Happy Spring Break!

What a great couple of weeks it's been! It's been so wonderful being able to spend more time outside, and lots of exciting events happened in our class this week! We have been very busy travelling the world, searching for leprechauns, and becoming researchers!

Students did an awesome job on their geometry assessments! We are now in a (rather long) unit reviewing adding and subtracting numbers above 100, estimation, and working with money. Some great things to practice and review at home right now are counting back change, using a benchmark to estimate a number of items, and working with ungrouping when subtracting. One thing that students really enjoyed in math this week was working with estimation while figuring out the mode, median, range, and mean of estimates in our classroom. We will also be taking some time over the next few weeks to look at function boxes and discuss finding an unknown addition or subtraction rule.

I have had a great time travelling around the world with our class! So far, we have visited Antarctica (brrr!), Asia (ask your 2nd grader about the kite that he or she made!), Africa (did you know the world's largest diamond was found there?), Australia (mmm...fairy bread!), and Europe (just in time for St. Patrick's Day!) After the break we will tour North and South America. Thanks so much to Gretchen and Carrie for coming in to do a baking activity with the class in Africa! We really enjoyed the sweet cornbread! As you begin to help your child prepare for the geography assessment on April 1, some things to think about are the location of the seven continents and oceans (on the assessment, students will use a word bank to label a blank world map), as well as fun and interesting facts about each of the continents. Students should also be able to use a compass rose to answer questions about the cardinal directions.

We began our big animal research project this week. Students are working in pairs to research an assigned animal. We spent some time yesterday researching on the computer, and some time this morning taking notes out of books (the class is becoming very efficient at using the index in the back of a book to locate information!). I hope that you will take some time with your child to check out the National Geographic for Kids link to the side. This is the website that we used for research yesterday, and it has so much great information about many animals. Students especially enjoyed the short animal videos on the site!

We will take the Monday after spring break to review Daily 5...the second graders have gotten a little "comfortable" during the final trimester and seem to need a Daily 5 crash course. Reading groups will resume Tuesday. Students did not receive a new spelling sort this week. We are continuing to practice dictionary use in our classroom. If students are doing writing at home and you have a children's dictionary handy, please encourage your child to use guide words and alphabetical order to search for words.

I realized today that I neglected to send out a Scholastic order for the month of March...so sorry about that! I will send out an April order the day after spring break, and will try to squeeze in one more order this school year, probably at the end of April. Be sure to stock up with books for the summer months! I received several e-mails back stating interest in a summer book club, so stay tuned for information about that. Also, please let me know if you are interested in a tutor list for the summer months. I am able to offer tutoring, and I know that several other staff members tutor and would be great as well if you would like for your child to have some one-on-one practice in reading, math, or writing over the summer.

I hope that you all have a magnificent spring break, full of sunny days and fun times! Thanks, as always, for all that you do!

2nd graders travel the world!

I really enjoyed meeting with all of you at conferences last week! It is so hard to believe that we are into our last trimester of the school year. It has been such a fun year, and I am really looking forward to many more adventures in our classroom this spring!

Students were assessed on coin counting and subtraction with ungrouping on Thursday. They did a really great job! We are now working on a mini-unit on geometry. Vocabulary words students are learning include: congruent, polygons, regular polygons, irregular polygons, area, similar, slide, flip, and turn. This unit will wrap up at the end of the week, and then we will revisit both 2-digit addition and subtraction strategies in unit 11.

During our language block, we have been working on using a dictionary. Students are assigned a different word each day to look up in a dictionary, using guide words and knowledge of alphabetical order. We will continue dictionary practice this week. We will also start our new author study...Joanna Cole, the author of the Magic School Bus books. If your child has any Magic School bus books to share, he or she is welcome to bring them in and we will have a look!

For the next week and a half, students will be working on using the six trait model to write personal narratives and stories. This week, we will be focusing on word choice, organization, and sentence fluency. Late next week, our class will begin a research writing project on animals.

We are starting one of my favorite social studies units! For the next month, students will be travelling the world! Our class will "visit" every continent and learn about language, culture, foods, and landforms in each continent. On the geography assessment at the end of the unit, students will be responsible for labeling the 7 continents and the oceans on a blank world map. This would be a great thing for you to be working on with your child! I have added a link to an online game to practice this skill under our Social Studies links...check it out!

Our field trip to the Kansas City zoo is scheduled for Friday, April 29. I will be needing 5 volunteers to ride the bus with us to the zoo and help lead student groups. 3 of you have already volunteered for this, so I need two more! This will be on a "first come, first served" basis. Of course, if the bus fills up, some of you are welcome to meet us at the zoo as well!

As always, thank you for all that you do!