Newsletter 1/15/16

Happy Weekend! We had a great week as always in our classroom. I continue to be so proud of this group of amazing students for their hard work and their love for learning. Don't forget, there is no school on Monday January 18th due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Reading

We continue to work on fluency in our reading. We have been paying close attention to how we make our voices match the mood of the story. We have also been making sure that we take the initiative to reread when something sounds wrong or doesn't make sense. We also focused on reading at a just right pace this week. As the year progresses I continue to be blown away with the progress each reader in this room has made. 

Writing

We have started planning our fictional stories. We have taken the time to brainstorm then plan out our thoughts. We've made sure that we know our characters and their roles in the story, the setting or settings, the problem, the solution and what lesson we are trying to teach our audience. We have also worked very hard on hooking the audience right from the very beginning. It is so amazing to see how we can go back and edit just our introduction with help from an editing partner. As a mentor text we are reading 'James and the Giant Peach' by Roald Dahl. This is such an exciting unit in our room!

Word Work

Word work has become so exciting this week because we have started running word work just like we run all of the other subjects. Students now have multiple centers each day during word work where they can really learn their rules of the week and apply them in various ways. We've even included a handwriting center! This part of our day has really transformed and the students have a true love for their daily word work.

Science

We had our liquid race experiment and the students started talking about variables in science experiments and how they can change results. We looked at the ripples in the tin foil race track and planned changes for following experiments. This showed the students how important multiple trials are during science experiments. The questions from this experiment are guiding us into our next experiment. 

Math

This week we learned a fun new math game called 'Beat the Calculator' which helped us see that our brains actually work faster than a calculator for basic math facts. The students loved this game and it was a great way to work on math facts and numbers through 50. We also had some groups who took the challenge of numbers through 100! This game really taught us that for some math problems it is better just to use our brain. We will be working with money next week and making change. We have also spent time reviewing for our midyear assessment. The students have done so well with this!

Dragonfly News

Thank you to those of you who have already signed up for Mystery Reader dates! We spent morning meetings this week talking about MLK Day. We talked about how it is not physical appearance that defines a person. We read many books about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and events that took place in our history. The students cared so much about this topic and it was amazing to have these conversations as a whole group. With Mrs. Griffith this week, we talked about safety when you are with a babysitter or home alone with older siblings. We also talked about hashtags this week and how they sum up a big idea into a small phrase. We will be using hashtags during our lessons now so students can clearly see the main focus of the lesson! We also have a hashtag of the day. Developmentally this is great for second grade because it clearly states the main idea in a fun way!

Mystery Reader Launch!

MYSTERY READERS!

I would like to invite any parents, grandparents, relatives, or other special people to surprise your child by being a “Mystery Reader” this year in our classroom.  Students LOVE having their family, friends, and relatives visit the classroom to share in our learning by reading a favorite story aloud to our class.  Mystery Readers will visit us usually on Fridays from 11:30-11:55 a few times a month.  Readers are asked to bring a picture book to read.  If it is a short book, bring in two!

If you can find a date that works for you, please sign-up to be a Mystery Reader for the 2016 half of the school year! Please email at least two dates (if possible) that will work for you so that I can accommodate with others. You can either e-mail me your preferred dates at sdonlon@sau16.org or send your top three choices in a “top secret” envelope to school with your child.  I will get back to you as soon as possible to confirm your official Mystery Reader date. 

Remember, you are a mystery to the class, so try not to tell your child when you will be coming!

To be a mystery reader you need to come up with five clues about yourself that I can read to the class as hints on Friday during our morning meeting.  You can e-mail the clues to me at any point!

Here is a sample set of clues written by a former mystery reader

1. My favorite book when I was in fourth grade was Charlie

    and the Chocolate Factory.

2. I was the youngest child in my family growing up.

3. My family has one dog as a pet.

4. I love to play Monopoly with my family.

5. My favorite family vacation is visiting our family cottage in York, Maine every summer.

I start with clue #1 and end with clue #5.  As you get closer to clue #5, you should make your clues a bit more revealing so that your child starts to recognize some of the information in the clues.  It is so fun when students realize that their family member is the one who has written the clues and will soon be reading to our class!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Please write me a “secret” note or e-mail if you have any further questions.  We can’t wait to meet our 2016 Mystery Readers!

                                                   Sincerely,

            Ms. Donlon

Newsletter 1/8/16

Happy New Year! It was a wonderful start to 2016 in our classroom this week. Everyone came back to school with such excitement. We spent time sharing about our vacations and getting back in the swing of things- before we knew it, we were off and so excited to learn.

Math

We wrapped up Unit 4 this week. Your child has worked so hard on telling time- being able to read the clock and then draw the time on a clock. We also talked a lot about AM and PM and what activities we might do during these parts of the day. Your child also demonstrated their skills on place value- by showing numbers in expanded form, using base ten blocks/base ten short hand and writing numbers in word form. We celebrated our new knowledge with math games and are ready to move onto Unit 5 which will further our understanding of strategies for adding and subtracting.

Reading

We have amped up our power in reading! The new year not only brought excitement for being back in school but 2D could not wait to get back into Reader's Workshop. It truly amazes me how much this group of students loves to read. We worked hard on fluency this week because we know that the more fluent we read, the more we will comprehend from our reading. We read to our reading partners and even started a fluent reader of the day time after lunch! We then looked at clues authors give us in text. We have been looking at dialogue tags and how they can change our expression. Have your child read these two sentences aloud and explain why dialogue tags are so important to pay attention to!

"I want to go home," she cried.

"I want to go home," she exclaimed!

Science

We are looking closely at liquids this week. We will look at consistency and density and continue to conduct experiments. It is so amazing to see the lab reports that we produce and everyone has come so far with their conclusions. We definitely love our science!

Writing

Along with our lab reports we will begin writing fictional stories with significance and meaning this week! The students love using their imaginations as they write and this will be such a fun mini unit for writing. It will be so great to see them use organizational skills that they learned in our last fiction writing unit.

Dragonfly News

We discussed New Year's Resolutions and the students took them very seriously. I have included some photos! There is no school this coming Monday- January 18th due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day!