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Way to go, publishers! This week 2-G authors published our mystery stories. I am absolutely blown away by the detail, dialogue, and suspense that each writer included in his or her story. We'll be sharing our first fiction stories with you at our Mystery Morning Share. Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Math: Mathematicians worked on adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers this week. While we focused on place value and lining up our numbers accordingly, we also practiced solving story problems. We learned that our story problems have 3 elements: 1. A sentence describing how much we have in the beginning 2. A sentence describing how much is added or subtracted and 3. A question asking us to find the sum or difference. Literacy: Readers worked hard on developing their fluency skills during center time. We got to try out our new "Geography Center" where we choose a geography related book and hunt for important/interesting facts that we'd like to share with the class - beginning research! Computer Lab: 2-Gers learned how to play 3 math games in the Lab this week. We played, "Give A Dog a Bone", "Caterpillar Ordering", and "Addition Pyramid". Ask your child to tell you about his/her favorite! Science: Scientists began exploring forces in water this week. We worked in pairs to create a boat that could float using, paper, popsicle sticks, tin foil, and tape. We tested out our inventions in water and learned a lot about buoyancy. We had wonderful discussions about the factors that make a boat more buoyant and what we needed to change in some cases to help things float. Spanish: Profe Mendez taught us a new song about farm animals today. We had so much fun singing the new words we've learned to music. Profe begins each class by asking us to talk about the date in Spanish. Have your 2-Ger give you an example! Enjoy your weekend. Bravo! 2-G did an incredible job singing on stage at the 2nd and 3rd Grade Winter Concert this week. They worked so hard to learn 3 amazing songs and it showed. We are so happy to officially welcome back, Ms. Julia Holzwasser to our community. Ms. Holzwasser is now in 2-G full-time and we are thrilled to have her! Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Literacy: Readers read a second mystery book this week in center work. Next week, we'll be comparing the two mysteries we've read. 2-Gers also loved reading books on Raz-Kids with our classroom iPads. Our "Dictionary Center" is so much fun. Sometimes we have specific mystery related words to look up and other times we get to free explore! Writing Workshop: Writers are putting wonderful creativity into their mysteries. As we write, we are learning new ways to make our writing the best that it can be. This week we focused on quotation marks and how to use them appropriately. Ask your writer to show you what they've learned. Math: Mathematicians continue to build addition and subtraction skills through a number of different activities. One strategy we worked on this week was learning how to solve a cross-number puzzle. Essentially, these puzzles present problems with missing addends and 2-Gers need to apply their knowledge of number relationships to fill in the missing parts. We love a good challenge and our mathematicians were ready for it! Science: Scientists used their knowledge about friction, momentum, and height vs. speed to design rollercoasters for our imaginary theme park this week. They were challenged with designing one fast roller coaster and one slow roller coaster - labeling all of the elements to show how forces would affect motion. Way to go! Workshop: 2-G engaged in a "Cut and Grow" activity in workshop. In this activity, students are given a topic to write one sentence about on a sentence strip. When writers complete their sentences, we work with a partner to determine if there is anywhere we can cut the sentence and "grow" it by adding in more details. We had so much fun and we can't wait to try it again with our spelling words next week! Enjoy your week. I am so proud of our 2-Gers for all of their hard work and accomplishments this week! We are on our way to filling up our Community Cube Jar for the second time. Students have been doing an incredible job practicing their songs for their Winter Concert and they can't wait to share them with you on Wednesday morning. Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Fundations: Our phonics pattern this week was words that end in, "y". These words can be so tricky because the "y" either sounds like, "e", or "i"! Literacy: We finished reading our mysteries in guided reading groups and detectives did a great job decoding new words and building fluency. We loved having "Making Words" for one of our centers this week. Students had to make as many words as possible out of the letters in, "snowman". Have your 2-Ger show you what he/she made! Writing Workshop: Wait until you read these mysteries! Writers are knocking my socks off with their incredible mysteries. We have been learning how to introduce a story and create suspense before talking about a problem that needs to be solved. Our talented gumshoes will share their work with you at our Mystery Morning Share on February 11th. Math: Mathematicians began to learn about carrying and borrowing. We have a saying that helps us with borrowing called, "Bigger bottom (number), better borrow!" We'll be practicing using these strategies in the upcoming weeks as we engage in many different types of activities that require us to add and subtract double digit numbers. Science: Scientists learned about momentum in our whole class experiment. We are having so much fun exploring powerful forces that we can not see. We tried knocking over small and large objects by rolling a marble down a track. We determined that the small marble only had enough momentum to knock down smaller objects. Spanish: Our new Spanish teacher, Profe Mendez taught us how to play, "Loteria". This game is just like, "Bingo" and we had a blast! It was so exciting to see how many Spanish words we already knew. Read Alouds: In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Mrs. Gomes read us three amazing books during snack time: 1. Martin's Big Words, 2. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and 3. The Story of Ruby Bridges. We had some incredible and heartfelt discussions in 2-G about how the world has changed and how it can all start with one person who believes. Enjoy your week. Happy New Year, 2-G! It was so wonderful to hear about everyone's wonderful holiday vacations. We had an amazing week back at school in our classroom community. Please enjoy these highlights of our studies:
Literacy: Mystery readers are finishing our stories in guided reading groups. We have learned to put together clues and think about suspicious characters! 2-Gers are working hard in centers to improve fluency, sight word recognition, and comprehension. Writing Workshop: Writers were thrilled to begin our first fiction writing project! Students began writing their very own mysteries this week. We began our process by creating picture plans, putting our ideas in order. Writers came up with very unique ideas. We can't wait to share them with you at our morning share on February 11th! Computer Lab: Students worked on their XtraMath program on our computers this week. XtraMath helps us practice our math facts and increase number fluency on an individual basis. Social Studies: 2-Gers learned about traditional Japanese foods this week. It was a good thing Social Studies was before snack time because we were so hungry by the end of our lesson! We loved hearing about so many delicious dishes. Science: Scientists conducted experiments to answer two questions this week: 1. Does weight affect speed? and 2. How does friction affect motion? 2-Gers were surprised to learn that weight does not affect speed! We had wonderful discussions and recorded all of our findings in our science logs. Ask your scientist to tell you about friction. Enjoy your week! Way to go, 2-G! We had another wonderful week in 2-G. On Tuesday, we said, "See you soon" to our pre-prac student teacher from Boston College, Julia Holzwassser. We have loved having Ms. Holzwasser in our classroom every Tuesday and in January she'll return to be our full-time student teacher! We are thrilled to welcome her to our community. Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Literacy: Readers were introduced to our new mystery unit this week. We all worked together to solve, "The Mystery of the Stolen Pumpkins". Over the next weeks we'll be reading mysteries and studying their components and language in guided reading groups. We even get to fill in our own detective logs! Writing Workshop: Our current writing study focuses on Winter Acrostic Poetry. Each session, writers work on a specific poem. This week we wrote about a jacket, a hat, and a penguin. Writers are challenged with using a variety of describing words. These poems are beautiful and we can't wait to publish them in a few weeks. Math: Graphs and data, oh my! Mathemticians learned how to collect and represent data with three different types of graphs this week. We learned about bar graphs, picture graphs, and line graphs. On our last day we got to create our own bar graphs and survey our peers. These graphs will soon be on display in our hallway! Social Studies: Researchers learned about Japanese Schools, origami, and Japanese homes. We loved seeing real images and hearing stories from kids in Japan to help us learn more about their culture. We learned that there are a lot of amazing similarities and differences between the school lives of kids in Japan and our own. On Wednesday we created an origami cup and an origami cat. We now know how important symmetry is in the art of origami and we look forward to creating more in the future. Workshop: In workshop, 2-Gers are being asked to open their minds and think creatively. On Tuesday, Mrs. Gomes gave us a page with some small designs on it. The challenge was to create something new out of each design. It was so fun to see how every 2-Ger pictured something different. On Thursday, we worked on brainstorming ideas for, "Things that are hot". The list that students came up with would knock your socks off! Enjoy your week. We had another fantastic week in 2-G! On Thursday, we turned our classroom upside down during our fort building party - what a blast! Students worked together to design creative spaces to play in for our Community Cube Jar fill-up celebration. Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Literacy: Readers are doing an amazing job in Literacy centers. A big goal for all readers is to really think about what is going on in the story as we read. Have your 2-Ger talk with you about they book they're reading at home. We are learning to come up with describing words to talk about characteristics of the people and/or animals in our books. We also learned about compound words this week and got to play a "Match it" game to create words. iPads: Mrs. Mazzocchi, our computer teacher, came to show us how to use our new iPads. We learned how to play an awesome math/fact fluency game called, "Sushi Monster". Now we have iPad math as one of our math stations every day! Social Studies: This week 2-G started to learn about kids and their families in Japan. We learned that just like the United States, Japan has lots of different types of land and many different types of homes. We also loved exploring the Japanese flag and its meanings. On Tuesday, we did a special project to prepare for our upcoming Thanksgiving Feast. We wove our placemats that we will use on our special day. They look beautiful! Science: Scientists practiced doing a magnified drawing. We are learning to draw a circle in our observation journals and draw just what we see through our loupes. Math: Mathematicians are working on creating and solving story problems. We learned that each story problem is set up just like a number sentence. Each has 3 parts: 1. An amount you start with, 2. An amount that is added or taken away, and 3. A sum or difference in the end. We had so much fun bringing numbers to life! Enjoy your week. 2-G filled up our community cube jar! On Thursday, November 12th, we'll celebrate this wonderful accomplishment. 2-Gers earn cubes by working hard as a community and treating one another with kindness and respect. I'm so proud! We also had our very first publishing session this week. Writers had a ball editing and "fancying up" stories. We worked so hard on adding thoughtful dedications and cover pages for finishing touches. There will be more incredible stories to come this year. Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Literacy: Readers continued working through their centers and guided reading this week. We are focusing on reading for meaning in all of our reading groups. Students are learning to think about new words in context. In addition, we are learning to think beyond the literal text. Sometimes Mrs. Gomes asks us which character we think we'd like to be and why. The "why" part can be tricky and we are challenging readers to really think about characteristics of characters and how we connect with them. Math: Mathematicians learned a wonderful game this week called, "Salute". It has quickly become a favorite. This game helps us practice our fluency and number sense. Ask your mathematician how to play! This game can be played at home with a regular deck of card (minus the Jokers). We are continuing to build our knowledge of place value and number composition. Computer Lab: Every Wednesday, we'll be going to the computer lab to focus on different activities. This week we got to read on Raz-Kids! We had so much fun with this reading program and we are excited to learn more computer-based activities soon. Science: For a big finish to our Nutrition unit, we had an apple tasting in 2-G. We got to taste not 1, not 2, but 7 different types of apples! We each completed our own surveys. Results showed that the majority of our class loved the Jazz and Piñata varieties. I am so proud of all of our 2-Gers for completing their Nutrition unit and we are excited to see what we'll be exploring next. Enjoy your week. What an amazing week! 2-Gers helped favorite book characters come to life on Character Dress Up Day. The creativity in the room knocked my socks off! It was so wonderful to share our love for reading and to inspire readers to try out new kinds of books. During our celebration, students stood up to share who they chose and why. We loved hearing about lots of personal connections to characters, as well as love for adventure. Please enjoy these additional highlights of our studies:
Literacy: Readers learned how to do our new center called, "Making Sentences" this week. We are working on putting segments in order and attending to capitalization and punctuation. Another big element of this center that carries over into our reading and writing is checking our work. 2Gers continue to focus on rereading sentences to make sure that they make sense. Wrting Workshop: We are getting ready for publishing day! Writers have been listening to elements of Jane Yolen's book, Owl Moon. This beautiful book models how to take one small moment and stretch it across several pages, while including great details. In one lesson, we listened to Jane's words and responded by sharing what "moved" us. Math: Mathematicians continue to build our knowledge of place value. This week we played a game called, "Pairs to 100" that required students to work on trading ones to tens and tens to hundreds. Mathematicians are doing an amazing job working through centers. A skill that we are working on building throughout each unit that we study is any number plus or minus ten. Fundations: 2Gers focused on the vowel teams, "ea", "ee", and "ey". We are learning rules to help us determine which one should be used and why. Students are frequently pointing out vowel teams we've learned during all of our studies. Ask your 2Ger to help you find some during nightly reading! Next week, we'll work on "ou" and "ow". Science: Scientists are doing an incredible job learning about nutrition. This week we learned about the "Others" - treats that are better to have once in a while. Ask your scientist to tell you all about the royal food groups and how they help us stay healthy. Enjoy your week! We had a wonderful visit from two Brookline Firefighters this week. They taught us about fire safety and gave us official Junior Firefighter hats and stickers! We also got to see an amazing Art Barn performance called, "Dear Failure". The message in the show reminded us never to let our worries stop us from trying new things. 2-Gers are always up for a good challenge!
Enjoy these additional highlights of our week: Literacy: Readers are doing a wonderful job in Literacy Centers. In Guided Reading groups, we continue to focus on using intonation and determining the meaning of new words in context. We are learning that if we get really stuck on a word, we can read around it to help us think about what would make the most sense. Students also learned a new center this week: Games Center! Our first literacy based game was, "I have, who has...". Writing Workshop: As we continue to work on our small moments stories, we are learning to self edit. Writers are learning how to use punctuation appropriately. In addition, we are focusing on nouns. We found that many words can be tricky because they can be a noun or a verb depending on how they are used. Math: Mathematicians are becoming place value experts. This week we created, "Place Value Pumpkins". They are on display on the bulletin board in our hallway. Our pumpkins highlight the many ways to represent number relationships we've explored: number bonds, number sentences, place value, and base ten blocks. Science: Scientists learned about meats and vegetables this week with the help of the Royal Food Family. It is so fun to learn about the ways that different foods help our bodies. We love to look around 2-G at snack time and lunch time and identify foods from each group! Social Studies: Geographers added some of the world's largest mountain ranges to our world maps. We are having a ball learning about the different types of land and water in each continent. Flat Stanley is on his way and we are excited to hear from him soon! All postcards/mailings from Flat Stanley will be posted on a world map in our hallway so that we can all learn from his travels. Enjoy your week. |
