January 23rd

Writing

This week we started doing some opinion writing. The students chose their favorite type of weather and then wrote about why it was their favorite type. We practiced writing complete sentences using descriptive words and transition words between sentences.

Next we will be writing nonfiction pieces about different types of extreme weather.

Reading

I am so proud of how hard the class worked during reading time! I met with every student to do their reading benchmarking, so students had a lot of independent work time.

The class used their work time to start our weather unit. We started by writing weather memories (we made these into a class book, check it out at conferences!). 

Then the class wrote on posters things they thought they already knew about types of weather and questions that they have.

The class is also working on reading nonfiction weather books to ask and answer questions. They are reading through our science book to answer questions in their weather packet.

Next week students will use computers to research their weather and make posters as a group.

Filling in our weather posters

Answering weather questions using nonfiction books

Math

Our focus this week was story problems. We practiced doing problems with extra information, and started doing 2 part story problems. The class is getting much better at knowing if the story problem is solved using addition or subtraction. This is also a great unit to practice explaining our thinking, as students often get to their answers different ways.

We also started our unit on graphing. The class loves asking questions and creating graphs!

Story Problem Scoot

Extra

We celebrated the 100^th day of school on Friday! The class worked on 100^th day books, ate a 100’s snack, and went to the other classrooms to do 100^th day activities.

Thank you to everyone who sent in food to make our snack a success! We will be using the extra supplies to continue practicing our graphing next week. J

Making the 100th day snack

With our very first class rock!

January 16th

Reading
This week in reading I have been pulling students to read to me one-on-one to determine their reading levels. This helps me know where to instruct them during our reading group time.  Because I have been pulling kids the class has been working independently during literacy time, and they are doing a wonderful job working hard and getting all of their work done!

We continued our study of folktales this week. The kids worked comparing traditional folktales to fractured folktales. They loved looking at all of the different adaptations of the stories.

Writing a retell for the fairy tale for the week

Writing
To go along with our folktale reading each student wrote their own fractured folktale. They each chose a folktale to write their own adaptation to. It was so much fun to read how creative they all were with their stories! They also got to create a cover to go with the story. We are going to make them into a class book, so look for that at our February conferences!

Illustrating a cover for the fractured folktales

Math
This was a tricky week in math! The kids learned 2-digit subtraction with borrowing (64-27).  We used the poem, "more on the floor, go next door and get 10 more" to help remember that you can't do 4-7, so you have to go borrow from then 10's place.

This is a hard concept so we practiced using base-10 blocks, then did problems as a class on whiteboards before students tried independently. Because this is such a tricky concept we will continue working on it throughout the rest of the year (along with double digit addition!).

Working hard on 2-digit subtraction!

Social Studies
We wrapped up our landforms/mapping unit this week. The class finished researching different types of landforms, and then they created their own island with at least 4 different landforms on it. They also practiced creating a map key to help make their island.

Our next unit is Weather starting up next week!

January 9th

Writing:

Our purpose for writing the week was to write stories with a beginning, middle, and an end. We read the book Snowmen At Night and the kids wrote their own story about what their snowmen do a night. They then drew a chalk picture to go along with it.

We also reviewed capital letters. Using correct capitalization is a no excuse part of writing in 2^nd grade. We discussed capitalizing the beginning of sentences, the word “I”, and proper nouns. Please help your child with this at home, especially if they are still writing capital letters in the middles of words.

Reading:

We had 2 focuses for reading this week. The first was to read a variety of books to practice the skills of good readers. We created charts for what good readers do (visualize, make connections, ask questions) and how to add sticky notes to books to show our thinking.

The second focus was to read folktales to retell and look for elements of folktales. The kids really enjoyed getting a chance to read a variety of folktales and look at the different versions.

Reading a folktale and recording elements found

Math

The math focus was to add 2 (or 3) digit numbers using place value. We practiced when you need to regroup and also doing mental math.  The kids loved building the addition problems with base ten blocks and showing their word paper and pencil.

Next week we dive into subtraction with borrowing!!