Happy Presidents' Day!

Hi there!

The students have been doing such a great job keeping everyone up-to-date with their posts, its been a while since I've had a turn! Last week was a very busy week for us at school.. Here come some of the highlights...

* Our Valentine's Day party was a huge hit! Thank you to Mrs. Geisler for planning a perfect party for the children, and to Mrs. Erickson for helping to execute. The kids had a sweet and a healthy treat, made huge, super cute Valentine envelopes, distributed their valentines, and played a game of Valentine Bingo! They had such a fun afternoon.

* Our Australian unit is moving along nicely! The children have been broken up into cooperative learning groups to research each of the 7 territories/states of Australia. They are seeking to answer these question: "Why should I live in this part of Australia? Why should I visit this part of Australia? They are using a variety of online sources to help them find an in-depth answer to these questions.

* The children had a Skype conversation with my cousin, Robert, who lives in Melbourne, Australia. We had a great talk with him and his two sons, Jasper and Rory, who are just about the age of our second graders! We learned so much in a short time about the animals, the sights, and their daily life in the land Down Under. They talked about some of their favorite foods and explained to us the games of Cricket and Aussie Football! We can't wait until our next conversation!

* The variety show took place at school this week. I understand we had a handful of performers from our very own class! Way to go, you guys!

* Thank you for sending in those conference request forms in so quickly. Many of you requested evening time slots! Aligning sibling conferences back to back and incorporating additional staff members' schedules into the process as well can be very challenging. I do appreciate your flexibility- and the fact that you are in town for the conference! Trying to schedule conferences outside of the conference day is not only time consuming, but it takes away from my daily preparation for your child's lessons. I very much appreciate all of your efforts to be here on conference day.

Here come some academic highlights!

Spelling

The children practiced words with the /oo/ sound, spelled ‘oo’ and ‘ou’! Next week we will encounter more words with the /oo/ sound, spelled ‘ui,’ ‘u,’ and ‘ue.’

Reading

This week our focus was on the environment. We read a nonfiction text called, “A Way to Help Planet Earth.” The children imagined what the Earth would be like if people didn’t recycle. We learned what happens to the items that we do recycle! The children now understand the concept of a landfill and how it holds the garbage we throw away for years to come. We focused on the comprehension strategy of creating a web to organize the key points of the text we have read. The children put the main idea in the middle, and then summarized the text by attaching key ideas they read in the circles that stem from it. We learned several new vocabulary words that tied in with our texts this week, including: conservation, extinct, hardest, remains, and trouble. The children identified nonfiction text features such as graphs, charts, and actual photographs. We also noticed that there are changes in print in nonfiction texts that catch our attention and give us more information. These features include the size, thickness, slant, and color of the letters. We realized that the author makes these changes to stress important details! We reviewed the idea of comparative and superlative words, noting that comparative words compare two things and end with ‘er’, while superlative words compare many things and end in ‘est.’

Grammar

The children worked on irregular verbs including: see/saw, do/does, and say/said.

Math

Over the course of the week, the children worked to find halves of even numbers. They solved “What’s My Rule?” problems involving doubling and halving. We practiced reading numbers on a scale. The children learned that there are 16 ounces in a pound and practiced estimating weights of different objects. This week the children will participate in "Data Day," where they will take standing jumps in small groups. Then they will take all of the data from their classmates and sort it, identify the range, and then look for the median- or average- jump length.

I hope you've enjoyed your long weekend! See you back at school tomorrow!

:) Miss O'Sullivan