Happy Holidays 2015

Happy Holidays 2015

December 11th

Dear Families,

Here is an update on what's happening in our 2nd grade team:

Reminders:

·  Thursday, December 17th    Holiday Party 10-10:45 am

·  Friday, December 18th           Polar Express day for 2nd grade—more info to come!

·  Monday, December 21^st          Winter Break Begins

·  Monday, January 4^th               School Resumes

Language Arts:

Reading Workshop, This week the students learned how to infer what traits a character has, based on what they read.  Students were asked to read four passages about different elves and decide on a character trait for each elf, while having to cite evidence from the text for why they think that elf has portrayed that particular character trait.  We will start reciprocal teaching after the holiday break in preparation for book clubs.  Next week, we will review decoding strategies.

Word Work: For the entire month of December, we will be focusing on "R controlled vowels" in words, in particular "ar" "er" "ir" "or" and "ur".  These types of words are tricky to master! It is very helpful to point these types of words out to your child when reading with him/her at home.  Practice spelling some words with these patterns.  Here are some examples: harp, farm, perch, germ, third, bird, born, torn, turn, churn 

Writing Workshop: This week we focused using what we have learned so far this year and putting it in a final personal narrative piece on holiday traditions.  We will continue with this paper next week by revising, editing and publishing. 

Math

This past week, we continued with unit 4.  We practiced making exchanges using base-10 blocks, writing numbers in expanded notation and measuring elves to the nearest in.  Please refer to the home links (previously sent home) to support your child directly with what we are working on each day.  We completed lesson 4.5-4.9 this past week in following along with the home links. Next week, we will be having our unit 4 test on Wednesday, December 16th.

Science and Social Studies

This week students finished researching their land form and worked on completing a project to present to the class.  We had fun learning about the different types of land forms throughout the research process and will present on Monday/Tuesday of next week.

Homework

*Math Home links

*IXL Skills: have your child practice in any area they need to review and subtraction

*When reading with your child, make predictions, summarize the story or text, monitor and clarify tricky parts, and ask questions throughout the text

*Practice math 10-15 minutes a night and reading for 10-15 minutes a night. Please complete this in any way that works best for you and your family.

Have a wonderful weekend!

December 4th

Dear Families,

Thank you so much for participating in our Multicultural Feast. Everyone enjoyed all the different dishes that were sent in to share. We learned about favorite family dishes and the children enjoyed sharing their favorite cultural meals.

Here is an update on what's happening in our 2nd grade team:

Reminders:

·         Wednesday, December 9^th     Holiday Shop 5:00 – 8:00 pm

·         Thursday, December 10^th       Holiday Shop 5:00 – 8:00 pm

·         Monday, December 21^st         Winter Break Begins

·         Monday, January 4^th               School Resumes

Language Arts:

Reading Workshop, This week the students learned various reading strategies in which he/she will use during our upcoming book clubs.  The strategies we focused on include: questioning, predicting, and summarizing.  We will start reciprocal teaching after the holiday break in preparation for book clubs.  Next week, we will do a fun activity with Elf  inferences!

Word Work: For the entire month of December, we will be focusing on "R controlled vowels" in words, in particular "ar" "er" "ir" "or" and "ur".  These types of words are tricky to master! It is very helpful to point these types of words out to your child when reading with him/her at home.  Practice spelling some words with these patterns.  Here are some examples: harp, farm, perch, germ, third, bird, born, torn, turn, churn 

Writing Workshop: This week we focused on learning how to correctly write dialogue in our stories. Ask your child what a speech tag is and where you can find them in dialogue. We also learned about similes and how authors use them in order to help create movies in their readers' minds.

Math

This past week, we began unit 4.  This unit focuses on measurement.  Please be sure to practice telling time with your child, in particular telling time to the hour and half hour. We also worked on place value and comparing numbers using place value.  Please refer to the homelinks (previously sent home) to support your child directly with what we are working on each day.  We completed lesson 4.1-4.4 this past week in following along with the homelinks. We'll continue to work on place value next week and measuring to the nearest foot and inch. The pictures below show students exploring pattern blocks and building numbers with base ten blocks.

Science and Social Studies

This week students continued to research their land forms. Next week, we will create our presentations.

Homework: Practicing Skills at Home

*Math Home links

*IXL Skills: have your child practice in any area they need to review and subtraction. 
*Xtra Math
*Blog! 
*Raz Kids: Great Practice for online testing. 
*Read a some great books!

Second Grade Reading Buddies with First Grade Friends

*When reading with your child, make predictions, summarize the story or text, monitor and clarify tricky parts, and ask questions throughout the text.

*Practice math 10-15 minutes a night and reading for 10-15 minutes a night. Please complete this in any way that works best for you and your family.

Have a wonderful weekend!