Second Grade News
October 13, 2015
Literacy
Second graders enjoyed sharing their published pieces with classmates. We had quite a celebration for their hard work during our unit on "Small Moment" narrative writing. Using new mentor authors and inspiration from the fiction genre, students will begin stories surrounding a make believe monster. BOO! This will allow students to develop strategies for character development as writers.
Alongside our fiction writing, we are using fiction texts to explore character traits. Students are learning how to uncover parts of a character in stories they are enjoying on their own, with partners, and that their teachers are reading aloud. Students will compare and contrast physical traits, personality traits, and emotions. Students will use evidence from the text and pay special attention to what the characters say, do, think, and feel throughout the story.
Students are continuing to practice retelling within the fiction genre. They are also expanding their independent reading time by using post it notes to "Stop and Jot" ideas to share with their classmates and reading partners. When students practice this reading strategy, they make their thinking visible and are able to keep track of ideas, connections, and reactions that pop into their heads while they are reading. They can later use these post it notes and refer back to them during partner reading discussions.
Math
This month in math we will focus on numeration, place value, money, time, and data collection and analysis. We will begin timed addition facts using pencil/paper, iPad applications, and internet websites.
Unit 3 concepts:
- Numeration and Place Value
- Using Coins to Buy Things
- Telling Time
- EXPLORATIONS: Exploring Numbers, Time, and Geoboards
- Data Day: Pockets
- Frames-and-Arrows Having Two Rules
- Making Change by Counting Up
- Coin Exchanges
Vocabulary:
Base-10 system, cubes, longs, flats, penny, nickel, dime, quarter, $1 bill, minute hand, hour hand, clock face, analog clock, digital clock, predict, middle number, median, picture graph, make change by counting up, exact change light
Games:
Digit Game, Spinning for Money, Penny-Dime-Dollar Exchange, Base-10 Exchange, Dollar Rummy, High Roller
Literature:
A place for Zero: A Math Adventure, The Big Buck Adventure, 26 Letters and 99 Cents, Pigs on a Blanket, Pigs Will Be Pigs: Fun with Math and Money,
IXL practice at school/home:
E.7 Addition input/output – sums to 20
E.15 Balance addition equations – 1 digit
M.6 Value of underlined digit - up to hundreds
0.1 Guess the Number
P.4 Count Money up to $1.00
P.5 Count Money up to $5.00
P. 6 Equivalent amounts up to $1.00
P.17 Purchases – Do you have enough money – up to $1.00
iPad Apps at school:
Marcy Cook Tiles
Kakooma
Math Bingo
Unblock Me
Tangrams
Target Number
Environmental Science with Mrs. Cauley
In October our second graders are studying habitats in our Lamplighter outdoor area, emphasizing the survival requirements of animals and plants. We will be observing the composition of soil with magnifying glasses and microscopes, as the students will be using sand and soil to build small terrarium habitats in November.
The class terrariums will stay in the 2nd grade classrooms where the students will be caring for them the rest of the school year. If the student’s care for their terrariums and the habitat plants survive, the next step will be adding earthworms to their container gardens! At the end of the school year, we’ll empty the terrariums on trays to see how many earthworms survived and reproduced before they go to live in the compost bins. Ask your child: What animals and plants make the creek their home habitat?
Science with Mr. Burton
The plants in the hydroponic system in the greenhouse are getting big! Aside from observing these plants and taking measurements, students are learning how to use basic functions in Excel to create a graph. We are also exploring ideas such as capillary action and the reason plants have flowers. Soon, we hope to see the greenhouse plants flowering and producing fruit. But, because there aren’t a whole lot of insects in there, we will have to pollinate the flowers ourselves.
Media Center with Mrs. Vermillion
Lamplighter Lower school students are learning about the OmniGlobe, sponsored by Earth Day Texas and on display in the Lamplighter Media Center. This Globe will also be displayed for Earth Day Texas on April 26-27, 2016, at North Park Shopping Center.
The OmniGlobe contains approximately 180 animations and models that demonstrate certain aspects of tens of thousands of years of environmental history. The content brought to life on this 60” 3-D sphere covers: oceans, atmospheric conditions, climate change, plate-tectonics, glaciations, human demographics, historical maps, volcanoes, earthquakes, carbon levels, the solar system and much more.
Technology with Mrs. Ogden
Students are working on continuing to use their 10 finger typing whenever they are using a keyboard. We are beginning to work on typing creative sentences. Unlike copying previously written work on a computer, creative typing involves creating a sentence and then remembering it long enough to type it. To begin learning this skill and reinforce the use of adjectives, students have been typing descriptive sentences based on their spelling words. Remind your child to “Check your 10” (check that their hands are on the home row and they are using all 10 fingers to type) when working on the computer at home.
Social Emotional
Responsibility:
What does it mean to be responsible?
How can you be responsible at home?
How can you show responsibility each day at school?
Respect:
What does it mean to be respectful to grown ups?
How can you be a respectful listener when friends are sharing?
How can you respectfully use materials and school property?
Social Emotional tools to use at home:
Important Dates
10/19 Grandparent Readers 8:15
10/22 and 10/23 Parent Conferences - Don't forget to sign up on PTC Wizard!
10/25 Lamplighter at the Arboretum 3:00-5:00 p.m.
10/29 David Macaulay - Dooley Author visit
10/30 Halloween celebration and picnic - details coming!
Ask your child....
*Can you use adjectives to describe.....
What your monster can do?
What your monster has?
What your monster is like?
*What is the difference between a character trait and a feeling or emotion?
*What kinds of things did you stop and jot down today while you were reading?
*Can you retell me a story using the parts of the retell glove?
*In math, what does the word "median" mean?
*What is the difference between a bar graph and a picture graph?
*What is data?