October 3rd

Reading:

We started working on Ask and Answer Questions in reading this week. The kids looked at a magazine about spiders and wrote lists of questions that they had about spiders. They then read through the magazine (using words and the photographs) and wrote things they learned. We also discussed misconceptions and how thinking changes as people read texts.

Discuss: While reading (or after reading) ask your child what questions they asked themselves why they were reading, and what answers they came up with.

The phonics focus this week was on compound words and synonyms. We continued to search for compound words in books and the kids started creating a list of synonyms.

Listening to the VIP reading

Sharing our community helpers with Kindergarten students!

Writing:

       The class wrote silly animal stories this week. We read Dogs Don’t Wear Sneakers by Laura Numeroff, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, and My Sister Ate One Hare by Bill Grossman. The students created lists of silly things that animals do, and then chose one to base a story off of. It was fun to read all of their imaginative stories!

          Ask: What was your silly animal story about?

Science:

          We started our unit about force and motion. The kids did their first science investigation with strong and light force and push and pull. We also read about levers and ramps. We’re all looking forward to more science investigations and learning about gravity and magnets!

          Ask: What happens if you use a light force to pull a cart instead of a strong force? What if we were on a gravel road, how would that change it?

Exploring force with cars and balls

More force investigations using blocks and rubber bands

Math:

          We continued addition strategies with learning about turn-around facts (3+5=8, 5+3=8) in addition. We applied that learning to subtraction and did an investigation to see if we could do turn-around facts for subtraction. The discussion that students had was great! I really want the kids to focus on explaining their thinking using I agree because…, or  I got a different answer, here’s how I did it. A big part of our math curriculum is teaching kids to construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. I love hearing the math conversations among kids, and they will only get more amazing as we practice throughout the year!

          Discuss: What are turn-around facts? How can you use them to help you solve addition problems?

Other Fun:

          We had a great week celebrating Centennial’s Homecoming! The kids dressed up all week, and were amazingly creative. We also had an assembly with the Centennial marching band, cheerleaders, football players, and other athletes. They talked about the importance of school in sports and good sportsmanship. 

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

September 19th

Welcome to parents of the 2014-2015 2^nd grade class!

My hope is to update this blog at least twice a month, with emails in between if necessary. I will email out when I do add updates so please watch for those emails!

First up, some photos from our tailgate! We played addition top-it, and the winner got to move up 10 “yards”. The kids loved it!

Writing:

We read the book Shortcut by Daniel Crews and talked about how authors write stories about things that have happened in their own lives. We brainstormed a list of things that have happened to us and then each child wrote a short story.

Ask your child about their story. What did they write about?

We also did some re-learning of punctuation. A big thing I want kids to be doing by the end of 2^nd grade is using end punctuation, and to use it correctly. We reviewed when we use periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. The students did a book hunt for these types of punctuation and what types of sentences they were in. We did a sort with punctuation and created a punctuation mini-book.

Ask your child about the 3 types of end marks. What are 3 different sentences using each of these end marks?

Reading:

Students got on the computers to do some research about their community helper. Each child has chosen a community helper and will be creating a poster with their learning.

Which community helper are you researching? What new information have you learned?

We also discussed reading with a purpose. We learned that we can read for fun, to learn, or just to relax. We practiced reading to learn. We read books and used the sentence starter: “I remember…” for new information learned.

Ask your child what are some of the reasons people read?

We also learned the routines for our weekly word sorts. Each child will be working with a group to do a word sort focusing on a spelling pattern that they need to learn.

Ask your child if they remember what some of the activities are that we do with our word sort envelopes.

Practicing speed sort

Writing in her reading response journal about the book she read during literacy time!

Hard at work on reading response journal

This group is working on their punctuation sort

Math

We finished up the first unit in math and the kids took their first tests Thursday and Friday! The test is split into 2 days because one day is testing their learning from the unit and the second day is an open response. For this assessment the kids solve a problem and then write down how they solved the math problem. A new focus in math is working on explaining our math thinking so that someone else knows how to solve a similar math problem.

Show your child a math problem (what is 10 more than 25, or which number is less, 13 or 31. Then ask them how they got to their answer).

Building with base-10 blocks. Then they had to write how many they used for their houses!

Exploring area with shapes

Field Day

We have been SO busy getting ready for the end of the year! We have research projects about planets, we are writing poetry books, finishing up book clubs, and really hitting our last couple math concepts! With all of the learning we have going on, I haven't been taking any pictures!!

Today was field day though, so I do have some photos from our fun outside. It ended up being the perfect temperature with the sun shining, but not too hot so we were able to all the games!

May 2nd

Writing:

We have been working on contractions and dialogue in our writing this week. 

The students made a list of all of the contractions they could think of, and then we worked through breaking them up into their parts (isn't= is not; you're= you are). The students then made contraction caterpillars.

Next, we looked through books for dialogue to see how the author let us know that a person was talking. We looked at when to include quotation marks and also checked out what other special punctuation needed to be included in writing dialogue. There are lots of rules involved, so the kids did wonderful for their first experience writing dialogue!

The then wrote sentences using their dialogue AND the contractions they came up with and we added those to our caterpillars. 

Reading

We spent this week researching extinct and endangered animals. The kids will be making posters to share their learning. 

We also spent some time this week focused on author's message. We learned that this is the lesson that the author is trying to teach us in their book. While not all books have an author's message, many of the picture books we read do! We worked with four questions to help us find author's message: 

-What was the characters problem?

-What did the character do about their problem?

-What did the character learn?

-What did I learn?

Math

We worked on multiplication and division this week. We did a LOT of drawing of models to help us understand. I think the kids really grasped multiplication, we're going to continue working on the tricky concept of division. :)

Fun Stuff!

As part of May Day and "Inspire Ankeny" we made May Day baskets for our 5th grade buddies! The kids loved making cards, filling the baskets, and sneaking in to deliver the baskets while our buddies were out at specials. : ) What a fun way to spend a morning!