June 1st-5th

June 1st-5th

Writing

We are writing about what a “Hoot” we’ve had in second grade this year.  We will write about things such as field trips, fundraisers, book fair, performances, and projects.  Towards the end of the week we will have an autograph party and will be able to sign our yearbooks/“hoot” booklets with all of our friends and teachers in 2nd grade.  We will also write a letter to the incoming 1st graders sharing what we know about 2nd grade and what to expect next year.  We will write and deliver another letter to the 3rd grade teachers, letting them know all about ourselves! Keep up writing this summer!  

All of your child’s personal and desk items will come home on Thursday. Please send in a sturdy bag on Wednesday or Thursday to take it home in.  The backpack is usually not big enough.  

Reading

This is our last week of Reading Workshop this year! Students will spend the week reading to self, reading to someone, and working in their guided reading groups.

As we begin to think about summer and all the wonderful progress your child has made with reading this year, this information is a good reminder about summer reading:

What happens when kids don’t–or do–read over the summer?

1)   Kids who don’t read during summer vacation lose two to three months of reading achievement. (“The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores”)

2)   Elementary students who read 10-15 books at home over the summer gain as much in reading achievement as students who attend summer school. (“Addressing Summer Reading Setback Among Economically Disadvantaged Elementary Students“)

Math and Social Studies:

We are finishing up our study of economics this week by completing our file folder assessment and our factories. Then we will spend the rest of the week reviewing everything we’ve learned with games and other fun activities!

Science:

How do you keep the attention of seven and eight year olds the last week before summer?  Science experiments are the way to go!  We have fun plans this week to try out lots of exciting experiments. We are going to end the year on a bang!  

Reminders

June 2- Awards Ceremonies: 2nd at 8:00 am in cafeteria

June 4- 2nd grade Breakfast Bonanza End of Year Party 9-11

June 4- 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony

June 5- Last Day of School

May 26-29

Writing

This week we are thinking into the future and “Oh, The Places We’ll Go”.  We will record a snapshot of ourselves at the end of second grade and plan out some goals and things we want in our future.  We will write to explain what we have planned and put it inside a time capsule to read many years later.   

Reading

We have had such a fantastic time reading our Reader’s Theater scripts in class! We will spend a few more days practicing and perfecting our lines so that we are prepared and ready to perform them for an audience. We are so excited to invite parents to watch our Reader’s Theater on May 29th at 1:00. We hope you can make it!

Math and Social Studies:

Our game of life continues this week! We will continue with our jobs and keep track of our salary, rent, insurance, and savings. A few more surprises will come our way as learn about responsible and irresponsible borrowing. We will also be working on a project to showcase everything we’ve learned about finances!

Social Studies is separate this week as we learn about factories and how items are taken from raw goods and turned into something we use everyday. We will look at a cheese, baseball, and tofu factory as well as follow sheep’s wool as it’s turned into a sweater. Then we will get to create our own factory and design a product that goes from raw materials to a finished product!

Spelling:

We will work on second grade sight words this week.  There will not be a formal spelling test or words coming home this week.  We will make our own lists of commonly misspelled words and work on those also.  

At-Home Enrichment (optional homework):

Research: research the “question of the week” and bring what you find out to school.  It can be any type of presentation such as a poster, powerpoint, game, etc.

Question of the week:   What is an earthquake?  What causes it?  What are the most famous earthquakes in history?

Math Enrichment:

Want to work on your computer coding skills? Add the app Run Marco! from the Google App Store and learn how to write code!  

Practice your new economical skills with these games: http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/games/mad_money_flash.html

http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/games/moneymetropolis/

Reminders

May 25- No School due to Memorial Day

May 29- Career Fair

June 2- Awards Ceremonies: 2nd at 8:00 am in cafeteria

June 4- 2nd grade Breakfast Bonanza End of Year Party 9-11

June 4- 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony

June 5- Last Day of School

May 18-22

May 18-22

Writing

This week we will concentrate on all those Rock Star Dads out there with a writing activity dedicated to our dad! We will use complete sentences and concentrate on correct punctuation and spelling.  We will bring something special home for Father’s Day once it’s a little closer!

Reading

This week students will continue to practice reading their scripts that they received last week. They will practice their roles by using emotion, expression, and reading their lines loudly and clearly. Each group will perform their Readers’ Theater for the class. Towards the end of the week, students will make a plan and add in stage directions to turn their Readers’ Theater script into an actual play!

Math and Social Studies:

This week we are playing a big game of Life as we begin our personal financial literacy unit in math and social studies! We will be applying for classroom jobs, earning a salary for our work, and moving into communities based on our income and needs. Students will be responsible for paying rent, paying for insurance, and experiencing various unplanned expenditures. We will learn about the importance of saving money and budgeting, as well as the difference between responsible and irresponsible borrowing. As the week ends, we’ll learn about interest and how to calculate it.   

At-Home Enrichment (optional homework):

Research: research the “question of the week” and bring what you find out to school.  It can be any type of presentation such as a poster, powerpoint, game, etc.

Question of the week:  Who is Warren Buffet?

Math Enrichment:

Want to work on your computer coding skills? Add the app Run Marco! from the Google App Store and learn how to write code!  

Practice your new economical skills with these games: http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/games/mad_money_flash.html

http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/games/moneymetropolis/

Reminders

May 21- Volunteer Recognition Breakfast

May 25- No School; Memorial Day

May 29- Career Fair for the students during the day.

June 2- Awards Ceremonies: 2nd @ 8:00

June 4- 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony

June 5- Last Day of School

May 11-15

Writing

We’ve got some Angry Birds loose in the Caraway neighborhood!  This week, students are going to make their own angry bird character and write a warning note to the community about their angry bird.  They will plan out their angry bird, draw what their angry bird will look like and describe their birds using adjectives and verbs.  Students will go through the writing process and begin with a rough draft of their Angry Birds warning note, then edit and complete a final copy.  We’ll discuss what would happen if their angry bird ran loose in the neighborhood. What should people do if they see it?  This is a fun writing activity for students to get creative!  At the end of the week, students will share Angry Birds writing with the class.

Reading

This week we will continue on with learning all about drama! We will understand the importance of a narrator in a script and discuss how plays have the same components of a story, but are presented differently. Plays still have characters, a problem, and a solution. We will also understand that just like books have different kinds of genres, so do plays! Toward the end of the week, each student will be assigned a part in a class play.

Math

This week we will wrap up our unit on fractions. We will be making fraction creatures, playing some fun fraction review games, and discussing the relationship between the number of fractional parts of the size of those parts. We will assess our knowledge of fractions on Friday.

Social Studies:

We are moving on to social studies for the last few weeks of school.  We will be discussing communication, transportation and recreation changes in our community over time.  We we be looking closely at how technology has changed over time. Students will describe how science and technology has changed the ways people meet their basic needs as well as communication, transportation, and recreation, past and present.  At the end of the week we will design a future mode of transportation. Students will make a 3 dimensional vehicle of the future.  They will even get to name their invented vehicle!  For this fun activity, we are asking for donations of pasta shapes (rigatoni and wheels) and Play doh.  Please let me know if you are able to donate.

At-Home Enrichment (optional homework):

Research: research the “question of the week” and bring what you find out to school.  It can be any type of presentation such as a poster, powerpoint, game, etc.

Question of the week:  Can you get sunburned if it's cloudy outside?

Math Enrichment:

Want to work on your computer coding skills? Add the app Run Marco! from the Google App Store and learn how to write code!  

Want to practice some fractions? Check out these websites!

Fraction Splat

Fractions Made Easy

Matching Fractions

Balloon Pop Fractions

Fraction Flags

Dolphin Racing

Fun fraction at home:

What You Need:

Round or square food items such as sandwiches, bagels, cookies, donuts, pies or pizza. Measuring cups and spoons.

What You Do:

1. Encourage your child to cut sandwiches, bagels or other food items into halves, quarters and thirds.

2. Invite your child to help you in the kitchen, especially when you are measuring. Talk about cups, 1/2 cup, 1/4 teaspoon and so on.

3. Give your child a plate of cookies and encourage him to divide them equally among friends.

4. These are some vocabulary words that can be used to enhance your child's understanding of fractions: divide, equal. fourth, half, part, fraction, share, whole

Science Enrichment:

Check out this fun website about food chains:

http://interactivesites.weebly.com/food-chains.html

Reminders

May 11-15: Book Fair- open late on Thursday!

May 14: 5th Grade Legacy Gala & Fine Arts Night

May 4-8

Writing

This week we are writing about the most special person in the world to us, our mother!  It’s a secret, so we can’t share anymore!  We will go through the writing process and use our best creative writing for this special activity.

Reading

We will continue practicing test taking strategies and review common reading terms such as main idea, summarizing,  inferencing, cause and effect, and making connections in our guided reading groups. We’ll close out the week by starting our drama unit! We will discuss the elements of drama and understand the way dialogue is written in a play. We have a fun few weeks ahead of us!

We will take the Language Arts Curriculum- Based Assessment Wednesday, May 6th.Please make sure your child gets a good night’s sleep, eats a nutritious breakfast, and arrives to school on time.

Math

This week we will continue with fractions.  We will be using different size rods to find fractional parts and identify the rods that are fourths. We’ll learn about eighths and how to share a candy bar fairly between eight friends. Students will discuss how eighths are different from halves and fourths. We’ll have fun making fractionpillars and also use pattern blocks to represent fractional parts. Students will make fraction art and end the week cruising down Fraction Avenue!  A fun way to practice fractions at home is with cooking!

Science:

This week in science we will compare and give examples of the ways living organisms depend on each other and on their environments such as food chains within a garden, park, beach, lake, and wooded area.  At the end of the week, we will review and assess on our animal unit.

At-Home Enrichment (optional homework):

Research: research the “question of the week” and bring what you find out to school.  It can be any type of presentation such as a poster, powerpoint, game, etc.

Question of the week: What are hieroglyphs?

Math Enrichment:

Want to work on your computer coding skills? Add the app Run Marco! from the Google App Store and learn how to write code!  

Want to practice some multi-step word problems? Check out these websites!

Grand Slam Math Word Problems

Problem Solving : Multistep Word Problems Quiz

Word Problems with Multiple Steps

Science Enrichment:

Check out this fun website about different animals and their migration:

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

Reminders

May 6: Early Release at 12:45, National Bike/Walk to School Day & 2nd Grade Language Arts Benchmark Assessment

May 8: Kona Ice Day

May 11-15: Book Fair

May 14: 5th Grade Legacy Gala & Fine Arts Night