Reading
For the past several weeks, the children have been reading books in a fictional series and participating in a book club. The children worked with their group to plan their daily work, then they met at the end of their reading time to share their discoveries about their books. The children wrapped up the realistic fiction series study this week by debating whether or not the main character from the series was a good friend or not. They chose a position for the debate--either yes the character is a good friend or no the character is not a good friend--and read to find evidence to support their position. After much wonderful discussion, each student recorded a "Book Shelfie" about their book using SeeSaw.
We also continued reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate Di Camillo. The children are writing what they think each day we read. I am noticing students are becoming better and better at identifying character traits and plot elements, making inferences, and noticing author's craft. I am very pleased with their growth.
Writing Workshop
The children are hard at work writing realistic fiction. They are truly pushing themselves to incorporate the things they notice mentor authors doing to make their stories gripping and interesting. The children are striving to write good beginnings, tell the inside and outside of their characters, drop a hint about what a character might be thinking or feeling that ties to the problem, and make the problem worse and worse for the character rather than wrap the story up to quickly. We will continue more realistic fiction writing over the next two weeks.
For the past several weeks, the children have been reading books in a fictional series and participating in a book club. The children worked with their group to plan their daily work, then they met at the end of their reading time to share their discoveries about their books. The children wrapped up the realistic fiction series study this week by debating whether or not the main character from the series was a good friend or not. They chose a position for the debate--either yes the character is a good friend or no the character is not a good friend--and read to find evidence to support their position. After much wonderful discussion, each student recorded a "Book Shelfie" about their book using SeeSaw.
We also continued reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate Di Camillo. The children are writing what they think each day we read. I am noticing students are becoming better and better at identifying character traits and plot elements, making inferences, and noticing author's craft. I am very pleased with their growth.
Writing Workshop
The children are hard at work writing realistic fiction. They are truly pushing themselves to incorporate the things they notice mentor authors doing to make their stories gripping and interesting. The children are striving to write good beginnings, tell the inside and outside of their characters, drop a hint about what a character might be thinking or feeling that ties to the problem, and make the problem worse and worse for the character rather than wrap the story up to quickly. We will continue more realistic fiction writing over the next two weeks.
Math
During the past two weeks, students have been working on visualizing, representing, and solving addition story problems with the total unknown. We have also developed efficient strategies for adding 2-digit numbers and efficient methods for notating addition strategies. The two strategies most students use are (1) adding by place and (2) keeping one number whole and adding the second number in parts. Drawing what you know in a tape diagram is another efficient way to make sense of a problem. Efficiency and fluency in strategic thinking as well as notating are critical as students work with larger and larger numbers. The students took the assessment for investigation 3 of this unit on Thursday. We will begin Unit 6 next week. This unit will be about linear measurement in standard and metric units.
A Message About Math Fact Fluency
By the end of 2nd grade your children should be fluent with addition and subtraction facts to 20. This means the children should be able to tell the sum or difference of two-digit addition or subtraction equations whose sums are up to 20 and whose subtrahends are no larger than 20. Throughout the year, your students have brought home homework pages with six facts they are working on. Each of these facts includes clues that help them find the solution. Using a clue is a hint to help solve the problem by using facts they know to solve facts they need to learn. The answer is NOT written on the page so your child can look at the equations and use the clue to answer the question. Please cut out these fact "cards" and have your child practice these daily. This practice will help ensure your child knows the facts to twenty by the end of the year. I have attached a blank fact practice page here you may print out and have your child complete with facts they need to work on.
Science: New Theme - Light
We started a new science unit about light last week. The children brainstormed all they thought they knew about light, then they planned and conducted their first experiment to discover that light travels in a straight line out in all directions from the source. We planned and conducted another test to learn about which objects light travels through best. The children learned that light travels best through transparent materials such as clear plastic, it travels somewhat well through translucent objects such as wax paper, and does not travel well through opaque materials such as solid paper. They also worked to find out how light can travel in another direction. The children shone a light on mirrors and paper and realized light bounces off the mirror's shiny surface back in the direction it came while the paper absorbs light. Ask your child to tell you about this!
Word Work
Last week the children compared words with hard and soft g. A hard g makes the g sound, and it comes before a, o, and u. The soft g sounds like a j, and it comes before e, i, and y. This week they looked at rules for adding -ing suffixes onto short vowel words. They discovered short vowel words must end with two consonants before adding -ing. Sometimes, these words already end with two consonants and you do nothing to add -ing, such as picking, passing, thanking. Sometimes short vowel words end with only one consonant so you need to double the consonant before adding -ing, such as swimming, batting, running.
You should expect the rules for the word sorts we are working on now and through the end of the year to be challenging for most students. Please ask your child to tell you about his/her word study each week!
During the past two weeks, students have been working on visualizing, representing, and solving addition story problems with the total unknown. We have also developed efficient strategies for adding 2-digit numbers and efficient methods for notating addition strategies. The two strategies most students use are (1) adding by place and (2) keeping one number whole and adding the second number in parts. Drawing what you know in a tape diagram is another efficient way to make sense of a problem. Efficiency and fluency in strategic thinking as well as notating are critical as students work with larger and larger numbers. The students took the assessment for investigation 3 of this unit on Thursday. We will begin Unit 6 next week. This unit will be about linear measurement in standard and metric units.
A Message About Math Fact Fluency
By the end of 2nd grade your children should be fluent with addition and subtraction facts to 20. This means the children should be able to tell the sum or difference of two-digit addition or subtraction equations whose sums are up to 20 and whose subtrahends are no larger than 20. Throughout the year, your students have brought home homework pages with six facts they are working on. Each of these facts includes clues that help them find the solution. Using a clue is a hint to help solve the problem by using facts they know to solve facts they need to learn. The answer is NOT written on the page so your child can look at the equations and use the clue to answer the question. Please cut out these fact "cards" and have your child practice these daily. This practice will help ensure your child knows the facts to twenty by the end of the year. I have attached a blank fact practice page here you may print out and have your child complete with facts they need to work on.
Science: New Theme - Light
We started a new science unit about light last week. The children brainstormed all they thought they knew about light, then they planned and conducted their first experiment to discover that light travels in a straight line out in all directions from the source. We planned and conducted another test to learn about which objects light travels through best. The children learned that light travels best through transparent materials such as clear plastic, it travels somewhat well through translucent objects such as wax paper, and does not travel well through opaque materials such as solid paper. They also worked to find out how light can travel in another direction. The children shone a light on mirrors and paper and realized light bounces off the mirror's shiny surface back in the direction it came while the paper absorbs light. Ask your child to tell you about this!
Word Work
Last week the children compared words with hard and soft g. A hard g makes the g sound, and it comes before a, o, and u. The soft g sounds like a j, and it comes before e, i, and y. This week they looked at rules for adding -ing suffixes onto short vowel words. They discovered short vowel words must end with two consonants before adding -ing. Sometimes, these words already end with two consonants and you do nothing to add -ing, such as picking, passing, thanking. Sometimes short vowel words end with only one consonant so you need to double the consonant before adding -ing, such as swimming, batting, running.
You should expect the rules for the word sorts we are working on now and through the end of the year to be challenging for most students. Please ask your child to tell you about his/her word study each week!