Happy Halloween!

From the desk of Mrs. Schmidt...

It was a “spook”-tacular week in 2-2!  The children all looked fantastic in their costumes!  It was a fun day, despite the cold weather!

We read a story called “Farfallina & Marcel” this week.  During our reading of it, we looked at how this story fit the genre of fantasy and compared this type of writing with realistic fiction.  The talking animals gave it away as a fantasy story!  As we read the story, we discussed our background knowledge about a caterpillar and gosling, as these were the main characters in the story.  Combining what we know about these animals with what we learned from the text, we made inferences about these characters and the events in the story.  This discussion was extended into our guided reading groups, as we made inferences in the fantasy stories that we read.  Making inferences about the characters and events helps us to better understand characterization and cause and effect in what we read.

This week we are learning about letter writing.  We are working on identifying the parts of a friendly letter, such as the greeting, body, and closing.  Correct formatting and punctuation will be emphasized in our letters.  We used parts of Dear Peter Rabbit by Alma Flor Ada as a model text for our letters.  After practicing with example letters, we will write our own letters.

Unit Three in math was brought to a close this week.  Looking ahead to next week, we will explore number stories using a change diagram for change-to-more scenarios.  Parts-and-total diagrams will also be utilized for number stories in which the total is unknown.  Using the number grid as a valuable learning tool, we will find distances between numbers too. 

We are learning a lot about how our country operates in our Citizenship Unit.  Our discussions have centered around comparing and contrasting our city, state, and country governments in terms of the leaders and responsibilities of the branches of government.  The children were very interested in how elections and voting  play a part in these levels of government.   As an extension of our city government study, the Arlington Heights Book Mobile visited Dryden.  The class enjoyed learning about it and checking out books!  Looking at American symbols will be our topic for next week.

We also enjoyed our visit from Mrs. Neumann for Art Appreciation this week.  She shared a painting by Picasso called “The Three Musicians.”  As a follow-up, the class made their own collages using various media of ribbons, gems, fabric, and paper strips.  It was great to see how creative we can be!

Up & Coming

*The Landmark Challenge Packet came home on Wednesday.  Please review it with your child.  The choice of a landmark is due on Friday, November 7^th.  Please have your child return the slip in the packet for this purpose.  The final project is due Monday, December 1^st.  Please let me know if you have any questions!  Thanks!!!