The week in review!

As usual, the 2nd graders were hard at work, and VERY eager and excited for all of the new lessons and activities headed their way!

After taking their handwriting test last week, the students were ready to begin their cursive handwriting lessons! We reviewed this checklist prior to our writing lesson:

1) Sit tall in our chairs

2) Both feet on the floor

3) Paper slanted (to the left if right handed, to the right if left handed :)

4) Guide hand holding the paper in place

The children's cursive is coming along beautifully. Please encourage them to consider this checklist at home prior to completing their handwriting homework.

We have also begun to really focus on our subtraction strategies this week. The first strategy the children practiced was "Count Back." This strategy works best when subtracting 1, 2, or 3. Simply start with the larger number, and count backwards!

We also dabbled with the concept of subtraction with regrouping. We learned that in subtraction, we ALWAYS start in the ones place! If there is "MORE ON TOP, DON'T STOP!" But if there is "MORE ON THE FLOOR, GO NEXT DOOR!" This cute little rhyme helped the children begin to recognize if they need to regroup in order to solve the problem.

Our whole group story this week was a nonfiction text about the Alvin Ailey Dance School in New York City. The children practiced reading and re-reading this text throughout the week. Our comprehension strategy was summarizing the key concepts. 

We spent some time learning about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.  After reading about his life and putting the key information into our own words, the children and I viewed a clip on You Tube of his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. The quote above appeared both in the book we read and the clip that we viewed, and we found it to be a powerful representation of the work of this strong American leader. 

Our Australia lessons continue! We read "Are We There Yet? this week, which was a perfect story about an Australian family who has decided to take a holiday and travel around their country for several months. They stopped at amazing landmarks along the way which we identified on a classroom map as we followed along!

Popular attractions the children learned about this week included Wave Rock, Uluru, The Harbour Bridge, The Great Barrier Reef, Bondi Beach, The Pinnacles, and Kakadu National Park. The students  were excited to learn about a new research project they will be working on in the LMC (also known as a UBD- Understanding by Design) during which they will be broken into small groups to research a particular Australian territory/state, and decide what makes it a desirable place to visit! Our research begins at school this week!

We also learned about a variety of foods that you will find in Australia, including vegemite, ANZAC biscuits, lamington, pavlova, and meat pies!

 Mr. Holston's class came by on Thursday afternoon to help our class better understand the "Dryden Do's!" These are some simple rules and guidelines that will maximize the children's safety, respect for each other,  and learning while they are at school.

 They broke into partnerships to act out and photograph these guidelines in action! It really helped the kids to visualize and understand these important expectations at school!

 We ended our week with a wonderful star student presentation from Anna and her mom. Anna demonstrated a really fascinating experiment for the kids in which she showed how two colors mix to make a 3rd color! Anna mixed yellow water with blue water- and sure enough, when combined, they appeared to be green! The kids were excited to go home and give this experiment a try!

 Anna chose one of her favorite books to share with the class! It was a Christmas story about an adorable little kitten named Mistletoe. What a cute story! We could tell why it was a longtime favorite of Anna's!

A beautiful picture of Anna and Mrs. Mullan. We are so lucky to have such a sweet, hardworking, and focused student in our class this year! Anna sets a wonderful example of excellent behavior for all of us each and every day. We especially enjoyed the visit from Mrs. Mullan! Thank you for spending the afternoon with us!