ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:
The Winter Concert has been rescheduled. It will be on Thursday, December 12. It begins at 6:00 at the GNG Middle School. Second graders are scheduled to perform at 6:45.
Wednesday is an early release day! Please plan accordingly.
Homework packets are due on Thursday! Please remind your child to put them in their backpacks on Wednesday night. No homework = no free choice Friday!
On Friday, we will be welcoming Maine author/illustrator Ryan Higgins to our school! He will talk about what it’s like writing and illustrating picture books as well as talking about the creative process. If you would like to purchase a copy of his book Twaddleton’s Cheese Please send in $15 with a copy of the order form.
This week, the second grade team has started morning recess! In an effort to give our students more time for physical activity, we came up with the idea of having a morning recess from 8:50 to 9:05. Remember, exercise grows brain cells! What makes us move is what makes us learn!
The chilly and snowy weather has now approached us! Please remember to send your child to school with a jacket, snow pants, boots, mittens, and a hat! They will need it for recess and earned time!
This week in...
Phonics: We are working with the long /o/ sound with the spelling patterns oe, ow, oa, and o. Here are the words we are working with this week: grow, mow, crow, goes, toe, told, most, toast, soap, and foam.
Vocabulary: Here are our new words: imaginary, uniform, practices, starting, tryouts, and coach. We will define these words and build connections to them. Then we will search for them in the short story called Brian Gets Fit on the Field by Emily Goldman.
Comprehension: We will continue working on making inferences. When we infer we are taking what we read in the story and our prior knowledge to make a decision about the story. We will practice this skill while we read There’s Nothing Like Baseball by Angela Johnson.
Grammar: We will work with plural nouns. A plural noun names more than one person place or thing. To change most singular nouns to plural nouns we simply add -s to the end of the word. If a word ends in -sh, -s, ch- or x we add -es to make it plural.
Writing: Our Flat Stanley Projects have finally begun! Team Blowey is currently making themselves flat (a.k.a drawing pictures of themselves) and writing friendly letters to your wonderful friends and family members that were willing to participate! Team Blowey will have to make sure their friendly letters include all letter parts such as the heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature. We’ll also make sure we have capital and lowercase letters where they belong as well as periods at the end of our sentences. We are so excited to get our flat selves in the mail so we can begin to learn more about the US and other countries around the world!
We will also begin a fun writing project that will follow this writing prompt: “If I lived in a snow globe...” Team Blowey will do some brainstorming about how they got in the snow globe, sensory details, as well as a strong beginning, middle, and end to their story. Then, we’ll create a fun craft to go along with the writing. These projects will be on display in the hallway.
Math: We are continuing to learn some more place value games. These games are introducing crucial place value skills that we will be using in our place value units. These games give students a fun way to be introduced to some strategies and having fun practicing them! We will also be doing some work with time, money, and math facts. Our telling time focus this week will be working on time to the nearest hour and half hour. Our money focus will be identifying coins and their values.
We will also be creating another fun holiday glyph! A glyph is a a way to show data or information through a picture. We will read the book The Gingerbread Pirates and create a gingerbread pirate glyph to represent us. For example, if you’re a girl, you’re gingerbread pirate will wear a skirt. If you’re a boy, your gingerbread pirate will wear shorts. These glyphs will be on display on Team Blowey’s own gingerbread house (a.k.a. our classroom door!)
Reader’s Theatre: We will begin transforming our classroom into Studio 10, where stars are born! The class will be divided into three groups, each group performing a different holiday play. Throughout the next two weeks, Team Blowey will be practicing their lines and eventually perform their play for the rest of the class. They will focus on fluency! Fluency means being able to read accurately and with expression... a.k.a use a movie star voice! The three plays will be: The Gingerbread Boy, Mooseltoe, and Olive the Other Reindeer.
Story Elements: Since story elements are such a huge focus in second grade, we will practice them with the fun and enchanting holiday story of The Polar Express. Together, we will read the book and identify the story elements (Title, setting, characters, plot, problem, solution, and moral). Then, Team Blowey will create train cars to represent each of these story elements, in turn, creating their very own Polar Express! We will culminate the activity by watching the movie The Polar Express next week and using our complex reasoning skills to be able to talk about the similarities and the differences between the book and the movie.
I hope everyone has a lovely evening! Enjoy the snow!
