Week of January 20th

Dear Parents,

With the long Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend, I hope you found some time to have some fun family adventures.  The weeks are so busy, it is really nice to have an extra day once in awhile.  I was fortunate enough to take my son skiing for his first time and my first time in about 12 years.  It was so much fun to revisit a sport and to share it with my son.  I very much looking forward to many more skiing days.  

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  I'm very excited to mention that I have finally taken the time to figure out how to post pictures to my blog.  So hopefully every week, I'll have some some photos to go along with my descriptions of the week's activities.

Math
Our work with measurement continued with measuring using centimeters.  As we have been measuring, students are taking the time to make estimates before taking the actual measurement.  I must say students are doing a great job with the estimations!!  They are really thinking about the units of measure we have used so far (meters and centimeters) and making very reasonable estimations. This tends to be a difficult concept for 2nd graders, but these kiddos are rocking it!

Measuring in nonstandard units (paper clips)

Measuring in centimeters.

                                                  

                                                     

                             Students learned how to measure curved lines.  They explored a few different strategies and finally were given a different tool (a cloth tape measure) to help them measure curved lines. They were able to practice this by measuring body parts such as their wrist, ankles, elbows, knees, and head (see picture above).  Our work with measurement will continue next week with inches, feet, and yards.
Homework
Mon.         No School
Tues.        IXL S.3 Which Customary Unit of Length is Appropriate?
Wed.         IXL S.2 Measure Using an Inch Ruler
Thurs.       Worksheet Test B

Writing

In writing the students of Room 5 are beginning to work on narratives.  Our focus for the past week has been in the writing trait of Ideas.  Students have decided on a topic that they will be writing on and we have worked on narrowing down that topic so that our writing will be very specific and concise .  For example a broad topic might be "fishing".  This topic could be narrowed down to the time a student went fishing and caught more fish than anyone else in the family.  

Language

Our time in language focused on adverbs.  We have studied adjectives and students understand that adjectives describe nouns.  Adverbs are a little bit trickier.  We are learning that adverbs can describes a verb, adjective, or another adverb.  They describe WHEN, HOW, and WHERE.  So far students have watched a School House Rock video, read and discussed an Adverb Poem, and we have been listing adverbs on a Tree Map to display in our room as a resource.  This week will continue to review and identify adverbs within sentences.

Projects
With the new semester, students started working in science for Project time.  Students have been working through the Scientific Method as we have been learning about the properties of matter.  This past we have completed experiments proving that gas takes up space and liquids take on the shape of it's container.  Eventually student scientists will be designing and demonstrating their own experiment focused on the reversible or irreversible changes that occur when matter is heated or cooled.

Here's a few words from Mrs. Jackson...

2nd Grade

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

January 18, 2015

Welcome back from your long weekend!  

This quarter in our Reading block we are learning how take notes about a specific animal using a non-fiction article.  We begin by activating our schema (or prior knowledge) about this animal.  We then read our article, confirming the information that we’d previously believed to be true (as well as clearing up any misconceptions we might have had).  After this, we take new notes focusing on specific areas including: diet, lifestyle, physical characteristics and interesting facts.

Right now, we are doing this together in small groups, but students will do this individually as this quarter progresses. This week in our mini lessons we will be learning how readers gather additional information about a topic by reviewing the diagrams in a text

We will not have a new Word Family this week since it is a short week.

You may also notice that your child is bringing home new books as part of their nightly assigned reading.   These books were just recently purchased with the money that our school raised from the Scholastic Book Fair this fall!  Thank you for your support and for the brand new books-how exciting for us all!

Also, on a side note:  Due to student educational needs, Mrs. Bloomfield and myself are making a schedule change.  Currently we start our day with the 2nd grade class in math (8:15-9:35 am).  Starting on Tuesday, January 20th, 2nd grade students will be in reading from 8:15-9:35 am and math from 9:55-11:30 am.  

I am excited to have your child for Reading at the very beginning of the day.

Please feel free to contact me anytime.  Thanks for your support!