November 3-7

November 3-7

Writing

This week we will begin our writing project called Student Treasures books.  These are class books that we will send off to have published and bound for you to purchase.  Our class book will be called The Counterpane Fairy. We will read one of my favorite childhood books called the Counterpane Fairy by Katherine Pyle and write our own version. Each child will write and illustrate their story and then we will send it off to be published!

Reading

This week students will understand and be able to distinguish the difference between fiction and nonfiction texts. Students will have the opportunity to explore and sort many different types of books into fiction and nonfiction categories and explain their reasoning for their sort. Towards the end of the week, we’ll explore the text and graphic features found in nonfiction texts.

Math

We are learning how to add bigger numbers this week with mental math strategies. We will learn how to add the tens and ones separately with the partial sums strategy. We will learn to add with an open number line. We will also practice drawing pictures to represent bigger numbers, rather than each individual unit. At the end of the week we will be starting our subtraction strategies by subtracting with base-ten blocks. All of this will be done through lots of problem solving practice. You can support your child at home by giving problems for him/her to solve mentally!

Social Studies

We’re moving into Social Studies this week.  Our focus will be on keeping order in local communities.  We’ll ask the question, “What is government?” Students will learn that the purpose of government is to provide security, establish order,and manage conflict.  Just like we need rules in school to keep us safe and allow us to work in an orderly manner, and avoid conflict, we need the same in our community.   We’ll discuss that a working community is one with its citizens taking responsibility in daily life. We’ll learn that when people act as good citizens and volunteer in the community, follow the rules, vote, and help others, we can have an  influence on communities. When people in communities work together, they can accomplish a great deal.  

Reminders

November 13- Second Grade field trip to Inner Space Caverns (permission slips in Tues. folders)

October 27-31

October 27th-31st

Writing

It’s getting spooky in second grade this week!  We will create a pumpkin and use descriptive writing to explain it in a story.  We will make sure to have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  We will also work on ABC order, creative spelling with the letters h-a-l-l-o-w-e-e-n, pros/cons of eating Halloween candy and most importantly, Halloween safety.

Reading

We will finish up and present our Trick or Treat book reports this week. Students will present the characters, setting, the problem and solution, and their favorite part of the story! The pumpkin characters will be due on Monday, October 27th.

Math

3 digit place value continues this week as we look at the different ways we can make numbers. We can make 237 using 237 ones cubes or 2 hundreds, 2 tens, and 17 ones. Later in the week we are digging into problem solving strategies by creating a bank of mental math tips. Our first tip is to make the numbers friendly by taking facts we know and using them to figure out the rest of the problem.

Halloween is on Friday and we thought we’d spice things up a bit with an engineering challenge! Students will be challenged to design and build structures out of toothpicks and gummy pumpkins. Can they build a tower? Can they figure out how to make straight toothpicks curve and build a witch’s hat? What about a bridge?

Science

We are going to have fun exploring what happens to materials when we change their physical properties such as cutting, folding and sanding. We will make physical changes to create paper airplanes.  We’ll be problem solvers by combining materials to build structures and justify the selection of materials based on their physical properties.  Students will have fun singing science rock songs! At the end of the week we will review and assess on changing and combining materials and physical properties.

Reminders

Red Ribbon Week is this week!

Monday: Red Ribbon Day (Students and staff will receive red ribbons today and are encouraged to wear red ribbons all week long.)

Tuesday: Pair Up and Make Good Choices (Find a friend and dress up as twins.)

Wednesday: Sock It to Drugs Day! (Wear silly/crazy socks to school.)

Thursday: Good Character is Our Super Power (Students and teachers will wear superhero clothing.)

Friday: Rally in Red Day: (Students and teachers will communicate support for Red Ribbon Week by  wearing as many red items as they can. The class with the most red items will win a prize.)

Wednesday, October 29: Early Release - school ends at 12:45pm

Friday, October 31st: Halloween- no costumes at school, please!

October 20-24

October 20-24

Writing

This week we will practice writing brief comments about nonfiction information.  We will use Halloween/pumpkins as our topic.  Our “All About” booklets will keep our comments, diagrams, and comparisons that we write comments about.  

Reading

We are starting our Trick or Treat book reports this week. Students will dive into their chosen fiction book to identify characters, setting, the problem and solution, and their favorite part of the story! The pumpkin characters will be due on Monday, October 27th.

Math

Our study of 3-dimensional geometry continues this week. We will combine writing and math by making a “Wanted” poster for a shape that has committed a crime. How will we know what the criminal looks like? Students will have to describe the shape’s attributes so the public knows what to look for! We will review our learning on Tuesday before assessing on Wednesday. We are beginning a new unit on 3 digit place value later in the week. We got the basics down with 2 digit place value; now we will see how adding a third digit changes things!

Science

This week in science we will be comparing changes in materials caused by heating and cooling.  We will predict and compare changes to wet paper when heat is applied and removed.  We’ll explore changes from hot to cold in liquids and compare their physical properties.  Experimenting with freezing and melting will be a blast as we explore liquids and solids that have been frozen.  Our senses will help us discover what is still felt frozen, what was gooey, what textures had changed and what felt the same.  At the end of week we will be engineers and make gnome bridges.  We will use items to illustrate and model  how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a problem.  We’ll discover what happens when you put different materials together they can do things that they cannot do by themselves

Reminders

Friday, October 24: First nine-weeks ends

Saturday, October 25: Caraway Harvest Festival

Wednesday, October 29: Early Release - school ends at 12:45pm

October 14-17

October 14-16

Writing

This week we will be “batty” over writing.  We will work on writing a diary entry from the perspective of a bat.  We will include fact and fiction in our writing.  We’ll also get to design, name, and add captions to our very own bat.  We’ll take our writing through the writing process, working on editing and peer conferencing.  We will continue to practice the spelling rule of the week each day.  On Fridays we will assess how well they know the spelling pattern.  If you would like additional “at home” practice there are some links on the blog under “websites”.

Reading

This week we will be discussing the elements of fiction by reading many books by the same author. Students will compare similarities and differences in the plots and setting and will be able to describe the main characters in the books, including their traits, motivations, and feelings. We will also discuss the theme, or moral lesson, in the book as well.

Spelling

The spelling list will come home on Tuesday and we will assess their knowledge of the spelling pattern on Friday.   

Math

We’re getting in shape this week with our new unit on three-dimensional geometry! After checking what we learned about telling time on Tuesday, we will jump into learning about the attributes of different three dimensional shapes. We will learn some new vocabulary words: vertex, edge, face, and surface and how those words apply to certain shapes. We will ask ourselves why a rectangular prism has 8 vertices but a cone only has a point. We will also that a cube is made up of 6 squares and a square-based pyramid has 4 triangles and a square.

Science

This week in Science, we will be continuing our unit on matter and energy. We will classify matter by physical properties, including shape, relative mass, relative temperature, texture, flexibility, and whether material is a solid or liquid. We will discuss the misconception that students may think materials have only one single property. Students will discover that the same materials can have multiple properties.  (Ex: An eraser is pink, rectangular, small, lighter than a rock, and feels cooler than the Sun.)  We will use our senses to explore objects and describe their physical properties. At the end of the week we will have a review and assessment.

If you’re looking for enrichment fun at home, here are some ideas:

SUPER Objects Story

Cartoon superheroes possess properties that humans do not have like stretching bodies to any size, throwing their own fire, or having incredible strength. Students create a short story booklet imagining they are a scientist who can change the properties of common objects into SUPER objects. Their cover picture should be in divided in half, with the object picture with a list of its common properties on top and the SUPER object picture on the bottom with its new properties drawn on the bottom. The remaining pages (2 or 3) are for the creative story of what happened with the SUPER object. For example, if the student wanted to use a cereal bowl as their object, they would draw an image of a ordinary cereal bowl on the top half with properties listed as: plastic, bowl shaped, a little flexible, doesn’t break, holds cereal and milk. On the bottom they would create a SUPER cereal bowl that might be able to change temperature and freeze the cereal into ice cream; or changes shape into a spaceship that transports the student into another world just for breakfast and returns them back to their breakfast table. Their story could be a short breakfast adventure they have in their new breakfast world.

Changing Texture Challenge

Take a small old object at home and change its texture. For example if your child has a  plastic ball, they could glue on sand to make it rough or add blobs of glue to make it bumpy. Draw a before and after picture with the texture change words at the top of each (Smooth - Bumpy).

Reminders

Library Day is Thursday: Don’t forget to return books to school!

Thursday, October 16: Caraway Science Night

Thursday, October 16: Coffee and Conversation with Mrs. Bailey 7:45-8:30

Friday, October 24: First nine-weeks ends

Saturday, October 25: Caraway Harvest Festival

Wednesday, October 29: Early Release - school ends at 12:45pm

October 6-10

October 6th-10th

Writing

This week we are so excited to start our second grade service project, Coins for Coats!  We will be incorporating this into language arts, math, and science throughout the month of October.  The next two weeks we are getting the word out about the project.  We will create commercials for the K-OWL news, make posters for the school, write persuasive letters to send home in Tuesday folders and create collection jars.

Reading

We will put together several reading skills this week and take it back to our own reading. With our reader's tool-kits, we will be on the lookout for questions, predictions, connections, and inferences.   

Math

We’re late, we’re late, for a very important date! We will learn to not be late again as we practice telling time this week. We will start by reminding ourselves how long a second, a minute, and an hour are and tasks we can complete in each of those time periods. We will be looking at analog clocks and digital clocks to tell time to the minute. We will also learn telling time language, such as a quarter to 8. We will practice all week and wrap up with an assessment the following week.

Khan Academy: Telling time with a labeled clock

Many of you have been asking if your child can do more than just this assignment. Of course! We are working through the Early Math Mastery Challenge. Your child can always continue with that.

Science

This week in science we’re moving into matter and energy. Students will learn that matter has physical properties and those properties determine how it is described, classified, changed, and used. Students will classify matter by physical properties, including shape, relative mass, relative temperature, texture, flexibility, and whether material is a solid or liquid. We will have some fun sorting activities and see how we can sort our shoes.  We’ll also have a lab where we observe and identify the physical properties of objects and classify those objects based on observable properties.  Students will observe and describe size, shape, color, texture, flexibility, temperature, and mass.  Using all of our senses except taste to compare frozen and non-frozen gummy worms and ice pops, deflated and inflated balloons to compare how objects are the same and how are the objects different.  We’ll be real scientists and ask questions such as:

• Did the textures of different things change? How did they change?

• Are there differently shaped objects?
• Did solids stay solid? Why did some items become liquid?

Reminders

Library Day is Thursday: Don’t forget to return books to school!

Wednesday, October 8:  Spirit Night at Catfish Parlour

Monday, October 13th: Columbus Day, No School/Staff Development

Thursday, October 16: Caraway Science Night

Thursday, October 16: Coffee and Conversation with Mrs. Bailey 7:45-8:30

Saturday, October 25: Caraway Harvest Festival

Wednesday, October 29: Early Release - school ends at 12:45pm