May 16th

 Reading & Writing: 

We enjoyed several camping themed activities this week. We wrote acrostic poems about camping, and we sent friendly letters to a first grade class. We also practiced and performed three reader’s theater plays entitled: Smores & Snores, Forest Fun, and Setting Up Camp. A few of the great books we read this week included A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee, The Tent Mouse and the City Mouse, and A-Z Mystery Detective Camp.

Bears visited our campsite! The students were so excited, and they had a lot of fun spending their reading time with their new “bear friend!”

Math: 

We reviewed this week with some camping themed math activities. Creating a graph of how we like to camp was a lot of fun! We played 3-digit addition and subtraction games, and we worked with a partner to solve a measurement math mystery.

S.T.E.M.: 

We created bead maze games for our fellow campers to enjoy. They turned out really cool, and our class had a lot of fun playing with them! We also designed canoes and then we tested them to see how many pennies they could hold before sinking.

May 2nd

Reading: We had a lot of fun reading this week. We finished up our Unit 8 reading in our wind and water unit. Our class has enjoyed several read alouds including the Mother Bruce series. We have also had a lot of fun enjoying some new chapter books while reading with a partner.

In phonics we have been working with words with suffixes.  Our new phonics pattern is the suffixes, -ly, -y, -ily.

Writing: This week we focused on publishing our research pieces on penguins. Later in the week we enjoyed a writing celebration, and the students took turns writing compliments after reading each others' books. 

Math: Our math focus has been on all things geometry this week.  We have continued learning about 2D and 3D shapes. Then we learned about fractions and how to partition rectangles into rows and columns.  Next week we will continue our geometry learning and making arrays. 

Science: On Monday, we walked to each second grade classroom and saw everyone’s Native American Diorama.  The students really enjoyed seeing the similarities and differences in the dioramas. 

We also began our Wind and Water unit in science.  This week we tested what happens to sand when waves and water hit it.  To do this we created sand dunes in aluminum foil trays and used a wooden block to create waves and a blow dryer to create wind.  Today, we tested materials (screen, pipe cleaner, index card, and a straw) in our sand dune trays to see what happens to the material and the sand around it when water and wind hits it. Next week students will be making a tool that will protect sand dunes from erosion.  

April 25th

 Reading: During phonics time we learned about comparatives and superlatives. We practiced adding the suffixes of -er and -est. We read a poem called Weather and then we found examples of onomatopoeia and repetition. While reading an article called, Bonita Springs Debates Its Future, we practiced using context clues to determine word meaning and analyzing how the author’s reasons support specific points in a text.

Writing: Our penguin informational books are turning out great! We have completed the editing and revising process, and now the students are publishing their pieces.

Math: Geometry concepts have been fun to learn about! We have been exploring different polygons and solid figures. We have been categorizing shapes and identifying faces, vertices, and edges. 

Social Studies: Our Native American dioramas are complete, and we are so excited to get to share them with our friends in the other second grade classes. Our next science unit is titled Saving the Sand Dunes, and we will get to learn more about erosion, the causes, and how it can be prevented.

April 20th

Reading: This week we continued learning about how events in a story are connected. We practiced our reading fluency and expression while performing a short read aloud titled "Mudslide." We also reviewed how to find the clues to help us understand identifying the authors’ purpose. Another topic we covered this week was being able to explain how the images of the story contribute to and clarify the text. In phonics this week, we worked with words that have the -or and -er suffix. 

Writing: Students are now working on writing an informational report on penguins. This week we wrote our rough drafts. We have written an introduction, 2 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. We also started making a glossary of important words in our writing.

Math: This week we wrapped up using a number line to help us add and subtract, and we practiced making and reading line plots.

Social Studies: Our Native American dioramas are coming along nicely! Soon we will share our dioramas with the other second grade classes. The students have done a good job of demonstrating their understanding of the different Native American regions, and they're having a lot of fun, too!

April 4th

Writing: We published our pen pal letters, and they turned out really good! The students used their nice handwriting and they added illustrations, as well. Later in the week our class enjoyed sharing our letters with our classmates. Our class also learned how to write lowercase letters: u, w, and o. 

Reading: A Dinosaur Named Sue was the title of the mentor text that we used this week. We practiced applying fix-up strategies and we explained how images help to clarify text. This week we also worked on identifying problems and solutions within nonfiction texts. 

Phonics: We have been studying words with related root words.

Math: Using different units to estimate and measure length is a topic we explored this week. We also learned how to compare lengths. 

Science: The Native American regions that we’ve been studying include: the Plains, the Southeast, and the Northeast. Learning about the different forms of shelter, transportation, tools, and more has been a lot of fun!

March 28th

Reading: This week we read a passage called, “Primary Sources”. We had several focuses: taking notes to identify key details of the passage, we determined the main idea and found supporting details, we studied the text features, and determined how the images helped clarify the passage.  

Phonics: Our phonics pattern this week was focused on adding inflectional endings (ing, ed) to the ends of words.  There were 2 rules we learned: To double the consonant when a word has a short vowel and delete the e when a word has a long vowel.

Writing:  This week we continued focusing on our narrative letters to a “pen pal”.  We revised several parts of our writing this week by adding details, and describing words, removing parts that did not make sense, and then strengthening our introductions and conclusions.  We drafted our letter structure, which included the date, greeting, several paragraphs, and a closing.  

Math: Measurement has been a hit with the class!  We have been measuring various items in inches, centimeters, feet, yards, and meters.  We have learned how to correctly line up a measuring tool (always starting at 0), and focusing on what unit is asked of us to use.  We have compared the differences between the units and learned about why it takes more of some units to measure the same item than others (more inches, than feet, etc.). 

Science: Our unit focus is on Native Americans.  We will be studying all of the regions that Native Americans lived in, within the United States.  We are learning about their homes, clothing, food, natural resources, tools, and transportation.  This week we learned about the Northeast and Far North regions. 

March 13th

Science: We wrapped up our explorer unit this week with a fun activity. We took a trip to Crestwood Park where we created maps showing what we discovered. The students did a great job and had a lot of fun!

Math: This week we reviewed place value, three-digit addition, and three-digit subtraction. Any addition practice at home with adding and subtracting numbers into the hundreds place would be helpful. When we return from Spring Break we will begin our measurement unit.

Reading: This week in reading we read a story called, "Ranch Flyer".  We studied the photographs and discussed how they helped us understand the text.  We summarized the story, and described the connection between a series of events. We also enjoyed reading The Sour Grape and Couch Potato. We practiced identifying the lessons in each of those stories.

Phonics: Our phonics pattern this week was compound words with vowel teams (ex: rainbow).

Writing:  We spent our week working on our personal narrative letter.  We brainstormed topic ideas, chose a topic, and then began writing our draft.  We learned about greetings and closing in letters and where to place commas. After break we will begin editing, revising, and publishing these letters. 

Spring Party Fun!