opening statement, organizing facts in chronological order, drafting our paper using the graphic organizer and writing a terrific closing sentence. We will be continuing this paper next week.

              In reading/ social studies we watched as the teacher took an assessment, thought through each question, and went back to the text to fin d the answers. Wev listened to the important Book and wrote our own page for a class book. We read the story Spoon and focused on the author’s purpose for writing the story. On Thursday, we celebrated Johnny Appleseed’s birthday as we read about his life and mapped his travels. We also tasted apples, dried apples, freeze dried apples, Apple Jacks cereal and, had apple Juice. Thank you to those of you who sent in he apples! 😊

             In science we have been reading about combining Matter. We had the task of choosing materials to build a boat, writing a plan to build, then building our boat. We tested them to see if they could float.

              *  A Big thank you to the Luu family for sending in Goldfish for our class members who do not have a snack! 

              * There is an electronic newsletter attached. A paper copy will be sent home Monday!

               We had a GREAT Field Day! Thank you to all the parents that came and cheered us on! We were really good sports and cheered for all our teammates!

Week 6

 Dear Parents,

         We began learning about adding with regrouping numbers. This is a very difficult skill mat first, but I promise I will teach and support your children until they understand. This is why we started math homework this week, for extra support. By Thursday they were ready for a challenge. They were to try 5 problems by themselves. Most gat all 5 correct, some 4, and some three. They are getting it. Sometimes it can take a couple weeks until they feel confident with this skill.

            In writing we wrote our BOY writing sample. We will see great growth in the MOY sample to the EOY sample. We use a rubric to rate the level as a draft, but then will take this piece to final copy.

             In reading/ social studies we focused mainly on social studies as we learned about our rights as citizens. We celebrated Constitution Day, and learned all about its purpose, who , where and when it was written. I was born on Constitution Day! It was a big birthday for me, so lots of fun things happened that day. I appreciated all the kind notes and gifts. We tied in research by researching some of the famous Americans who signed the Constitution. We also researched 4 American Symbols.

           In science we had several fun learning activities as we changed the physical properties of matter as we cut, bent, broke, sanded and melted matter. We recorded those changes in our science notebooks. Part of these activities was creating a paper airplane. Congratulations to Parker who came in first place and Nicholas who came in second place for their planes flying the greatest distances.

Week 5

 Dear Parents,

         In math this week we worked on base 10 relationships to 120. We had an assessment on recognizing our coins both front and back. We learned the addition strategy for doubles and near doubles. We also practiced adding our addends to get the sum. We played make ten, go fish. We learned how to use two or more numbers to make 10. The first person get rid of his/her cards won! This is a higher level game for some with lots of mental math and encourages automaticity of our math facts. We continue to work on our problem solving strategies with a BME, or beginning, middle, and end chart of the problem. This helps fill in the number sentence so we can solve the problem. On Friday we celebrated Dot Day by creating fun Dot activities. We also created an orchard of trees which showcased our base ten relationship skills. 

     In reading and social studies, we read The Great Fuzz Frenzy  and made connections. We read The Dogs of Bedlam Farm and created a class book. We read WE Are Good Citizens and answered some comprehension questions. We watched a Brainpop Jr. about Community Helpers. On Friday We read more Dot books and created Dot drawings. We also made a dot writing about kindness.

       In writing we learned about using a word wall and a sound wall to help us write. We continued working on our books and some started their second one! We took two days to learn about Patriot’s Day and write an acrostic poem about PEACE. On Friday we focused on using our dictionary to look up words to spell or to know the definitions.

Week 4

 Dear Parents,

 

      In math this week we continued practicing building and decomposing numbers to the hundreds place. We practiced our word form, standard form, model and expanded form. A practice page we did together went home on Thursday in the blue folder. We added 10 more to a number or took away ten from a number.These skills will be tested on Monday.

       In language we continued wring our books, practiced our handwriting, and learned how to be brave spellers, by stretching our words and writing the sounds we hear. We are using our spelling dictionaries, alphabet chart and consonant cluster chart to help us use our sounds correctly.

        In reading we read Picture Day Perfection, talked about the character’s external and internal traits, and took a comprehension check. We also read a Scholastic News and answered questions about the article. The main idea of the article was how to strengthen your brain!

         In science we began our new unit on The Properties of Matter. We are learning to classify objects by their physical properties. We set up the unit in our notebook and did our first hands on activity. We learned that spaghetti noodles and markers are not flexible, but rubber bands and pipe cleaners are!

          It was a short week, but we accomplished a lot of learning! Have a wonderful weekend with your families!

 

Week 3

 Dear Parents,

       In math this week we focused on Base Ten Relationships to 120. We started Money Monday. This is our practice on counting money. Please start counting coins with your children. We always start with the coin with the largest value and go to the coins that have the smallest value. If a quarter, three pennies, a dime and two nickels were on a desk, we would line them up in this order: 1 quarter, 1dime, 2 nickels, 3 pennies. We would count up underneath the coins by adding the next amount to each coin. Example 25, 35, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48. Those coins equal 48 cents. This skill takes time to master for some students and your help is appreciated. We also started Time Tuesday. On this day we practice reading time. Right now we are only doing time to the hour and the half hour. We also kept practicing writing our numbers in standard form, model, expanded form and word form. I am so proud of my second graders!

       In writing we focused on finishing our beginning, middle and end three sentence writing. We began our first book using authors as mentors. We looked at books written by David Shannon, Mo Willems, Lois Ehlert, and Steven Kellogg. We are very excited about our books.

      In reading we learned about setting as time and place and connected it to why the setting is important to the story. We read Clark the Shark and took a comprehension check. We read a scholastic News about manners. We began a Manner’s Poster. We learned about internal and external traits of characters.. We read Violet the Piolet and talked about her character traits. We filled out a graphic organizer with the story details: characters, title, author, setting, beginning, middle and end.

        In science we learned about what engineers do and why they do them. We talked about the difference between a scientist and an engineer. We practiced our science vocabulary cards and took our unit checkpoint. We set up our second unit in our science notebooks. We also took a BOY science assessment to see what your child remembers from first grade.

        We went to the Library on Thursday. This will be our weekly day to go. Please have Library books back in your child’s backpack each Thursday so they can check out new books.

          I will give your child 3 new books on his/ her level on Tuesday. On holidays your child will not need to fill out the reading log. Our beginning of year testing should conclude by the end of next week. We then will begin reading Groups the following weeks. Books will not come home until after we have read them in group and had lessons over decoding the words. I will leave three books in the bookbag at all times. These should be used for the reading logs for children reading books that are levels 12 or 18. This will reinforce our group lessons and ensure their progress in reading. The level on the books is usually on the back of the book in the top corner. Students reading leveled books 28 or 30 can choose a book from home or read the books I provide. Lease make sure these book bags stay in your child’s backpack. They will bring them back to school every day.