A Holiday Book Exchange

Our class participated in a holiday book exchange! The children brought in a book they have already enjoyed reading at home, wrapped it up, and exchanged it with a "new" book! It was a fun and exciting experience! All of the children in our class received the surprise of a brand new book from their teacher to read over the long winter break. Happy reading, 2nd graders!

Math Update

Thank you for sending in so many interesting objects for our shapes museum! After learning about each shape in class, it was such an powerful authentic application of these skills! The children learned the differences/similarities between the pyramid, rectangular prism, cylinder, sphere, and cone. Using “Magneatos,” the children worked in small groups to build a variety of different pyramids. We noticed that the name of the pyramid was based on the shape of its base (ex: triangular pyramid, square pyramid, hexagonal pyramid, etc.) The students learned about the apex (point on top), and counted the vertices, edges and faces. They were eager to point out each of these terms on the shapes they created! Finally, the children learned this week about symmetry. They learned that symmetry means the same on both sides, and if the line of symmetry exists, it is down the middle. Through our practice we realized that some shapes have zero lines of symmetry, while others have many! The children took their unit 5 assessment, and are ready to move on to unit 6 "next year!"

Adam is a STAR!

Adam was our star student this week! We had a wonderful visit from Adam's mom and dad on Friday afternoon. Adam showed us during his science experiment how he could turn an metal coil into a magnet by using a battery! Mrs. Koury read us a cute story about a snowy candy factory that wasn't making very much candy at first... We ended the our day with a dance party! Adam had a terrific week! It is so much fun to have such a happy, energetic boy in our class who loves to learn as much Adam does!

Holidays Around the World!

The children and I are in the midst of a social studies mini-unit in which we are studying the customs of holidays around the world, including: Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. It is so much fun to learn about people who live near and far, and ways that we may be alike and different from them. The children are beginning to realize that many of the customs and traditions we follow actually came from other countries!

As the Hanukkah holiday began last weekend, it was the perfect week to read a few of my favorite Hanukkah stories! We read "Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins" and "The Chanukah Guest" both by Eric Kimmel, as well as "Light the Lights" by Margaret Moorman. These stories highlight the underlying themes of Hanukkah and taught us some of the history as well. The children located the country of Israel on the map and identified the blue and white flag with the star of David in the center. They learned how Hershel lit the menorah each night for 8 nights using the shammesh candle. They read about a hungry bear that was confused by a sweet little old lady (with poor vision) for the rabbi from the synagogue- and he ate all of the latkes! We also discovered that some families celebrate more than one holiday, as the little girl in "Light the Lights" did. Her dad celebrated Hanukkah and taught her about his customs, and then a few weeks later her mom pulled out the Christmas tree and they celebrated her customs as well! The family shared both sets of traditions together! The children in our class made a menorah using their hands- 4 fingers on each side represent the 8 nights of Hanukkah, and they overlapped their thumbs in the middle to represent the shammesh candle.

We went on to also learn about a few Christmas traditions! The children learned about Pere Noel from France (who brought them a small treat on December 6). We located France on the map, learned the term "Joyeux Noel," and colored the French flag, which we also noticed was red, white and blue!

We also learned about the Christmas customs in Mexico. We noted that Mexico is our neighbor to the south, yet speaks the Spanish language! The children made poinsettias after reading "The Legend of the Poinsettia" as a class. We learned that Joel Poinsett, a US embassador to Mexico, first brought the poinsettia to the United States from Mexico. We discovered the tradition of Las Posadas, and we learned the term "Feliz Navidad!"

Finally, the children learned about the holidays in Sweden. They learned about St. Lucia day, the tradition of decorating with wooden ornaments and animals, Jultomten who brings the gifts, and "Dipping Day," that reminds the people of the famine they endured long ago. To help us remember the tradition of St. Lucia, the children made festive red and green wreaths for the classroom!

Persuasive Writing

We continue to practice the organization of our writing! The children are becoming more and more aware of sorting their ideas into paragraphs, beginning with a main idea and adding matching details. This skill is helping us as we focus in on our persuasive writing! The children have learned to start off by clearly stating their opinion. Then they follow up with concrete examples that support this opinion. The children have also learned some powerful, persuasive terms to include in their writing that encourage the reader to really consider what they are saying! These terms include: "Of course.., Obviously.., I believe..., It is clear..., Just think about..., and "You should consider..." Their writing is becoming very strong!

In order to practice these skills further, we read the story "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" this week. In this story, the wolf attempts to persuade the reader that he was innocent in the story of "The 3 Little Pigs." He claims he was only trying to borrow a cup of sugar when a terrible case of the sneezes came on! He was hoping to bake a cake for his poor, sick granny. He went on to say that it wasn't his fault that they built their houses so poorly and out of such weak materials! After reading the story, the children and I decided if we believed him or not. We practiced our persuasive writing skills and shared why we DID NOT BELIEVE HIM! It is our opinion that he is GUILTY! Make sure to take a look at how persuasively the children stated their opinions in this shared writing activity!

Reading Update

Our story of the week was "Officer and Buckle and Gloria" by Peggy Rathman. Our new vocabulary words included: tip, buddy, attention, accident, obeys, and enormous. While we read the story, we looked carefully at the illustrations and noticed that they can help us better comprehend what is happening in the text. There was often additional information in the pictures that was not found in the text. We connected this to nonfiction material as well. In nonfiction articles we will often find pictures, photographs, and charts that have captions or labels that add to what we are reading!

In our grammar lessons this week, the children practiced "present tense" verbs. We noticed that in the present tense, when the subject is singular, the verb will often end in 's." When the subject is plural, the verb will not change!

Math Update

We have begun learning about Geometry in math! We started off our unit by first learning about endpoints and line segments. The children practiced labeling endpoints with clear capital letters. They went on to create a line segment by connecting two points. They labeled each point, and then were able to label their line segment, too!

We went on to learn about polygons. We noticed that "poly" means "many" and "gon" means "sides." A polygon is a shape that: 1) has closed sides 2) the sides are all straight and 3) there are no curves. Some of the polygons we learned about are a triangle (3 sides), a quadrilateral (4 sides), a pentagon (5 sides) and an octagon (8 sides!) We noted the sides, angles, and vertices of each shape.

We learned about parallel lines. They are lines that will never ever ever ever ever cross. Some examples of lines are : in a square, a rectangle, on our notebook paper, and train tracks!

We also learned about right (or square) angles! We noticed that these angles are very simply in the shape of a square, and measure 90 degrees. The children used an index card to help them determine if a shape contained a right angle or not. They were quick to notice that the square and the rectangle both contain right angles!

Cole is a 2nd Grade Star!

Cole had a terrific week as our star student! His science experiment showed us the difference between diluted and concentrated liquids as he placed a piece of cloth in two cups of water with the same number of drops of blue food coloring. One cup was only half full. Can you guess how the cloths looked when we took them out of the cups at the end of the experiment? Cole also read us a cute story about an "ELf on a Shelf!" It was so much fun having Mrs. Cacini as our special guest for all of the fun. We are so lucky to have a fun, playful, hard-working student like Cole in our class!!

Math!

We continue to practice our addition math facts! Many of the children have successfully completed 100 problems in 5 minutes, and are now at 4, 3, and even 2 minutes! If your child is still working to complete their 100 problem test in a 5 minute time period, please spend a few minutes over the weekend or after school during the week reviewing their facts. We will be moving on to subtraction after the holiday break, and it will help them greatly if they already have their addition facts firmly in place. It will also help them during our daily math lessons, and prepare them for skills that are coming up, too!

We have finished Unit 4 and we've begun Unit 5, which focuses on Geometry. We started off by looking at the attributes that various shapes have. The children looked critically at a number of shapes to determine what they had in common- whether it be their size, shape, color, number of sides, etc. We will move on to also consider the length of sides, number of parallel sides, and "square" or right angles when determining the similarities and differences of these shapes.

Writing

The kids have been taking their journal writing to the next level! Instead of drawing a picture to generate their ideas prior to writing, the kids are now also being encouraged to make a web of ideas. They write the main idea in the center circle, and then add smaller details in the circles that stem from it. We have talked about writing in paragraphs, and the children are beginning to grow more mindful of and comfortable with separating their ideas into paragraphs- beginning with a main idea and indenting! We have also begun evaluating our own writing on a 4 point scale. When the children are given a rubric and know what the expectation is, they are so motivated to do what is asked! We will continue to think in paragraphs as we work through our persuasive writing unit, too!

Grammar

The children practiced action verbs and abbreviations during their grammar lessons this week!

Reading Update

Our whole-group story this week was called, “Head, Body, Legs.” It is a folktale from Liberia. In this story we found that the Head, Body, and Legs were not able to accomplish much without each the help of other. They eventually assembled themselves together, but out of order! When they finally figured out the best way to function as a whole, they were very successful! Through reading this story we were able to identify many examples of cause and effect. We also practiced determining the meaning of unknown words using our context clues. Our vocabulary words from this story as well as our guided reading texts were: attached, breathe, delicious, frantically, gasped, and swung. As we know, there is always a moral to the story in a folktale. When I asked the children what they could learn from this story, I was amazed! I heard, "Never give up." "Work together." "If things don't work one way, try another way." What insightful students I have! :)

Sebastien is a STAR!

Sebastien was our star of the week last week. During his "star" time on Friday, Sebastien shared his landmark challenge project on the Liberty Bell! He and his mom performed an experiment with the kids that involved static electricity and running water. For his experiment, each of the kids received a brand new comb. After combing their own hair several times with this comb, the kids took turns holding it near the running water in our classroom sink. The water was attracted to the electricity on the comb! It was such a neat experiment, you have to try it out at home! With Sebastien's mom and a special visitor- Sebastien's grandma!- we looked through all of Sebastien's pictures (we saw birthday party pictures, a picture of a giant delicious cake, karate, and vacations!) and we shared why we think he is a super star second grader. We are so lucky to have such a lively, happy, eager learner in our class!

Landmark Challenge Photos

Landmark Challenge Projects

The kids absolutely AMAZED me with their landmark challenge projects this week! Do you know that EVERY SINGLE STUDENT in our class accepted this challenge and completed a project?! The kids brought in models of the landmark that they studied (of clay, styrofoam, legos, craft sticks, and more), they also made posters, books, shoebox dioramas, and even talking landmarks on the computer! I am so impressed with the hard work and deep learning that the children did at home with their families on these projects. After seeing all of these outstanding pieces of work come in this week, I quickly decided that we needed to show off this hard work even further than our classroom presentations. We set up our desks and projects in a "science fair" type of set up, and we invited a first grade class to come in to learn about our landmarks, too! Mrs. Glaser brought in her 1st graders and they moved from project to project listening to all of the exciting facts that our 2nd graders learned and shared with them. Mrs. Sessler came in to see all of their hard work too! She couldn't believe the work that 2nd graders had done! I couldn't be more proud of my class! Way to go, kids!! I am currently assembling my pictures so I can share them with you! Stay tuned!

Writing

During our letter writing unit, the children were exposed to a huge range of letters! We practiced writing friendly letters, thank- you notes, an email message, and a business letter to name the highlights! The children wrote fictional business letters to a company letting this week, letting them know that there were missing pieces in a board game they recently purchased. They made sure to address the problem, and then suggest a possible solution to the problem in their letter. They did such a good job on these letters! They will go home next week. We are going to be focusing on persuasive writing in our next unit!

Reading Update

Being a review week in our reading series this week, we did not have a formal spelling list. The children were very excited, however, to choose their own words! I again was impressed with the authentic- and challenging- high frequency or high interest words they decided to practice. I noticed throughout the week that the children were very motivated to practice these words that they had chosen for themselves. I can’t wait to grade the tests this weekend and see how they did! We spent our reading time throughout the week reviewing homophones, antonyms, synonyms, and similes. The children practiced comprehension strategies and fluency, and guided reading groups met as well. The children took their (lengthy!) assessment on Friday, and next week we will begin Unit 3!

Math Update

We continued to work on “start, change, end” story problems this week. After reading the story problem, the children first decided if it was a “change to less” problem, or a “change to more” (addition vs. subtraction.) We reinforced the start, change, end, concept looking at the changes in temperature on a variety of thermometers. The children counted up, they counted back, and some preferred to use the hundreds chart to help them find the correct answer. We went on to talk about what it means to estimate, and we practiced either rounding UP or rounding DOWN based on the digit in the ones place. We noticed it is easy to add numbers that end in 0, and the children learned to round up those numbers with a five or greater in the ones place, and round down if the number is 4 or less. We estimated the cost of a variety of items, and the children were then asked to decide if they could purchase a random combination of items for $1.00- using on the estimating skills we practiced. The children did a nice job with their first time working on this concept!