We are THANKFUL!

As Thanksgiving approaches, the children reflected on all of the gifts they have to truly be thankful for. Tracing their hand/wrist as a tree trunk, they wrote down each of their ideas on a leaf for their tree. These are in the hall for you to see when you pop in for your conference on Monday or Tuesday. I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

Landmark Challenge Projects

Don't forget that the Landmark Challenge Projects are due on Monday, November 26th! Have fun finishing up your projects with your families this week. Make sure to practice in front of an audience! :) We have learned SO much during our citizenship unit! We learned about the United States flag, a number of American symbols, the history behind our national anthem- "The Star Spangled Banner," the election process, important US presidents, the local and national government, and all about our nation's capital, Washington D.C.! The landmark projects will be such a fun way to hear the children's voices about an important person or symbolic structure in our country, and bring our unit to a close.

Mick is a SUPER star!

Mick had a stellar week at school! He was our line leader, he demonstrated a fascinating experiment about hot/cold temperatures, and he happens to be celebrating his birthday TODAY! Happy birthday, Mick! We are so fortunate to have such a kind, caring, playful, and hardworking boy in our class! Enjoy your special day today!

Math Update

The children took their Unit 3 assessment, and we jumped right in to Unit 4. Unit 4 focuses on addition and subtraction. We began the unit by completing “Change to More” number stories. The children also practiced "parts and total" number stories as well as reading temperature on the thermometer. After break we will begin: calculating temperature changes, estimating, and adding 2 and 3 digit numbers!

The children have spent some time this week learning about HOMOPHONES. Homophones are words that sound alike, but have different spelling and meaning. (Ex: to, too, two; by, buy; sword, soared). We read a cute story called "The King Who Rained" to further develop this concept. It's important for us to choose the correct homophone to use in our writing. The children are now on a constant look-out for homophones!

In Grammar, we continued to work with apostrophes this week! The children reinforced what they learned last week: ‘s is added to a singular noun who “possesses” something, s’ is added to a plural noun who “possesses” something, and sometimes, the letter s is used to make a noun plural, or more than one!

Reading Update

Our main story this week was a realistic fiction piece called, “There’s Nothing Like Baseball.” We practiced making inferences again to build our understanding of the story. We remembered that when we make an inference, we mix a little about what we read with a little about what we know to determine what the author is intending for us to understand. Our new vocabulary words that popped up all week included: imaginary, uniform, practices, starting, tryouts, and coach! Next week is our "Week 6" or review week in Treasures. We will be reviewing the concepts and skills that have been covered throughout this unit, and the children will be taking their unit assessment at the end of the week.

Why your child needs to read EVERY night! Something to think about! :)

Welcome, Mayor Mulder!

We were so fortunate to have a visit on Friday from the mayor of Arlington Heights, Arlene Mulder! She brought to life so many topics that we have been learning about during our citizenship lessons. Mayor Mulder talked about voting and campaigning, she talked about her trustees that assist and support her, she told us how she has worked for the last 20 years to make decisions that will benefit the people of Arlington Heights. She even told us about the United States Presidents she has worked and met with- including George Bush, first lady Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Her final term as mayor ends in 5 months, and a new mayor will be elected to fill such an important role in our town. The children enjoyed meeting Mayor Mulder!

Our Class Election!

Our election is over! The children voted on Monday for their new (mythical) class mayor. They were to choose between Candidate 1: Silly Sally. Platform: Fun and Games OR Candidate 2) Fair Frank. Platform: Balance of learning, structure and fun. The children approached the classroom voting booth one at a time with their voter's registration card in hand. They filled out a secret ballot, and dropped it into the ballot box. They proudly wore an "I VOTED!" button for the rest of the day! Once all of the votes were in, we tallied up the results. 5 children voted for Silly Sally. 9 voted for Fair Frank! Great choice, class! I think the children demonstrated a wonderful understanding of the voting process during our mock election. We quickly had Fair Frank (Luca) raise his right hand and promise to do a good job in his new position, making fair decisions for all. Our inauguration (the final stage- was complete! We will be sure to keep an eye out for our President's inauguration, which is coming up on January 20.

Math Update

We worked with frames and arrows with two rules this week! The children were very successful incorporating this added component into their math practice! We also reviewed making change. The children practiced counting up from the cost of the item- to the amount paid- in order to find their change. We also practiced identifying more than one way to make change. You never know which coins you will be getting back! We used the hundreds chart to assist us with this practice. We are nearing the end of Unit 3 and our assessment will be approaching next week!

Grammar Update

The children were exposed to possessive nouns this week. We learned that when a singular noun “possesses” something, we add and 's to the end. When a plural noun possesses something, we add an apostrophe to the end! (s') We had to really think about what to do in the case of irregular plurals, including “mice,” “children,” and “geese!” (We added ‘s to these!)

Reading Update

Our main selection this week was entitled, “Farfallina & Marcel,” a warm story about an unlikely pair of friends, a caterpillar and a duck. We talked about how these two types of animals grow and change in different ways- the caterpillar goes through the metamorphosis process and changes entirely, while the duck simply grows larger in size until it reaches maturity. While reading this story, the children learned how to make inferences to build their comprehension. We learned that an inference is a good guess about something that happened in the story that the author doesn’t specifically tell us. We broke down this process into steps. First, we think about something that we read in the text. Then, we think about information we already know about it. Last, we put the two together and think about a likely outcome based on these two things. For example, we READ that Farfallina was up in the tree, wrapped in silk. We KNOW that caterpillars create a chrysalis in order to go through their metamorphic change. Therefore we were able to INFER that Farfallina would soon be a butterfly! As we continued reading, we were able to confirm that we were correct! Making inferences can be a challenging skill, but breaking it down into steps this way seemed to be very helpful for the children. Vocabulary words we noticed in this story include: fluttered, recognized, snuggled, vanished, peered, and giggled. We noticed that all of these words are verbs, and they are all in the past tense!

Samantha is a Star!

It was Samantha's week to sparkle! She and her mom showed us a really neat experiment that proved to us that dark colors absorb light, while light colors reflect light. They aimed a heat lamp on a black and a white piece of paper with a thermometer under each one. Sure enough, the temperature underneath the black piece of paper increased by 24 degrees celsius, while the temperature under the white paper only increased by 9! Mrs. Patterson brought in a bunch of interesting artwork to show us that Samantha has been creating at home. What an amazing artist and a great imagination! Finally, Samantha read an adorable story about a Centipede and his shoes to her classmates. We are so lucky to have such a unique and creative girl in our class this year!

Halloween went by in a flash!

The kids had a week full of fun! As soon as their musical was over, it was time to celebrate Halloween! They looked great in their costumes, and had so much fun showing them off during our parade through the neighborhood! They especially enjoyed the Halloween party afterward in our classroom. Thank you to Mrs. Strimling, Mrs. Ninness, Mrs. Kirk, and Mary Lee for coming in to help arrange all of the fun! Thank you to Mrs. Rosenberg, Mrs. Repple, Mrs. Katsogianos, and Mr. Delea for your contributions to the party. The kids enjoyed a spooky cupcake, candy, and delicious red apples- along with some tasty juice! They played a mummy wrap game, ran in a relay race, and completed a Halloween word search, too. The children had so much fun, thank you for all of your help!

2nd Grade Performers!

The children did a terrific job in their 2nd grade musical on Tuesday! Adam made an outstanding news reporter, Gianna and Leilani showed off their dance moves, and the rest of the class sang their little hearts out! Everyone had so much fun! I am so proud of my students!

Math Update

The children practiced creating a number using ones, tens, and hundreds cubes. They enhanced the concept by finding multiple ways to show the number by breaking the tens “rods” into ones. This skill is laying the foundation for “borrowing” and “carrying,” also known as “trading” in addition and subtraction.

We also practiced gathering data as we counted our pockets during class. The children recorded our class data with tally marks on a table in their math journals, and they drew a bar graph and picture graph to show the number of pockets of the children in our class. They were easily able to determine which number was the most common. We then stood up and sorted ourselves in order according to the number of pockets we had- starting with the lowest number (O) up to the highest number (6)! We noticed that our range was 6 pockets. The children on either end of the line sat down little by little until we were left with one student in the middle. It was Joe! He had 2 pockets. We learned that the MEDIAN, or average, number of pockets in our class was 2!

Grammar Update

The children learned about proper nouns this week! With solid practice of nouns already under our belts, the children were quickly able to identify the specific names of nouns! We made sure that they were all CAPITALIZED! We also worked on identifying abbreviations such as Dr., Mr., Mrs., and Ms. We noticed that there is a period at the end of each one.

Reading Update

We had a nonfiction theme this week, as our whole group reading selection was entitled, “A Trip to the Emergency Room.” We learned that stories are written in a sequential order that makes it easy for the reader to understand and follow. Often, “order” words are used to highlight the steps, including first, next and last. The children practiced summarizing the text in this way: First, a sick person goes to the Emergency Room and is checked in by an Admissions Worker. Next, a nurse collects more information about your injury. Then, an orderly will come and take you to have tests run. Last, a doctor reviews the results and informs you about your situation! You can see that our comprehension skill of the week was sequencing! The children also worked to pull out key information from the text when summarizing, instead of simply repeating everything they can remember! Sometimes, less is more! Our vocabulary words included: broken, informs, personal, serious, and heal.

The children also learned about the literary element of SIMILES. We now know that a simile is used colorfully to compare two things, using the words “like,” or “as.” Some examples we talked about include: “I am as hungry as a bear!” or “We are as busy as bees.” The children listened to a story called, "My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks!" and then they went on to think of as many similes as they could that describe a number of characteristics (silly, slow, fast, strong, etc.) before making and illustrating their own!