Academic Update!

Hello Everyone & Happy Snow Day! 

It's been a whirlwind few weeks in our classroom and we have made it to the other side! The students have come back from break refreshed and ready to learn and challenge themselves. I have been so impressed with how they have committed to personal goals for the new year and taken their learning so seriously these few days back. As we continue into January we will be entering some new units and heading toward some challenging concepts! This is nothing that the dragonflies can't handle- they are excited to start the new year off with a bang! Here is a look back at our learning through December and all of the fun we had together- be prepared to see some awesome pajamas from our cozy Friday before break! 

Math

We have become rockstars at our addition and subtraction strategies. The students ended our unit with a huge can drive that was donated to Seacoast Family Promise! We used the cans collected from each class to gather our numbers and we solved word problems based on what we collected, using our strategies! The students displayed that they can not only add and subtract multi-digit numbers but they can sort, organize data, and create real world number stories for other classmates to solve. The students collected 325 cans for the food drive and we certainly had some real world math experiences to help use our new skills! We are still taking on daily challenges, with three digit addition and subtraction and of course all that Iready has to offer!

Writing 

We have wrapped up writing some gripping fictional stories! Students are really focusing on the risks authors take to hook their readers. We have used great mentor texts to help us notice what a great main character could be and we found that these texts really inspired our writing. We have learned about quotation marks, using powerful words, and the importance of one big problem in a story. Our fictional stories have been so fun and our writing stamina has come so far! Wait until you see how far our writing has come- handwriting and all! It amazes me everyday.

Reading

Our character unit was so much fun. We learned how to look at characters more deeply. Students demonstrated knowing the difference between physical traits and personality traits when discussing their characters. We got to know our characters so well, we began predicting what they might do or say next! We shared these predictions with our reading buddies. We then put ourselves in our character's shoes. We thought deeply about their feelings and how we would feel if we were them. Finally, we used all of our great knowledge about our characters to do a little acting- which you know with this class was NO problem! We took on the personality traits of our characters and pretended to be them during a character soiree. After wrapping up our reading unit, we got to create our reading bead necklaces because we reached so many reading goals! How fun! Lately we are talking about the good reading habits we now have as second graders and we are helping our partners practice our favorite habits.

Word Work 

If you have been checking our your child's word sort lately, you will notice it is getting much trickier! We are learning that there are a lot of "rule breakers" in our language and our sorts are pointing some of them out to us! We were recently assessed and put in our just right word groups again! It is such an exciting time to shuffle groups and start new teams! Words are getting more challenging and it is important that students are practicing their word sorts at home during the week. 

Social Studies

Our community and charity work for the holidays was absolutely AMAZING! The students felt the true meaning of giving and we were so busy giving back to others. We realized how much we are capable of and that was the best of all! We had so many fun activities that involved the community during the holidays. Gingerbread decorating, collecting cans, 2D's Got Talent, decorating food donation bags, and making cards for an SMS student were some of these activities!

OT

Our OT teachers have been visiting 2D to help us work on our time management skills. We have done pieces of writing and even some multi step crafts. Our paper gingerbread craft was a really fun way to practice time management and we only had 2 minutes! The students did so well with this and they continue to talk about their time management skills during other areas of our day. 

There is no school on January 15th for Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

School & Home Talk

Ask your child to show you a double digit addition or subtraction problem! They rock!

What are ways that kids can give back to others?

What is a personality trait when talking about characters?

What is a physical trait? 

What character did you pretend to be in reading? 

What strategies have you learned for addition and subtraction? 

What does a good reading buddy do? 

What does it mean to bookshop respectfully?

What is your favorite word study choice? 

What was your favorite part of the Holiday Butterfly show put on by the teachers?

Why are good reading habits important? (Ex: Stop & Think: what did I just read?)

Get Ready for a picture overload!