Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

Last Week

Projects
I'm pleased to say that we finished our first project last week!!  The students did a great job presenting their Tribes Agreements Skits for Mrs. Marsh's Kindergarten students.  Students became experts in one agreement and in teams of 4 they wrote a definition for their agreement and wrote a skit depicting their agreement.  Students practiced their skits, working on their speaking skills.  In my opinion the most valuable part of this project was hearing students give feedback as groups shared their products.  I must say that it was a very positive learning process.  

We launched our next project--"Then and Now" with lots of "hands on" activities including making butter and ice cream and playing marbles, jacks, checkers, and tops.  Students will be exploring what life in Nevada was like in Nevada 150 years ago.  Students have generated topics for the following categories--Technology, Culture, and Everyday Life and have selected the topics they will research.  This is going to be an exciting project.
Math
We reviewed and tested on Unit 1--Numbers to 1,000; in Singapore Math.  Even though much of this unit was review; it was a very full unit with many concepts to explore.  Students participated in the game "Scoot" to help them review with a partner.  On Wednesday, students completed the assessment and moved on to the Unit 2--Addition and Subtraction.
Writing
The "Writing Process" has been a big undertaking.  The student riddles are slowly but surely being completed.  Conferencing with each student about their writing takes time but it is sooooo worth it!!  

Along with working towards completing riddles, students also finished writing their Tribes Agreement scripts.  Although the scripts did not go through the complete writing process, students took quite awhile to write these scripts.
This Week

Projects
We will be jumping into researching our "Then and Now" projects.  Students will be spending time on their Chrome Books using guiding questions that have been developed by the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers for specific websites that are child friendly.  This will be our first big research project!

Research for the topic your child selected will also be done on a field trip to the Churchill County Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 24th.  We are so lucky to have this resource so close to us.  We do need some parents to accompany us on this field trip, if you are available from 11:40 am to 3:30 pm on Wednesday, please let me know.

Math
In Math, students will be reviewing strategies for adding and subtracting.  Students will be using 10 frames to help with addition and subtraction.  We will also use number bonds to help find groups of tens to help us quickly add and subtract.  The majority of our week will be spent with word problems.  Students will spend time with Part-Whole Word Problems and Comparison Word Problems.  As we work on these problems we will be focusing on looking for the important words and numbers to help us solve.  Our final piece of math work will be using mental math to help us add and subtract 2-digit numbers. 

Homework
Mon.  IXL E.16--Addition Equations True or False
Tues.  IXL F.13--Subtraction Equations True or False
Wed.  IXL E.12--Addition Word Problems One Digit
Thurs.  IXL F.9--Subtraction Word Problems Up to 18

Writing
All students should finish their riddles this week and hopefully all of them will be displayed on the bulletin board outside Room 5.  I wonder if you will be able to guess your child's riddle by their clues and self portrait.

This week we will review the parts of a letter and write a letter to Mrs. Marsh's Kindergarten class, thanking them for being such a great audience for our Tribe's Agreements Skits.  

Miscellaneous
Just a special request...please practice tying shoe laces at home.  There are several students who have difficulty tying their shoe laces.  Untied shoe laces can be very dangerous.

Now a few words from Mrs. Jackson...

2nd Grade Reading

September 22-25

Last week in Work on Writing we added punctuation into our sentences.  Our daily Work on Writing had sometimes been one long paragraph with NO PERIODS!  We read some of the our own paragraphs to identify this area that needed improvement.  Then we worked together as a class to listen for pauses and add in punctuation.  We also took some time to share our writing with each other and really enjoyed getting feedback and praise from our peers.  This week we will continue emphasizing this skill.  We also worked on the “op” Word Family.  This week we will be practicing our “op” words so that we can be successful on our Word Family test this week.

As you know, Mrs. Bloomfield is working on comparing our current style of living with the past style of living.  As much as possible I have chosen books that illustrate that point for our Guided Reading groups.  You may see these at home this week for as their assigned reading for homework.  The Mini-Lessons that we do this week will also all utilize books illustrating this contrast, so that our Reading learning reinforces what we are currently learning in our Social Studies.  As much as I can, I will try to support and match Mrs. Bloomfield’s curriculum focus.

We are also continuing our work on Story Mapping and restating questions in our answers.   

Once again, I look forward to another week of learning, growing and success.  

Please contact me at anytime if you have questions.

Thanks again-Kristen Jackson