The View from 2-2

Hello!

Read on to learn about the full week we had in second grade!

• We have been talking about ways to help our earth all throughout the week. The children have been helping me come up with an additional "green" homework assignment each day! These "extra" assignments included taking a shorter shower, turning off the lights, and turning the water off while brushing their teeth! Making small changes like these are very simple, but can make a big difference!
• The children enjoyed their Junior Achievement lesson this week! Ms. Younan talked to the class about “Assembly Line Production” (working together to accomplish a goal) and “Unit Production” (working independently to accomplish a goal). Then, the class split in half to put both of these methods into practice. One half of the class made paper donuts one at a time. The other half worked together to assemble the donuts, with each student having one particular job to do. Each team had an inspector who was very quick to find the faulty donuts and put them in the “discard” pile! The activity helped the children better understand the difference between the two different types of production. We learned that working together helps accomplish a task quickly! Thank you to Ms. Younan who rewarded the children with their very own munchkins!

• We received field trip permission slips back from everyone! Thank you!

Spelling

This week our focus was on words with the /schwa/ sound, spelled most often with an /a/. Next week, the children will practice words that have a silent letter, ex: wrong, climb.

Reading

Our theme this week was Exploration. We kicked off the theme listening to a story called, “A Tale from Puerto Rico.” It was about an adventurous chick who leaves his farm to explore the world. The oral vocabulary words we worked on include: adventurous, insignificant, route, anxious, and inquisitive. We went on to read two more nonfiction articles; one about continents and oceans, and the other about Christopher Columbus. New vocabulary words that were embedded in these passages include: oceans, areas, voyage, planet, and vast. The comprehension strategy that the children built upon this week was summarizing by identifying the main idea and supporting details. We also practiced using context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words! Finally, we built upon our informational literacy by learning about some technological terms including: URL, search engine, home page, and menu. We identified these words using the computer, so we could better visualize the words and their meanings!

Grammar

We worked this week with both singular and plural possessive pronouns, including: my, our, their, and your. We also reviewed the capitalizing of proper nouns.

Math

The children reviewed the concepts of area and perimeter. We moved to learn the different units of measure for capacity, and identifying equivalent units of measure for capacity. The students learned a silly story to help them remember how a gallon, quart, pint, and cup go together. Hopefully they told you about it! This is the general idea, and while it is a stretch, it works! “On the island of Galapagos (GALLON) there lived 4 beautiful queens (QUARTS). Each queen had two princes (PINTS) that wanted to marry her. So, they appeared before her with two of their best canaries, (CUPS), one on each shoulder. The queen was then able to choose her prince.” With this story we are able to determine that there are 4 quarts in a gallon, 2 pints in a quart, 2 cups in a pint, 8 pints in a gallon, etc. Ask your child to draw the picture that goes along with the story! It really does help to visualize the concept! After working with capacity, the children compared weights by feeling objects, and using a variety of scales including a pan balance, spring scale, and a regular scale. The children also discussed the purpose of each of these scales. It was also a great time to review that there are 16 ounces in a pound! The children took their Unit 9 test. In Unit 10 we will be covering decimals and place value, and much of this will involve working with money!

Science

We have begun talking about our planet, and how to preserve and protect it! We learned what natural resources are, and ways to conserve them, as some are renewable and some are nonrenewable. In the LMC they created a poster with a “Save the Earth” tip in honor of our upcoming Earth Day! These will be on display in the hallway for everyone to learn from. We will be talking about the “3 R’s” next week! Thank you for sending in those milk jugs so quickly! The children will be very excited to find a way to “Reuse” a household item in our class project next week!

As always, thank you for reading, and for your interest in our classroom! Enjoy your weekend!