What's Happening in G2?
November 2013
Parent Connection
Dear Parents,
I am excited to have these 20 students in my class, in my life this year! They are each individually contributing to G2, and I am enjoying getting to know them. Miss Mazzie has joined us from Kutztown University, working with our class since the end of October. She has been a wonderful addition to G2! Thank you, parents, for visiting on Parent Visitation Day. Hopefully you got a snapshot of your child at work! We love switching up our work to display for each other and for passers-by in the hallway. Be on the lookout for new work/projects to come home. (although I may save certain items for our student portfolios that you will receive back at the end of the year) I look forward to discussing your child's progress during conferences. Here's to a great holiday season ahead for all of us!
Sincerely,
Stephanie George
What We're Up To . . .
Math - G2 students are spending a lot of time on problem solvings strategies and practice (learning key words/operation + or -). We are building basic addition fact fluency, and applying basic facts to 2 and 3 digit addition without regrouping. Students practiced identifying fractions (halves, thirds, fourths, and enrichment with fraction sundaes!) and place value work (to 1,000), including standard, word, and expanded forms (check out our place value mansions during conference time!). Recent focus has been on fact families to show related facts between addition and subtraction.
Reading Workshop/Guided Reading - Students are practicing their fluency, comprehension, sight words, and are building vocabulary as we read books on individual reading levels and in small groups, focusing on questioning and summarizing. Scholastic News is being used to support non-fiction reading strategies, along with reading in the areas of Social Studies and Science in our units of study. We enjoy books altogether, practicing vocabulary, retelling, visualizing, reacting in writing, and fluency as students bring home stories to re-read for homework. We just finished up an author study on Cynthia Rylant, and when we return from Thanksgiving, we will be using author Chris Van Alsburg's stories! (including The Polar Express!)
Spelling/Writing - Students are writing throughout the day! We have journals in Math, Reading, Social Studies, and Science, and they also have "free-write" journals for their own creative/informational pieces. Students are learning to plan, then draft, then revise and edit their work. This is a work in progress as we develop our writing skills, stretching ideas, organizing our thoughts into complete sentences, and apply acquired phonics patterns in our writing! We have written class books, each contributing to a general theme, and we have written our own pieces on book reactions (to Bill Peet's Farewell to Shady Glade, as it fit perfectly into our Social Studies unit), assembly reactions (to The Power of One anti-bullying presentation), and currently we are finishing up an interview with a turkey! (Be sure to check out the gobblers on our bulletin board during conferences.) Students are continuing to be challenged with individualized spelling lists, all focusing on the same phonics focus each week. We have also started "Chunk Groups," to learn letter combinations as needed through individualized assessment. The goal of holding "Chunk Groups," is for students to improve in their spelling and decoding ability as they read.
Social Studies/Science - Both of these subjects lend themselves to more reading, writing, and hands-on learning experiences, with the exploration of rural, suburban, and urban communities and our new unit on Balance and Motion!
Contact Info
Email: sgeorge@boyertownasd.org
Website: www.boyertownasd.org
Phone: 610-754-9589