Week of Dec 16-20

Language Arts

Question of the Week: When does a creative idea lead to a surprise?

Comprehension Skill: sequencing, realistic fiction, appropriate phrasing

Story of the Week: Rose and Blanca

Writing: realistic fiction

Conventions: verbs
Phonics: long /i/ using i, igh, ie, y
Spelling Words: find, child, sky, bright, wild, fly, right, flight, spider, cry, blind, myself

Math

-using the place value model to represent a number as tens and ones
-number combinations

-using coins to show ways to make our number of the day

-telling time to the minute

-elapsed time

-end of unit assessment

This Week in 2nd Grade

Writing

This week we worked on comparing and contrasting. The students asked themselves, "How are Santa and I alike, and how are we different?" Here are a few of our writing examples.

Math

This week we are learning about place value. We use 10 sticks and singles, connecting cubes, and even drawings to represent two-digit numbers.

Students work independently on their daily math assignment.

Students also worked together counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.

 Indoor Recess

We have spent quite a few recesses indoors this week. Here a group of boys are building vehicles with a set of Magnetix magnets.

A group of girls find it fun to build an obstacle course out of geoblocks.

Language Arts

In language arts this week, students are studying verb tenses. They are cutting out cards labeled with a verb, and they must decide if the verb is written in the past tense, present tense, or future tense.

Week of Dec 9-13, 2013

Language Arts

Question of the week: How can creative thinking solve a problem?

Reading: compare and contrast, antonyms, expression

Story of the Week: Anansi Goes Fishing

Writing: Friendly letters

Conventions: verbs for past, present, and future
Phonics: compound words
Spelling Words: basketball, someone, weekend, something, birthday, riverbank, bathtub, backyard, driveway, bedtime, raindrop, mailbox

Math

-identifying coins and coin equivalencies

-combining coins to equal 50 cents

-understanding tens and ones place

-solving problems about tens and ones

-counting by tens, fives, and twos

-adding ten to any  number

This Week in 2nd Grade

Math Game

Here a student practices a math game that she will be bringing home to do with a sibling, parent, or friend as part of her math homework. The students really seem to enjoy their "homework" when it involves a game. Thanks to all of you who take the time and play the math games with your children at home.

Indoor Recess

Thanks to the freezing temps we have been able to bond as a class indoors during recess time. We try to release some of our energy with more active games like Dr. Mixup and Heads Up 7 Up!

It also ends up being a great time to sneak in a snack!

This Week in 2nd Grade

Math

We learned a new game called Cover Up. One player covers up some of the 18 counters and the other player must figure out how many are covered based on the number of counters they see showing. 

We recorded our results and made sure the number covered + the number showing = 18.

We demonstrated the game on the SmartBoard first. It was fun to play together and to explain the rules of the game before students played with a partner. They will be bringing this game home to play with family members this week.

It is so awesome to receive free books from Scholastic Book Clubs. Thanks to all of you who order from the book order for your children. The kids really love getting new books at school, and we love the points the classroom earns for free books! 

Writing

 During writing this week, we wrote animal fantasy stories. It was so fun to share our ideas with our neighbors. We used this time to get advice from them as well. Our neighbors offered advice on events in the story, names of characters, or even titles of our stories.

Language Arts

Here students are making lists of antonyms pairs.

We also practiced our long /e/ words with marker boards. We chose our favorite words to put together in sentences.

Week of Dec 2-6

Our Week's Objectives

Language Arts

Question of the Week: In what creative ways do we communicate?

Story of the Week: Dear Juno by Soyung Pak

Comprehension Skills: drawing conclusions and visualizing

Writing: friendly letters

Conventions: verbs with singular and plural nouns, prefixes
Phonics: long /o/ using o, oa, ow
Spelling Words: goat, hold, show, most, bowl, float, toast, ago, open, told, toad, slow

Math

-Characteristics of even and odd

-equal partners, equal teams

-patterns and developing fluency with skip counting

-coins and their values

-combining coins to a total of 50 cents

-coin equivalencies

Social Science

-our needs and wants

-many kinds of work

-good and trade

-producers and consumers 

Week of November 18-22, 2013

This Week's Objectives

Language Arts

Question of the Week: When does support from others help with a creative idea?

Comprehension Skills: author's purpose, compare and contrast, fluency

Story of the Week:  Pearl and Wagner: Two Good Friends

Conventions: verbs

Phonics: long /e/ using e, ee, ea, and y

Spelling Words: read, feet, easy, deep, seat, party, wheel, leave, windy, sleep, teeth, team

Writing: Animal fantasy stories comparing and contrasting characters

Math

-solving problems with unknown change

- developing strategies for solving addition and subtraction story problems

-retelling stories to match given equations

-considering a relationship between addition and subtraction

-investigation numbers that can and cannot be made into groups of two or two equal groups

This Week in 2nd Grade

Math

Our new unit on number sense begins with addition story problems. We write the equation that represents the math story. Here are a few different ways students solved 24 +12.

We worked with partners to play a new game called Close to 20. Everyone is dealt 5 cards. We must chose three that can be added together equaling as close to 20 as possible. Then we record our equation, our answer, and how close to 20 we were able to get.

 Art

Students listen to instructions from our awesome art teacher.

Language Arts

We have been spending this week reviewing all of unit 2. Here a student fills in the blank with high frequency words we have been studying.

 Science

 Our science unit on matter is coming to a close. We have been learning about the properties of solids, liquids, and gasses. 

Gym

Students are working on balance and gymnastic skills during gym class this week.