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