Weekly Update: Happy Halloween!

Halloween Greetings!

We had a fantastic week in second grade. The children enjoyed watching the 1st grade musical and they participated in our annual Halloween parade! Mrs. Noble planned a memorable Halloween party for the children with the help of Mrs. Squillacioti and Mrs. Swanson. The children played Bingo, wrapped each other as mummies, and decorated picture frames. Mr. Noble took a photograph of our class and had zoomed off to have them developed in record time for all of the children to place inside their frames before the end of the day. They looked wonderful! Thanks to the parents for all of the contributions of drinks and munchies for the class, too! The children really had a wonderful time. 

 

A sign of a fun afternoon?

More good news.. we are expecting a new friend to be joining our classroom on Monday! The children and I are eager to meet and welcome him to our class next week!

Spelling

The children practiced words this week with both long and short vowel sounds. All of the words also had a consonant cluster, also known as a consonant blend in which two consonants are next to each other and both of their sounds can be heard.  (ex: slip, slide, task.) Next week the children will work with words that have the long /a/ sound, spelled ay and ai.

Reading

The common theme to our literacy activities this week was animal rescues. We began the week listening to The Woman, The Tiger, and the Jackal.  This was a funny story about a tiger who was trapped in a hole. He persuaded a woman to help him out of the hole by promising not to eat her. As soon as he was out, he went back on his promise and was about to gobble her up when a craft jackal convinced the tiger to explain how the woman helped him. The tiger jumped back in the hole to show him and was trapped once again. New oral vocabulary words include: daring, survive, baffled, compassion, and lunge.

Our whole group story was called, “A Harbor Seal Pup Grows Up.” It was about a young seal that is unintentionally abandoned by its mother as she waits on the beach for her to return with her food. She is rescued, helped, and released back into the ocean. New vocabulary words from this selection include: examines, hunger, mammal, normal, rescued, and young. The comprehension strategy we focused on was summarizing- through sequencing the key events in beginning, middle, and end of the story.

The children also learned about the literary element of SIMILES.  We now know that a simile is used to colorfully compare to things, using the words “like,” or “as.” Some examples we talked about include: “I am as hungry as a bear!” or “You are as busy as a bee.” Or “The stars sparkled like diamonds.”  We read a poem called “The Puppy” which gave us the opportunity to find similes in print. The children wrote and illustrated their own similes! (Ask your child which one they came up with! )

Grammar

We reviewed that nouns are people, places and things. The children went on to learn how to make “regular” nouns plural by simply adding ‘s’ or ‘es.’  We noticed that in order to make words that end with y plural, we “change the y to an i and add ‘es!’  We went on to identify those irregular nouns that change entirely in order to make them plural. Ex: child–children, mouse-mice. We also reviewed capitalization and the use of commas in a list and in a friendly letter.

Writing

The students finished their three paragraph essays about the settlers’ journey traveling west. They talked about how difficult it must have been to travel along bumpy trails in a covered wagon with their entire families and only their most important belongings. The children are doing a very nice job imagining what this time period was like long ago. They organized their ideas into an “outrageous opening,” a “meaty middle,” and a “cool closing.”  I am excited to see the children begin to organize their thoughts in this way! Their finished pieces are hanging in the hallway for you to view. They look great!

Math 

This week the children reviewed place value in 2 and 3 digit numbers.  We reviewed coin values and exchanges among different coins (5 pennies = 1 nickel, etc.) and the children practiced “buying” items in the Fruit and Vegetable Stand. We used our classroom Mimio to drag and drop the correct coins necessary to purchase these items. They were encouraged to find a variety of coin combinations to buy select items. (We are moving away from using only pennies... That is so last year! :)  The children also reviewed telling time. They learned that the hour hand is always moving just as the minute hand it, only at a slower rate. We practiced telling time by only looking at the hour hand! We noticed that when the hour hand is half way in between two numbers, it is also about half past the smaller hour. (8:30)

           

Coming Soon:

November 2:  Field Trip to the Arlington Heights Police Department

                      November Book Orders Due

November 4: Vision and Hearing Screening; Jack Musich returns to Dryden to see the     children's finished AH Landmark projects!

November 8:  Photo Retakes

November 9:  Visit from Mayor Mulder

November 11: No School, Veterans Day

Weekly Update! October 18-22

Greetings!

Hi everyone! We had a fantastic week in second grade. Read on to learn more about it!

• The children visited the Arlington Heights Memorial Library’s Book Mobile on Wednesday. As the children study Arlington Heights, we are hoping to engage them in a variety of experiences that build their awareness of the community around them. They were so excited to board the book mobile and choose some fun books to read! Thank you for sending those library cards to school! Many children enjoyed the opportunity to check out books. Please make sure to return those books back to the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, not the Dryden Library! Make sure to look at the Book Mobile’s schedule and take advantage of a fun and convenient way to encourage your children to read!

• There was a Hard Lock Down Drill at school this week, reminding us of what to do in case of a security situation. The children were reminded that in a situation like this, they are to find the nearest secured location, stay quiet, and listen to their teachers for further direction. They did great.
• During our Bus Evacuation Drill on Friday we also practiced good behavior and safety procedures- this time on the school bus. The children learned about the different exits on the bus and how they work. We practiced exiting the bus safely and quietly.
• It’s true, the children lost all three reminder cards this week as a class. The children and I talked about the fact that we have a job to do at school. We have to remember to be good listeners and not talk over each other during the day, so we can do our jobs and learn as much as we can. Hopefully being consistent in this area will help reinforce the solid expectations of good behavior we have in the classroom! Thank you for your support, it helps us to accomplish so much more. 

Spelling

After working with short and long /u/ sounds this week, our pattern will become more complex next week. The children will study words that have both long and short /i/ sounds, and long and short /a/ sounds!

Reading

The common theme to our literacy activities this week was seeds and planting. We began the week listening to Jack and the Beanstalk.  New oral vocabulary words include: thrive, expect, fertile, and sprout.  Our whole group story was called, “The Tiny Seed” by Eric Carle. It was about a little seed that blows through the air with its companions.  The seeds face a variety of dangers including potentially landing in the ocean and desert, blowing too close to the sun and burning up, and being eaten by birds!  The children came up with a great moral to the story- the seed may have been little, but it was strong! New vocabulary words from this selection include: burst, desert, drifts, drowns, gently and neighbor. The comprehension strategy we focused on was drawing conclusions.  To do this, we first identified important facts from the story. Then we put these facts together to determine what the author was intending for us to understand, without directly stating it. The children went on to practice using their context clues (reading around a new or unknown word) to determine its meaning. We read a nonfiction article called, “Parts of a Plant,” that included a diagram with labels and captions. We noticed that the labels helped us to highlight what is happening in the text! Finally, all of the children met with their small guided reading groups as well.  In the guided reading groups we focused further on gathering facts and developing our own conclusions based on books that more closely match their reading level!

Would your child enjoy reading a story online? Visit Story Line to listen to and follow along with a story- read by an actor from the Screen Actor’s Guild!

OR visit the Arlington Heights Memorial Library’s TUMBLEBOOKS collection at Tumblebooks There are tons of books for your children to read and follow along with online! What a great way to practice reading skills… and spend a rainy day- like today!

Grammar

The skill of the week was learning all about nouns (a person, place, or thing). We also identified lists of items in a variety of texts, and practiced separating them with a comma.

Writing

Our writing assignment the next few weeks is to write a narrative. We are working to develop our story in stages. First, the children came up with some type of problem they wanted to write about. In the BEGINNING of our story, we made sure to introduce our characters, setting and the problem. We wanted to start with a catchy sentence to grab the reader's attention. In the MIDDLE of the story, we describe the series of events that occur because of the problem. At the END of the story, we make sure to show how the problem has been solved. The children are working to end their stories with a closing sentence that makes our writing feel finished. Now that the children have the basics of their story down on paper, we are going to go back and edit our work. We will add interesting details, character dialogue (using quotation marks!) if necessary, and of course check for proper spelling and punctuation.  These narratives are a work in progress!

If you feel like practicing your writing at home, why not make a comic strip! Visit: Create a Comic    OR write a friendly letter to a friend:  Write a Friendly Letter

Math

The children’s math fact scores continue to rise! It is very clear that there is a lot of practice happening! We have exhausted all of my "tricks," as the children practiced their 'Make a Ten' facts and their 'Plus Eights.' The children have been working with “in and out” boxes and “frames and arrows” problems during our last few lessons.  They have worked to complete these problems using a variety of rules, but they have also had to critically look at completed problems and identify the rule on their own.  They had practice with equivalent names, fact families, and writing addition and subtraction story problems based on a given fact family. The children took their Unit 2 assessment this week, and we are ready to begin Unit 3! Looking ahead, the children will be working with place value, money, and time!

Here is a link to some math fact pages you can print out and practice at home:
Addition Facts

Here is a link that will allow your child to practice their math facts online:

Online Math Fact Practice  (Click on addition, sums to 20! The facts come through in groups of 30. Once your child can get all 30 in 4 minutes, go down to 3, etc… this can be fun and motivating!)

Social Studies

This week the children learned more about the pioneers as they moved west. We talked about the long difficult journey of the pioneers traveling in a covered wagon. We read a few books about this topic and watched a video from the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. We discussed how times have changed. A 3- 4 hour trip in the car today would have taken months in a covered wagon. The children would have spent most of that time walking alongside the wagon, not inside it! The children shared ways they have fun today- playing Wii, going to the movies or spending a day at Great America, going to a restaurant with their family... Long ago, however, the families played checkers by candlelight, helped new neighbors raise their barns, enjoyed a good game of leapfrog and had a picnic out on the prairie! The children practiced "packing" a covered wagon of their own. They only packed the necessities, and they had to be lightweight so as not to exhaust the horses, mules or oxen pulling the wagon! The children will be writing a paragraph to accompany their project next week!

Take a Tour of the History of Arlington Heights

Visit the Arlington Heights Historical Museum

                                                                                                              

Halloween

Can you believe the end of October is near? Our Halloween celebration is already next Friday! The Dryden procedure is to have the children come to school in the morning in their regular clothing. Then, they have the option of either; 1) going home at lunch (11:50 – 12:50) to put their costumes on, or 2)changing here at school right after the lunch hour.  Please leave any props that appear to be unsafe or look like weapons at home. Our annual Halloween parade through the neighborhood will begin at approximately 1:20. The children will then walk through the neighborhood proudly displaying their Halloween costumes! New families to Dryden: parents typically enjoy stationing themselves along the parade route to snap some photos of their children and their class as they march on by! Following the parade, our room moms and several parent volunteers have a fun afternoon of fun planned for the children following the parade


Coming up:
Thursday, October 28: 1st Grade Musical
Friday, October 29: Halloween Parade and Party

Weekly Update! October 11-15

Greetings!

Hello from 2-2. I hope everyone enjoyed the long Columbus Day weekend last weekend! Here are some points I wanted to be sure to highlight about the week!

•        Andrea from the Riv came to talk to the children about owning a business in Arlington Heights. She talked about how important reading, writing, and math are in making her business successful. She talked about the important traits she looks for in her employees, including the "3 A's," Attitude, Appearance, and Attendance. We connected these to our "Character Counts" Traits! The children also learned how Andrea's restaurant has changed over time (she now has many healthy options on her menu!) and the children asked some interesting questions they came up with, too!
•      You probably noticed that we had a variation in our spelling practice this week, as our first Unit in the Treasures reading series wrapped up. The kids chose 10 words of their own that they found relevant to their readiness level and to their lives! The children took their Unit 1 reading assessment on Friday, and we will begin Unit 2 on Monday.
•      Green conference request slips went home in backpack mail today. Please return them to school with your meeting time preferences. (Although I did notice that 2 of my little friends left their mail in their mailboxes! They will bring home their notes on Monday. :)
•      Thank you for returning the field trip permission slips to the Arlington Heights Police Department so quickly! We have most of them back and are still waiting for just a few more.
•       The second grade musical is coming up in November!

Spelling

As we begin Unit 2 next week, we will focus on words with the long and short /u/ sound!

Reading

As mentioned, the children prepared for, and completed, their first reading Unit Assessment this week. We were able to meet several times with our small guided reading groups! The children worked in learning centers to: revisit past stories we have read to build reading fluency, retell past stories using laminated picture cards to reinforce reading comprehension, sort past spelling words to build their sight word automaticity, read silently from their book bags and identify the characters, setting, problem, and solution of the story they chose, and more! The children enjoyed working with their classmates, and having options that they could choose from that build and strengthen their skills. The children also enjoyed learning about antonyms with a set of magnetic ants. We worked together to find their antonym matches on the white board. The children learned that antonyms are words that have opposite meanings!

Math

We have seen a nice increase in our math fact tests this week! I can tell that the children have been practicing! Wow! The children are really developing a sense of pride for their accomplishments! Keep it up! Strategies we have practiced include “doubles +1”, the “doubles in between”, and they learned about the numbers that “make a ten!” I am very pleased to see their comfort level with these strategies strengthen! We also explored the concept of weight using a pan balance and a spring scale. The children learned that there are 16 ounces in a pound, and 8 ounces in half of a pound. They also reviewed name collection boxes and worked to find several different names for a given number. To reinforce this skill, the children played “Name that Number” with a partner and a deck of cards. Ask your child to show you how to play at home! (Both players get 5 cards, dealt face up. One card is flipped over from the pile. The first player tries to add or subtract any combination of their 5 cards to total the card that was drawn. If player 1 cannot find a combination that works, they can draw another card or shift to player 2. The players take turns until the cards are gone. The player with the most cards at the end wins!) What a sneaky way to practice adding and subtracting! J

Social Studies

The children learned about the first people to live in our area, the Potowatomi Indians. They learned how the Native Americans filled all of their basic needs by living off of the land. They built wigwams out of bendable branches and bark from the trees, they hunted, fished, gathered nuts and berries, and cultivated crops including the “Three Sisters.” (Ask your child what that is referring to!) They often lived near the river to have access to the water for fishing and traveling to trade with neighboring tribes. The children finished their Arlington Heights Landmark projects in the LMC. They recorded a brief podcast of the information they learned and we will be sharing those with you shortly!

View the museum website at http://www.ahmuseum.org/ and click on “Kids Connect” to: see a virtual map of Arlington Heights landmarks from long ago, view an informative prairie slideshow, and play a log cabin game!

Coming Soon:

Wednesday, October 20^th: The Arlington Heights Book Mobile will visit Dryden School! Bring those public library cards to check out one or two books on this day!

Friday, October 22: Bus Evacuation Practice

Wednesday, October 26^th: Art Appreciation lesson with Ms. Heintz

Friday, October 29: Halloween Parade and Party!

Weekly Update! October 4-8

Hello!
There is so much to write about from such a short week!

Here are the brief highlights:
* The children had their school photos taken on Tuesday.
* We took our first field trip of the year to the Arlington Heights Historical Museum and the Riviera Restaurant. What a beautiful day and full of fun learning experiences.
* The school participated in an extended fire drill on Thursday morning, supported by the Arlington Heights Fire Department.  During this drill, we not only practiced exiting the building safely and quietly, but we also found our spot on the field, south of the school, where we would remain in case there was a need to be out of the building for an extended period of time. The children did a nice job during this practice time. 
* Jack Musich came back to visit our class on Thursday afternoon as the children worked on their drawings of the Arlington Heights Landmark they are studying!
* The field trip permission slips for our next trip went home on Friday. We will be walking to the Police Department on November 2nd. There is no cost for this trip.
* Our book orders came in this week! The children were so excited to see their new books in their mailboxes on Friday. Its so much fun to see them so eager to READ!  Thank you for ordering!

Coming up:
* There is no school on Monday due to the Columbus Day holiday
* Andrea from the Riviera Restaurant will be visiting Dryden to talk to the children about owning a business in Arlington Heights on Wednesday morning.
* The Arlington Heights Book Mobile will visit the Dryden 2nd graders on Wednesday, October 20th. Make sure to send your child with their library card on that day so they can check out some materials they are interested in!

Spelling:
We worked this week on words that have the long and short /o/ sound. Next week will be a review week. The children will have the opportunity to choose their own spelling words! They will be encouraged to look through their own writing, "you try" sheet, and our current social studies vocabulary words to choose words that are relevant and important to them.

Grammar:
The children practiced identifying compound subjects and predicates. They went on to combine these sentences to eliminate repeated the subject or predicate in the sentence. We also practiced the proper use of quotation marks to show dialogue in a sentence.

Reading:
The common theme to our literacy activities this past week was "Coming to America." We kick off every theme building our background knowledge by talking about the topic. Our new oral vocabulary words included: custom, journey, liberty, greet, and varied. We talked a lot this week about immigrants and why they would choose to come to America. We also discussed the customs that they would bring that represent their culture. Our story of the week was entitled, "My Name is Yoon." It was about a little girl who moved here with her family from Korea. The comprehension strategy we focused on was making predictions, so we paused throughout the story to think about what might happen next.  The children met with their guided reading groups as well. Each group read from the genre of historical fiction.  We learned that historical fiction is a story created by the author that is based on a historical event or time period. The new vocabulary words we worked on this week in our reading included: cuddle, favorite, patient, practiced, settled, and wrinkled. We noticed that several of these words are verbs, or action words, that have inflected endings.  The children noticed the 'ed' at the end of these words, and recognized that these words happened in the past.

Next week is our review week in reading. The children will review key concepts and skills from the last 5 weeks, and take their unit assessment on Friday.

Math:
The children worked on fact families this week. This involved practice with fact triangles, and dominoes! We noticed that we could identify 2 addition and 2 subtraction facts for every fact family.  The children practiced writing subtraction story problems based on given fact families as well. These included number models and unit boxes.
  
Social Studies:

Our unit on Arlington Heights is in progress! The children really built up their background knowledge with our field trip on Wednesday. They learned about one of our first families, the Mullers, who lived at the corner of Fremont and Vail. We became familiar with what life was like back in the late 1800's as we  viewed the parlor, office, dining room, bedrooms and kitchen of one of the oldest homes in our town. We also learned that Mr. Muller owned a soda pop factory that began in his basement! We visited a replica of a log cabin that was similar to what the early settlers lived in on the prairie long ago. The children were excellent listeners, were interactive and asked very intelligent questions!

Back at school, we discussed the difference between "needs" and "wants."  The children learned that living creatures require food, clothing and shelter in order to survive. We brainstormed all kinds of other things that would be fun to have, that we could live without. We moved on to discuss the prairie and what it looked like before the settlers arrived. We visited a website called "Build a Prairie," in which the children were challenged to interactively choose appropriate mammals, grasses, insects, birds and reptiles that would live on the prairie. We watched the prairie we "built" grow right before our eyes! Next week we will discuss the first human inhabitants of our area, the Potowatomi Indians!

Thank you for reading! I hope you are enjoying the beautiful long weekend!

Weekly Update: September 25- October 1

Greetings!

Fall is here! It’s so nice to feel the cool fall air blowing on the playground, and to see the leaves starting to change colors. Please remember to send your children to school with their jackets as the weather grows chillier!


Thank you to everyone for sending in the signed field trip permission slips so promptly! We are ready and excited about our upcoming field trip on Wednesday to the Arlington Heights Historical Museum and Riviera Restaurant!  We are looking forward to seeing Mrs. Noble, Mrs. Giannopoulos, Mrs. Elliott, and Mrs. Papadia who will be joining us in our "field work!" Andrea, the owner of the Riv, will be coming in next Wednesday morning to follow up on our field trip, and talk to the children about owning a business in Arlington Heights!

Spelling

We worked this week on words that have the short and long /i/ sound.  Next week we will focus on words with the long and short /o/ sound! Why not search out words with these sounds over the weekend as a preview for the week? Keep a look out in any type of print you encounter... books, street signs, cereal boxes, the newspaper, etc., and make a list!

Grammar

The children practiced identifying the predicate in a sentence this week. We found it was really easy to find the predicate after first finding the subject of the sentence! We also learned that commas are placed in sentences to separate cities and states, as well as the date from the year!  We “acted” out the punctuation in our sentences by raising our arms for a capital letter, stomping for a period, jumping for an exclamation point, and wiggling for a comma as we read the sentences aloud. Ask your child to show you. :)

Reading

The common theme to our literacy activities this week was “Being Yourself.”  We kick off every new theme building our background knowledge by talking about the topic.  New oral vocabulary words include: remarkable, skill, amusement, entertain, and magnificent.  The children grew more comfortable with these words each day. It is so fascinating to watch them begin to incorporate these words into their vocabulary. Our whole group story this week was a photo essay about a little girl named Rosina, who is deaf.  We learned that even though she cannot hear, she is just like us in many ways! She learns the same things we do in school, plays the same sports, and enjoys arts and crafts like we do! She just happens to learn these things through sign language. Our comprehension strategy continued to focus on summarizing.  The children created webs displaying the main idea and details they pulled from the text.  New vocabulary words from this selection included: celebrate, cultures, deaf, language, relatives and signing.

Writing

Upon completion of the publishing of our autobiographies, the children and I had a Writer’s Celebration! Munching on animal crackers and sipping apple juice, the children viewed each other’s written work that was hanging on the walls of our classroom. They looked as though they were in an art gallery, taking in all of the interesting work of their peers. It was such a positive and uplifting experience! I could tell that the children truly see themselves as authors, and they were so complimentary of each other’s work. We are looking forward to jumping into our next writing unit focusing on the “Narrative” writing genre.

Social Studies

We have begun to talk about history, artifacts, and the past. Using their social studies text books, the children are practicing answering “right there,” questions. This can be a challenging skill! Once they are asked a question, they determine an important “key word” in the question and then skim the text to locate it. This was a great connection to a test taking strategy we learned in one of our reading lessons this week! The children also discussed the passing of time, and reviewed how a time line functions. Next week we will be talking about needs and wants, as well as going back in history to the very beginning of our town, Arlington Heights!

The children have also begun working to research a landmark in our town. Thank you to Mrs. Giannopoulos, Mrs. Elliott, Ms. Heintz, and Mr. Noble for assisting the children with their fact finding in the LMC on Friday. We will be creating artwork inspired by our research during the unit. We appreciate the parent support with this new twist to our unit! We've added a small "tour" of Arlington Heights to our ride home on the bus from our field trip on Wednesday, so we are able to pass many of the landmarks that the children are studying!

I found a cute song about Arlington Heights on You Tube. It shows many fun glimpses of our town. View it here:  Arlington Heights Song

Math

The children played a game this week called “Beat the Calculator.” Playing this game, the children realized that even though the calculator is a pretty quick way to solve math problems, it is no match for the brain when it comes to basic facts. The brain is always faster!  We continue to focus on the practice of our basic addition math facts. Many of the children are comfortable with their doubles facts. We've built upon our doubles facts by adding in the "doubles +1" and "doubles in between" strategies. We also reviewed the concept of a “turn around” fact, which the children recalled from last year (in addition, the addends can be switched back and forth.) The children also quickly picked up on the +9 trick. Our goal is to move away from counting on our fingers or the hundreds chart, and rely more on our mental strategies to solve these basic fact problems! 

Coming up:

We are looking ahead to a very full week next week! Tuesday is Picture Day, Wednesday is "Walk to School Day," and our trip to the Arlington Heights Historical Museum. On Thursday we will spend some time in the LMC working on our Landmark Projects! Remember there will be no school on Friday due to a School Improvement Day.

Enjoy the weekend!