Monday, January 14, 2013

Week 21



Welcome to week twenty-one! This week’s theme is: Inventions Week!
Term 2 ended on Thursday.  Expect progress reports to come home with your child soon!

The second graders have made great progress in learning to line up quickly.  They are motivated to earn points toward a special class activity.  Each time the class lines up within a five second countdown, the class earns a point.  When each class earns thirty points, they will be allowed to make tube sock snow men.  In addition, if they earn eight points in one day, the “Monkey will come out!” This is a surprise, they have not seen yet!

Due to a scheduling conflict our January field trip will be moved to February.  We will have two field trips next month!  Look for more information regarding the field trips coming soon!  We are hoping to go to a grocery store.  If  you have any connections with any local groceries, please let us know.

Here is a look at what we are learning this week:

Art: Students will continue working on their student directed art projects using mediums such as collage, pastels, paper construction, and water color.

ASL:  Signing time with Alex and Leah, food, cooking, and gardening fun.  If you want to send in any healthy snacks for thirty to learn to sign and eat, please feel free!

Dance:  Students will continue to study shape relationships i.e. far/ away, over/ under.
Health: Hygiene. 

Math: Students will review one digit to one digit and then begin studying two digit addition.

Music: Drum beats, recognition and names of notes on the staff- Children are learning FACE and Every Good Boy Does Fine mnemonics to help remember names of notes.

PE: Students are working on their Presidential Fitness by running or walking laps of our school. Second Grade has already run 100 miles this school year! We hope to make it to 200 miles by Thanksgiving.  Please have your children dressed for weather as we will go out in the cold, clear, crisp air this winter! Inside, we are working on sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, tumbling, and some basketball.

Reading: Large Group Phonics: Short Vowel Review, Small Group Phonics: Vowel Combinations: ai, ay, Shared Reading: Guided Reading by leveled groups, Centers (SSR, iPods, Computers, Partner reading)

Science: Students will finish up their study of animals and their habitats and begin their study of physical science.

Social Studies: Students will continue to study cultures around the world.

Spanish: Students will continue to study the vocabulary for fruits and vegetables in preparation for our test next week. 



Writing:
  • Writing: Hand writing with Mrs. P: This week we will be starting cursive!  We will start our study of cursive with some warm up exercises.

  • Composition with Mrs. P: During composition time students will work on non-fiction writing about their favorite planet.

  • Spelling with Mrs. S: Students are grouped by levels and engage in Words Their Way sorting activities.  Students sort words into categories by sounds patterns according to their present level of functioning.  We finished our MOY (middle of year) assessment. Those who were absent need to make this up while the others continue to work on their new sorts for the week.

  • Sentence Fundamentals with Mrs. S:: Students will continue their study of PENSMARK, a self-regulating strategy developed to teach sentence fundamentals: capital letters, end marks, making sense, simple sentence formulas, and subject/ verb identification. PENSMARK is a mnemonic device that stands for Pick a formula, Explore words to fit the formula, Note the words, Search and Check, Mark out the imposters, Ask “Is there a verb?”, Root out the subject, and Key in on the beginning, middle, and end. Everyone has mastered the three requirements of a complete sentence: Capital letter, End mark, and “Makes sense.” We finished the prerequisite skills for identifying subject nouns and verbs:  Now we are applying those skills to identify the subjects and verbs in the sentences.  This is a prerequisite skill for the second grade benchmark skill: I can correctly use adjectives, adverbs and the past tense of irregular verbs.  Since subject-verb identification may be review for some, students will work at their own pace advancing to the next level as soon as they receive a score of 100 on three consecutive trials.  Students are currently writing sentences using the SV formula for present tense verbs.  After that they will write SV sentences using the past and future tense of verbs from their verb banks. 

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