Second Grade Rock Stars
Tour News!
We need a room parent!
Next on tour: Upcoming Events
- 09/09- Library
- 09/12- Scholastic Book Orders DUE! You can place orders and pay online! CLICK HERE and use code JDMY2
- 09/12- Crazy Hair Day
- 09/27- Fall Festival (Del Paso Campus 2:00-6:00pm)
- 10/02- Picture Day
- 10/02- WAVE Meeting at 6:30
- 10/03- Spirit Day- Decades
Our Highlights: What We've Been Rockin' At!
Students really "Rocked" it this week!
Students worked on on building up their reading stamina in reading workshop (we got up to 12 minutes in class without anyone getting distracted!) We also learned how to read to someone and how to sit EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee, book in the middle so we both can see).
We read the story Ish by Peter A Reynolds and learned about how writers can get ideas for what to write by about looking at or creating drawings or pictures. The Rock Stars soon had their ideas for writing flowing by doing Squiggle Writing. They started with a squiggle on their paper, had 5 minutes to turn that squiggle into a drawing (which they were pretty creative with), and then after the 5 minutes were up, they wrote a story about what was happening in their picture. Their story needed to have a beginning (with a problem), a middle, and an end (where the problem got solved in some form or another). Their story also needed to have super sentences (which we learned about and practiced earlier this week). They shared their stories in partners and got feedback from peers. Then, we had a few volunteers share out in our first ever Author's Chair Session. This week the students and I are using their squiggle writing to establish individual writing goals in a quick one-on-one conference. Ask your Rock Star what their story was about!
In math this week we worked on fact families and place value. It was apparent during our Secret Number of the Week and our Day's of School that not one students had a clear understanding of what a ten actually is and the value of it. Most had a understanding that we regroup, but no one had a proper understanding of how many we should regroup or even why we need to regroup. We worked a lot this week on really solidifying that very necessary foundation of what a ten actually is and how it can be displayed in different forms. So we had an engineering, team-building, place value challenge! The mission was to build a free-standing display of a "ten" given ten of the "ones" cubes and one longer piece of tape. Only one "ones" cube could touch the table of their free-standing structure of their ten and all ten cubes needed to be touching to another to properly display a "ten". They had 3 minutes to discuss with their partner and work as a team to figure out how they wanted their ten, a way to make it stand and stay together, as well as create their display of a ten. The students worked well together, had fun, displayed critical and creative thinking, better understood that what the value of a ten is and how it can be displayed in many different forms...and it only took 3 minutes (...well, plus discussion time). Check out the pictures of the impromptu challenge below!
Rockin' and Rollin' into Next Week!
Reading: Continuing Reading Stamina, Fiction vs. Non-fiction, story structure
Writing: How writers get ideas, using sensory details, the prewriting process, and drafting process. Penmanship review.
Grammar: Proper, plural, and collective nouns,
Conventions: Capitalizing, ending punctuation, and apostrophes.
Social Studies: Mapping
Spelling: 100% Words
Contact the Band Manager!
Second Grade Teacher
Westlake Charter School
Email: jmartin@westlakecharter.com
Website: http://MrsMartinsRockStars.weebly.com
Phone: 916-567-5760
Twitter: @MrsMartinsRoom
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