Weekly Wrap-Up!

We had a wonderful, full week at school!

Math
The children were hard at work reviewing and preparing for their Unit 4 math test. We practiced making ballpark estimates, making change, and the partial sums algorithm before the children took their assessment on Thursday. After reviewing the assessments upon completion, I was so pleased to see how well the children were able to demonstrate their understanding of these concepts!

Reading
We read a passage about the first Thanksgiving this week. After reading, the children worked to locate answers to a series of questions in the text and then highlighted them. Then they transferred these answers to the questions in writing, using words from the question in the answer. They did a great job!

Handwriting
We focused a bit on our handwriting as well. The children were reminded of good posture while sitting in their chairs (No flamingos allowed! Both feet need to be on the floor :) We reviewed the letters o, a, and d to ensure that the children are forming those letters beginning in the middle at the center line. The a and the d are made "around, up, and down" as opposed to the circles and sticks that they may have learned back in kindergarten. Forming these letters properly is so important as we begin the transition to cursive after the new year. The children were encouraged to make their tall letters taller than the rest, and to put appropriate spacing between their words. The handwriting fairy popped in to visit some exceptionally neat work! :)

Writing
The children and I practiced writing a series of steps in a sequence using the transitional words first, next, then, last. The children then wrote their very own recipes for how to cook a Turkey! They considered the food, seasonings, and other materials that were necessary in the process. They also decided how hot the oven should be and how long the turkey should cook. (Some children suggested fun family activities to pass the time while cooking- including board games!) We have some creative thinkers in our class this year!

Social Studies
Our study on citizenship continues! We are so excited to see the children's US landmark projects when they return from Thanksgiving break! Once everyone has presented their projects, the children will have an "open house" with a 1st grade class to share their learning and what the project that they created. It will be so much fun to watch the children take charge of their learning! This week we reviewed the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance, we learned about the history of our national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner," and after watching a few renditions of this patriotic song online by Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift at the start of past Super Bowls and World Series games, we created star-spangled windsocks to decorate our classroom! We will be wrapping up this unit and will move into a mini unit about holidays around the world!

It was a terrific week at school, and so much was accomplished. The children are adjusting nicely to new captain of the 2-2 ship :) as well as the expectations that go along with her! Mrs. Schmidt and I are looking forward to meeting with all of you next week to discuss your child's learning and progress at Parent/Teacher conferences!

Coming up:
Monday, November 24 and Tuesday November 25: Parent Teacher Conferences
Monday, December 1: US landmark projects are due, presentations will take place that week
Friday, December 5: Our 1st Star Student presentations begin with Mia!

I wish everyone a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends!

Greetings! I'm so happy to be back in the classroom, learning and discovering alongside the students in 2-2. Thank you to Mrs. Schmidt for getting this school year off to a great start! The children and I had a wonderful first few days together. We spent some time getting to know each other, and then we got right to work!

 We read a new whole group story called "Head, Body, Legs." This story lent itself to the concept of cause and effect. After reading and re-reading the story in order to absorb the content, the children worked in their small groups to identify examples if one action that caused another to occur.

The children practiced logging on to their Dream Box accounts. Using the iPads, the children were able to "play" with their math skills. This program is designed to differentiate math concepts based on content, pace, and sequence. It is a highly motivating way for children to strengthen their math knowledge! They were so excited to begin, and I was excited to monitor their progress and growth from my computer at the same time! :)

During our math lessons this week, the children practiced making ballpark estimates. We learned that if the digit in the ones place is a 5 or higher, we should round UP. If the digit in the ones place is a 4 or less, we should round DOWN. We also practiced adding two digit numbers to find the actual answer, and then looked to see if they were close!

We also discussed measurement. The children talked about when they would use a ruler vs. a tape measure and why. Then they practiced measuring the height of their desk and chair, as well as the length and width of their math journal, in both inches and centimeters.

In Social Studies we continued the ongoing discussion about citizenship! The children are so excited about the landmarks they have selected for their landmark challenge projects and were eager to tell me! We discussed patriotism and listened to "America the Beautiful,"carefully considering the meaning behind the lyrics and how they show pride for our country. 

                 Here the children are reading about the American Flag and locating the answers directly in the text. They highlighted their answers using different colored crayons.

The Week in Review!

From the desk of Mrs. Schmidt...

It’s hard to believe that this is my last blog entry!!!  Where has the time gone?!?  It has been such a pleasure to teach your children this first trimester!  They are incredible individuals with wonderful and fun personalities!  It has been a blast, and I know that they will be in GREAT hands with Miss O’Sullivan!!!  Thanks for all of your support and warm welcome back to Dryden!!!

We focused on Realistic Fiction this week as we read “There’s Nothing Like Baseball,” making inferences about the characters and events as we read with our buddies.  Again, the emphasis was on combining our own background knowledge  with what we read in the text to draw conclusions about the story.  In our guided reading groups, we also read Realistic Fiction selections making sure to have stopping points in the stories to visualize what we were reading as well as to make predictions about what was to come.  Using the context of the stories, we tried to incorporate some grammar rules such as using quotation marks, pronouns, and past-tense verbs.  We love to use our highlighters to help us locate information!

To apply what we learned about the format of friendly letters, we wrote letters to Officer Romag at the Arlington Heights Police Department, thanking her for showing us around the police station and sharing information about her job on our recent field trip.  Again, the focus was on including the proper elements of a letter, such as a heading, greeting, body of a letter, and closing.  As a follow-up to our letter writing lessons, we wrote letters to Miss O’Sullivan, introducing ourselves so that she can get to know us better!

In math, we took a Trimester Assessment of all that we have learned so far this year.  This will be shared with you at conferences.   For our lessons this week, we have worked on solving number stories to find parts and totals for the presented problem.  We also measured temperatures using thermometers and solved temperature problems.

At LMC this week, we concluded our U.S. President research. Using the Pixie Program, we imported a picture of our chosen President on to Mt. Rushmore. Then, we tried to write convincing reasons that this person should be included on this national landmark.  The children utilized a lot of computer skills such as dragging and dropping images, creating text boxes, and working with font and color for this project.  Their work will be on display in the hall at conferences.  

We continue to work on our Citizenship Unit.  This week we learned about important patriotic symbols such as the American Flag, Liberty Bell, and bald eagle.  We compared these to our state of Illinois symbols, such as the violet for the state flower and the cardinal for the state bird.  Our future discussions will be what makes a good citizen.

Up & Coming

*Tuesday, November 11-Veterans’ Day-school is in session.  Mrs. Schmidt’s last day!

*Wednesday, November 12-Miss O’Sullivan returns!

*Friday, November 14-Dads & Donuts at 8:30 am in the Commons.

Mrs. O'Kelly explaining how to input their President research into the Pixie Program at the LMC