weekly update

Writing

We wrote lots of 5-star sentences this past week! The second graders are doing a great job remembering to use correct punctuation and capitalization in isolation. Now we have to concentrate on getting them to use it in their everyday writing! Next week we will start our last teacher-led informational book. We will be writing about the history of  Hudsonville! Actually we will be reading and writing about Hudsonville next week! This is a really fun time of year to be a second grader!

Math:

The students are doing awesome with beginning adding and subtracting two digit numbers!  Some kids are still having trouble with the concept of subtracting, but they have learned that adding/counting up works great!  For example 77 - 43 may be hard, but starting at 43 and counting up to 77.  Have your child show you how they do hops on a number line to get their answer.

 Reading:

We took a break from non-fiction reading this week, and listened to The Creepy Carrot, The Creepy Crayon, and The Creepy Underwear.  The kids even got to make their own crafts for each of these stories. Next week we are back to reading non-fiction and it will be all about Hudsonville!

Phonics: / Social Studies

The kids read more poems to help practice rhyming words and build fluency in Phonics. Next week we will study one of our second grade feeling words: Peaceful. 

Homework:

The math page is due by November 8.

weekly update

We have a fun week ahead with all things Fall and spooky!  We are excited to invite parents to come and watch our Halloween costume parade through the neighborhood.  During the week and on Halloween, we will be doing themed activities for writing, math and reading.  A big thanks to all of you who sent in items to make these activities extra fun!

Your second grader is welcome to come to school in costume on Thursday as the parade will start pretty soon after our day starts. For more information you can check out Mrs Stefanich's newsletter. It's a good idea to stick a change of clothes in your child's backpack in case their costume gets uncomfortable. Sometimes being dressed up all day sounds better than it actually is. Also, please no gory or scary costumes and it's best to leave props and accessories at home! 

Writing:
The first two days of this week second graders finished writing their informational book! They put so much hard work into these books! For the last two days they wrote a nonfiction mini-book.  Those are currently on my kitchen table waiting to be be scored. Once they are done we will go over them and the second graders will write goals for their next big informational book. When they write the big books the second graders are given lots of prompts and guidance, so the mini books are to see how they are doing completely independently. They are really growing as writers! 

Math:
We began our next math unit this week. An information sheet about Unit 3 went home earlier in the week.  This hopefully answers any questions you will have about what your student is learning for the next few weeks.  We will be learning some double digit addition strategies, but what you will notice about Bridges Math is that we do it through play and exploration instead of paper and pencil. This is a shift, but by the time the second graders get to the paper and pencil they really understand what they are doing.  To that end we counted 2,222 craft sticks as a class by bundling them into tens, hundreds, and thousands. This gives us an anchor as we talk about combining and taking apart ones, tens and hundreds. It was a great activity, combining math, teambuilding, and fun.

Phonics:
We have been focusing on rhymes and word pattens through poetry.  When students notice the patterns in words it helps them to read more fluently and also spell more words correctly.  This is a fun mini-unit because there are so many fun poems to read! 

Reading:
We have been continuing our work in reading nonfiction and looking at text structures and figuring out the main idea. Next week we will apply all of those informational reading skills to reading about the history of Hudsonville. We read a lot during the school day, but what not all of it is student-chosen materials. The second graders get much more free choice reading at home, so please continue to encourage reading at home each day!

Homework:
There is a directed drawing of a spider and then a 5 Star Sentence about their drawing.  There is a sheet attached to remind students of how to write a 5 Star Sentence!

Dates to Remember:
Monday, 10-28  School Picture Retakes
Monday, 10-28  Body Safety Presentation
Thursday, 10-31 Costume Parade in the morning
Tuesday/Thursday, 11-19 & 11-21 - Parent Teacher Conferences *sign up information will be sent home soon!