November/December 2009

The last day of our first trimester is in a couple of weeks.  Looking back at the year so far, and considering the season, we are thankful and grateful for the contributions both your child and families have brought to make our school such a special place to be, teach and learn.  They have made some great progress and we continue to look forward to even more shining moments the rest of the year.

Writing: In addition to the regular writing program, the second grade will be busy with writing fables.  We will read selected fables in our reading series and will be comparing the ways the authors describe the messages taught in each story.  Using our power of word choice, we will create our own fables that will follow the general rules of fables and will teach positive examples and rules to follow for our classmates.  Ask your student about what writing they are working on in class!

Reading/Language Arts: The students love reading and learning to become better readers. In our reading text from Houghton Mifflin, they are working in the second theme, "Nature Walk." We have explored fascinating tales about camping, being a park ranger, and reading descriptions of animals in and around a pond.  After the Thanksgiving holiday, the next theme will be "Around Town," where we will travel around the world and learn about cultures and neighborhoods in different towns.  Each story is packed with rich vocabulary and the teachers will be busy with teaching the students better reading strategies. Some of the many concepts that the students will be taught are:

• Fact and Opinion
• Comprehension: topic/main idea/details; drawing conclusions, noting details, how to read a nonfiction piece, story structure, how to read instructions, and sequence of events.
• Consonant clusters, double consonants, vowel-consonant spellings
• Compound words
• Antonyms
• Multiple meaning words
• Commands, exclamations, telling and question sentences
• Using guide words in a dictionary
• Using a graph, map

Math: In our second unit we have begun an exploration of story problems.  In their own lives, children encounter mathematical situations that require them to understand the relationships between known and unknown quantities.  Unit 2 encourages children to analyze the structure and language of story problems.  They learn how to recognize important and unimportant information, to identify the question, and choose a method that will provide an accurate solution.  Children are frequently asked to create their own story problems, use appropriate math language to discuss problem, and to provide a proof drawing showing how they arrived at their solution. 

Social Science And Science: We have just concluded our Social Studies unit on how products go from the Farm to the Market.  Beginning this month, we will explore Earth Science.  Our junior geologists will learn about the layers of the Earth.  They will also learn about classifying rocks into igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  The students will be participating in many hands on activities including sorting rocks based on their properties and making computer representations of the Earth.  They love learning more about the world they see each day.

Beginning in December, we will return to Social Sciences and our focus will be on learning about families.  We will be exploring how people and places change over time.  We will learn that today’s families share similarities and differences with our ancestors. 

Be on the lookout for a packet of activities your child will be bringing home to complete.  These activities will involve interacting with parents and grandparents to learn more about their own family and its history.  One part of the packet will be due each Friday from 12/5/08 through 1/16/09.

Don’t forget about these important due dates for your child to share what they have learned about their families with their classmates.

• Holiday Tradition- due December 12

• Family Tree – due December 18
• Family Timeline and Life: due January 8
• Grandparent Interview – due January 15
• My Ancestor Doll – due January 22