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!