Friday, April 9, 2010

Classroom Summary for April 5-9

The sun! The sun! My kingdom for the sun! (I knew I'd use Shakespeare some day.) This week in class we were very busy working on our spring paragraphs which are currently being displayed above our cubbies in the second grade hallway. We used our journals to generate ideas and a rough draft and then used those ideas in a graphic organizer to help us keep our thoughts organized and sequential.



We also continued to work on our phonics skills (vowel diphthongs) and saw how one word can contain many of the skills that we've been working on all year. Here is an example:

                                                choice

In the word "choice," there is a consonant digraph, a diphthong, a silent e AND a soft c. We are getting really good at being able to decode words we have never seen before. As a result it is even more important that we get help from read alouds and partner reading (parents included!) to help us understand not only how to decode these new words but to understand what they mean. For example, see if you can read this word:

                                              soothsayer

Just because you can read it, doesn't mean you know what it is! Make sure you're questioning, discussing and talking about what you read. :) Use a dictionary to find out what this new word means and leave a comment on our blog with your answer!


In spelling we have been continuing to work on homophones. We have finished working on the last unit (unit 32) in our workbooks, but because we "skipped over" some of the units (Miss Varrell wanted to introduce them with the phonics book first), we will be going backwards through our books so that we can use them as review lessons! Below you will see some pictures of us with our spelling partners taking our spelling tests.




In math we began a new unit in our Investigations book. We are continuing to work with tens and ones and working towards trading and renaming (carrying and borrowing to those of you who were born in the Jurassic era like Miss Varrell). We are also continuing to look for numeric patterns in our hundreds chart and reviewing simple fractions like 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4.

In social studies we finished our unit on India when Mrs. Hundley, the social studies curriculum coordinator, came to teach us a lesson about Ghandi and about the Taj Mahal. We know a lot about several different countries now!

In science we have been working on learning about reptiles and amphibians. Last week we focused on reptiles and this week the focus was on amphibians. We have had several animal visitors over the past few weeks to help us see how these animals function in real life!

F.Y.I.
Jake, the gerbil, will be needing a fun spring  getaway for April vacation. If your family is interested in allowing him into your home over vacation week, please send me an email/note on Monday so that we can make arrangements for pick up and drop off. Jake comes with shavings, food, and a gerbil ball. He is great fun to have around and is very well mannered.




Enjoy the weekend!
Miss Varrell

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