September 26th

      Writing

     We finished up our practice with end punctuation. Now that we have gone over periods, question marks, and exclamation points they have become part of our “No Excuse” writing. This means that I expect to see these end marks in every piece of writing the 2^nd graders do.

     For writing stories the kids chose a friend to write about. They wrote a short story describing the friend, what makes them a good friend, and what kinds of thing they like to do together.

     -Ask your child to tell you a sentence that goes with each type of punctuation we learned.

     -Ask who they chose to write about. Why did they chose that friend?

Adding words to our compound word list

Searching for compound words in books

Literacy

      This week we discussed visualizing. We practiced by reading different poems and talking about the images we made in our head while reading. Students also drew what we “saw” and compared those to what their friends drew. We discussed that even though we read the same poem, people drew different things because they had different schema's (or background information).

      The students also finished up their community helper research and created community helpers with sentences and information sharing what they learned.

Our next unit is Force and Motion.

      -Ask about visualizing, what does it mean? As you read this week discuss what “movies” or pictures you are making in your minds.

Working hard during literacy work time

Math

      -Unit 2 is all about Addition Strategies. We have already learned +0. +1, +2, making 10, and doubles. This week we talked about how knowing our making 10’s and double facts can help solve other addition facts. For example, knowing 7+3=10 helps solve 7+2=9 and 7+4=11.

      -Ask your child what is a making 10 fact? What is an example of a double fact and how can knowing those help you solve other addition problems?

Working on "using doubles" facts and explaining thinking

Practicing Math Facts on Xtramath.com