Happy Holidays

 Happy Holidays from Room 206!

Wishing you a new year full of joy.

Weekly Updates December 14

We have had a busy week! We were troopers with some end of the 9 weeks tests, finished our social studies unit, completed our math unit, and we had a great day celebrating holidays around the world with all the second grade teachers!

It's the final countdown until winter break. Here is what is going on next week.

Phonics

There will be no spelling list next week due to the short week.

ELA/Writing

We will finish our personal narratives about a time we got hurt or sick.

Math

On Monday we will introduce our unit on geometry. Chapter 5 is about lines and shapes.

Science

We will not start our new unit until we come back in January. It is a really fun, engaging unit that I am excited about. We will be moving on to learning about matter. We will have lots of hands on learning in science. I will show them a video to introduce the unit on Monday, and we will delve into the content and experiments after break.

Class Party

Tuesday we have our class party at 11:00. The kids will be making gingerbread houses. Anyone is welcome to join us.

Pajama Day

Wednesday will be a special treat. It will be pajama day in our room. We will do a craft, read The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg and then watch the movie. Just will be a good, relaxing last day.

Supplies

I will send an e-mail out, but I am going to ask for supply repleneshment for the new semester after winter break.

All I am asking they bring is a school box, one box of colored pencils, and one box of markers.

At the beginning of year we did communal supplies, and I am not liking it. I guess you live and learn as a first year teacher! They are running low quickly and it has become a mess.

 If they just bring a school box, markers, and colored pencils, they can keep those coloring supplies in the school box, and I will give each child a pair of scissors and gluesticks from our supplies we already have.

I hope everyone is ok with this.

If they could bring it next week we can get them ready for January.

Thank You

Thank you for a great first semester class. I couldn't have asked for a sweeter class. Thanks for sharing your children with me everyday.

Holiday Rotation Pictures

The class had a great time celebrating holidays in all of the second grade classrooms today!

They celebrated Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukkah, New Years, St. Lucia, and Las Posadas.

Here are a couple pictures of them playing dreidel in our classroom for Hanukkah.

Marin and Luke playing dreidel. Marin is wearing a St. Lucia crown from the St. Lucia activity.

Carter and Jia playing dreidel.

Mollie playing dreidel.

Spencer playing dreidel.

Comma Game

Here is a link to a game we played in class to practice using commas in a series.

Commas in a series is when we use commas to separate a list of items or phrases in a sentence.

Example: Josh put apples, grapes, and cherries in the grocery basket.

The family went to the movies, played at the park, and ate at a restaurant last weekend.

Comma Confusion!

Happy Chanukkah

Chanukkah Sameach to all in our class who celebrate!

Weekly Updates December 7

Here is a look into what we are doing next week!

We had a great field trip to the Fox Theater today to see the Atlanta Ballet perform. I think the girls were definitely more enthralled than the boys, but so goes it!

Phonics

Next week in phonics we will explore the vowel-consonant-e pattern, which makes an "open syllable".

This is when a syllable has a vowel, consonant, followed by the silent E that makes the vowel "say its name".

Example- cape, cone, like

Phonics lessons are definitely not our most exciting part of the day, but the system we use is proven to be effective for increasing spelling skills and reading skills.

ELA/Writing

We will continue a little bit with commas in a series for ELA, but the kids pretty much have this down-pact so we won't spend too much time on it.

We will have an ELA test on Thursday to cover the second nine weeks: adjectives, commas in a series, friendly letter format, adverb identification. I will send home a review on Tuesday.

We are working on a personal narrative in writing. They are writing an Ouch! story about a time they got hurt or were really sick. We made brainstorm webs, had a lesson on transition words in writing, and started our rough drafts. I plan on finishing rough drafts, doing a lesson on editing marks, self-editing our rough drafts, and hopefully we will have a "published" personal narrative piece before the break.

Reading

We have been integrating story elements into literacy centers and guided reading.

In guided reading some groups are doing "book club" (literature circle), some are working on reading strategies with leveled readers, and we are re-inforcing phonics skills.

Math

On Monday we will do a review in class for the math test, which is on Tuesday.

I will send it home with them if you want to review it with them after.

We will also do math centers exploring clocks, shape attributes, and equal sharing.

Social Studies

We will wrap up our unit on Exploring Georgia. We will test on Friday.

Extra Info

Wednesday 12/12- Cultural Arts Performance at school

Friday 12/14- Second Grade holiday rotations

Tuesday 12/18 Class party

Wednesday 12/19- Pajama Day

Social Studies Test Date Change

Due to Challenge being on Mondays, we will have the test next Friday, December 14. I will send the review home on Tuesday, and we will play a review game the Thursday before.

End of the Semester Fun!

The post below has test dates. This post has dates of FUN things we will be doing.

Friday December 7

Field Trip to Atlanta Ballet

Friday December 14

2nd Grade Holiday Rotations

The second grade teachers will each be coming up with a holiday lesson and classes will be rotating from room to room.

Tuesday December 18

Class Party

Wednesday December 19

Pajama Day!

Please allow your child to wear their pajamas as we will be doing crafts and having a movie party for the last day of school before break with fun snacks!

Test Schedule for Remainder of 2nd Nine Weeks

Here are the test dates for the rest of the 9 weeks.

Friday December 7 - Spelling Test

Tuesday December 11- Unit 2 Math Test

Review will be done in class on Monday.

Thursday December 13- 2nd 9 Weeks ELA Test

I will send home a review on Tuesday.

Friday December 14- Spelling Test

Monday December 17- Social Studies Test

I will send the review for this home the Wednesday before for them to work on.

It will be due the Monday of the test. They can get it done before the weekend and keep it until Monday in case they still want to look at it before Monday.



High Touch High Tech Pictures

We had a great time today with High Touch High Tech's lesson called Gas Blast about the states of matter.

Bailey grimacing at the smell of vinegar!

Charlie and Sophia shooting the foam darts.

Jeremy and Nikoloas investigating mass.

Caleb and Carter checking out liquids.

Luke looking at the liquids.

Marin playing at the liquids center.



Important Note About 2 Digit Addition

Looks like the post about partial sums did not format the way I had typed it!

I will send home a hard copy of how to do partial sums this week in your child's binder.

Weekly Updates - November 30

I am sorry to have been behind on the blog! Between the workshop I attended before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving break, and getting back into the swing of things this week, it has been a little hectic!

Here's what is going on in the school day!

ELA/Writing



We have gone through the main parts of speech this year: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. My focus now is on having them incorporate these into their writing and being able to identify them.

This coming week we will begin work on a personal narrative about a time they got hurt. I am calling it an Ouch! story.

We will also learn about using commas in a series.

Reading

Continue to encourage your children to be reading AR books. They have until winter break to meet their goals, and there are many who have not yet done so.

We are continuing to focus on story elements in reading: character, setting, problem/solution.

Social Studies

We are working on the 5 regions of Georgia, the 7 rivers in Georgia, and map skills.

Next week we will finish learning about the rivers and where they are located in Georgia, and we will learn about grid maps.

At home, playing the game Battleship is a great way to build grid map skills.

I will probably test in Social Studies on Thursday December 13. This date may change.

Math

Next week we will continue learning how to add two digit numbers.

I have started them off by teaching them strategies such as estimation by rounding the addends, counting up (by 10's, then by 1's), and partial sums.

We will work more next week on partial sums. Please see my post (about 2 posts back) about partial sums. It is not a strategy we grew up with, so please be patient. I really do believe it is a better, more developmentally appropriate way for them to learn 2 digit addition.

I will probably test in math on Tuesday, December 11. This date is subject to change.

Field Trips

Monday December 3- High Touch High Tech comes to school

Friday December 7- Atlanta Ballet - The Nutcracker

Pictures from Math Game

Nikolaos

Carter and Sophia

Important Note about Two Digit Number Addition

Important Note about 2 digit numbers- Please do not have your child do math where they are carrying a number over. I am teaching it to them in a different way, called partial sums algorithm. Partial sums is a better way to develop number sense.

A "Family Note" is on Home Links 4.9 explaining how this works.

Here is an example.

    42                          First I have them add the numbers in the "one's" place. 2+9 = 11. They write
+  39                          11 under the equal line. Then they look to the "ten's" place. 40+30 =70. They
---------                       write 70 under 11. They now have the sums of the "ones" and the sums
    11                           of the "tens". We have broken the number up into tens and ones. Then add
+  70                           the two sums together. It makes for an easier addition problem.
______
    81

We've got CHARACTER! Mask Book Reports

Weekly Updates November 5

ELA and Phonics

This week we will slowly begin to talk about adverbs. An adverb is a word that describes a verb, an adjective, or can describe another adverb.

The underlined word is the adverb. The bold word is the word is describes.

Describing a verb - The boy walked slowly.

Describing an adjective- She is very good at math facts.

Describes another adverb- He ran very quickly.

We are working on suffixes in phonics. These are things we have incorporated into ELA in the past, so it should be pretty easy for the kids.

Phonics Rules to Think About for This Week:

1. To make a word plural, add -s or -es.

We choose -es when the base word ends in s, ch, sh, x, or z.

Any other time we use s, unless its irregular.

2. We add -ing to a verb to show it is happening now.

We add -ed to show it already happened.

3. We add -er to an adjective to compare two things.

We add -est to an adjective to compare two or more things.

Reading

We are continuing to study story elements.

Your child has a book report due on Friday, November 9. It is a project all of second grade is doing together. Directions were sent home in the binder today, as well as a rubric on the back.

I will be incorporating story elements, adjectives, and Thanksgiving themes all together over the next couple of weeks.

Math

We will have a math test on Wednesday. I sent home a review today. Please have your child turn this in on Wednesday.

Social Studies

This week we will be learning the 5 regions of Georgia. Today we learned the names of the regions, and this week we will work on characteristics of the regions.

I had the children snap a map of Georgia with the regions into their MOOSE binders to look at with you at home.

Ms. Perlman Updates

I will be out the following dates:

Thursday November 8 (APS New Teacher Workshop)

Monday November 12-Thursday November 15

(Focused on Phonics Workshop)

These are required workshops for various teachers. Thank you for your patience in my absence. I am leaving some good activities for ELA and lesson plans for math and social studies with a good sub who is a retired educator.

Mystery Reader October 26 and November 2

Thank you Lisa Milam for being our Mystery Reader on October 26.

Thank you Liz Lieberman for coming in with their friend JJ to read on November 2!



Social Studies

These are the definitions for the terms they are using on the foldable.

These are for you to use to make sure your children are going in the right direction.

The students should put definitions in their own words.

This is due Friday, but I would recommend starting tomorrow, not tonight, as we just started learning these today. They will know them better tomorrow.

community: a place where people work, live, and play

state: a section of land within the United States

country: the land and the people who live there

continent: a large body of land on Earth

Math Test

There will be a Unit 3 math test on Wednesday, November 7.

The test will cover adding coins, counting back change, addition facts, counting by 5's, 2 rule frame and arrow problems, reading a bar graph, and reading a thermometer.

I will send home a review on Monday.

Room 206 Weekly Updates

Phonics

We are continuing our study of glued sounds in phonics. We will be learning the -ild,-ind, -olt, -ost,

-old sounds and spelling patterns.

ELA

We are continuing to work on adjectives this week. We will learn about comparative and superlative adjectives. We will do Smart Board lessons on these, and adjectives will be imbedded into literacy centers.

Reading

This week we will begin our study of story elements. We will do an overview of all of them: characters, setting, plot, problem, solution, theme.

Our focus this week will be characters. We are going to learn how to identify main characters and character traits.

Our current chapter book read-aloud is The BFG by Roald Dahl. This is the third Roald Dahl book we have read this year as part of a Roald Dahl author study. Last week we learned a bit about the author's life.

Math

The math objectives this week are being able to count back change and work with two-rule frame and arrow problems.

We will learn to count back change in the following way: The pencil costs 67 cents and I pay with three quarters. How much change will I get back?

Students will count up using the least amount of change starting with how much the item costs until they reach the amount paid.

For this I would count up from 67 cents with 3 pennies to reach 70 cents, and then use a nickel to reach 75 cents. My change would then be 8 cents.

This is a good way to practice at home. Subtracting cost from amount paid is not developmentally appropriate to figure out the amount of change, as many 2nd graders cannot subtract 2 digit numbers in their heads or on paper.

Social Studies

We will begin the unit called "Exploring Georgia". This week we will learn about where we live: community, city, state, country, continent, world.

We will work on our map skills by learning to use a map key.

We are giving a social studies homework assignment that is due on Friday. I will send home the blank foldable for your child to use.

Directions are on the homework planner, but I will put more detailed guidelines on the blog tomorrow.

Communication

Please continue to check the blog for class information and announcements.

Please make sure you are reading your child's homework planner and signing the reading log portion to turn in on Friday.

Creating Timelines

We created timelines today of our Wednesday school schedule. We practiced putting the correct times on analog clocks and putting the times in order.

Students understand the short hand is the hour hand and the long hand is the minute hand.

We are also working on understanding the hour hand moves slowly as the minute hand moves around the clock.



Fall Adjective Wordle

Today we brainstormed adjectives that describe Fall using an ABC brainstorm organizer.

We then came together with our individual ideas to create a whole class brainstorm.

Check out our Wordle that we created!

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5910462/Fall_Adjectives

Just for a Smile

During our literacy centers, I found a trio of singers in my room.

They took a new take on "Read to Someone" with the 13 Nights of Halloween book.

Mystery Reader

Thank you Amy Streelman for being our Mystery Reader today!

Links You Can Use at Home

Phases of the Moon Game
http://www.neok12.com/diagram/Moon-01.htm

Number Sense Game- Place Value - Greater Than/Less Than
http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/math-games/number-sense/

Room 206 Weekly Updates

We had a great week learning in room 206! Here is what is on tap for next week.

Phonics

Our spelling focus next week is glued sounds such as ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, unk.

We started talking about "Bossy R" vowels this week and will continue next week. A "Bossy R" vowel is when the letter r comes after a vowel, and it controls the way the vowel sounds.

Here are some examples for Bossy R that we learned this week:

ar-car-/ar/

or-horn-/or/

We will learn the sounds for /ir/, /ur/, /er/ next week.

ELA/Reading/Writing

We are going to continue our study of adjectives next week. I hope you enjoyed the pictures from our adjective face-in-a-hole project this week.

Next week we will be investigating fall gourds/vegetables and using adjectives to describe them.

We will brainstorm adjectives that describe "Fall" to connect with our current season and our science curriculum.

We will also connect to science by writing a five line poem about any of the seasons. Each line will use a different sense to incorporate using senses and visualization.

Math

Next week will focus on telling time. We will use hands-on clocks that we can manipulate to help us understand the functions of the minute and hour hands. We will create clock booklets and work in small groups with the teacher for extra support.

We will also spiral back to base-10 by doing a building numbers activity using place-value mats and number cards.

Science

We are wrapping up our unit on the sun, moon, and stars next week. On Monday and Tuesday they will use choice boards to pick in-class projects to work on to show their understanding of the content.

On Wednesday we will play a review game in class, and on Thursday we will take a test to assess this unit.

Field Trip

Friday we will be going as a grade-level to the Center for Puppetry Arts to see the puppet show The Headless Horseman. I will be contacting you if your child has not turned in a permission slip yet.

Heather Regnault will serve as a chaperone. Thank you Heather!

AR

Please continue to encourage your child to be reading AR books to reach their goals.

Seasons Books

Please remember that your child's season book is due tomorrow. It is a grade, and it is imperative that they turn it in. Thank you!

Adjective Faces!

Check out our adjective self portraits!