December 16-20

     Well since Thanksgiving vacation, the last three weeks of school flew by!  In fact we were so busy with our academics, music programs and Christmas parties that I haven't had much time to post anything!  Well here's what we've been up to for the past few weeks:  Our Junior field student from NSU had spend the last 4 weeks helping us out in the classroom.  Miss Maag helped with guided reading small groups and even did a reading lesson for us on the story "Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type". 
     We worked on Cause and Effect and Compare/Contrast.  For grammar we worked on R-controlled vowels (ar,or, ir, ur, er) and proper use of linking verbs.  For writing, we did a craftivity where the students wrote why they would make a good reindeer.
      In Math, we worked hard the last few weeks on money.  Counting money, adding/subtracting money, and making change.  We even had a "math store" in our room where the students "bought" things counting out plastic coins in the least amount.  We are officially done with our chapter on money but will continue to do different review activities with money throughout the year. 
      The students worked hard on reading their AR books this past month and we went to the AR store and got to spend some or our hard earned points!  The students will have another chance to go to the store again at the end of the year, so keep reading! 
      Our music program was on Wednesday, December 18th.  The students did a wonderful job of singing!  Our Christmas party was on December 20th.  We had a fun day of watching "Planes" and getting a visit from Santa!  In the afternoon the students had their classroom party where we played games and had treats.  Now we are officially on break until Monday, January 6th.  Enjoy the time with your family and friends!  Merry Christmas!

 Our Reindeer Writing

 

Looking good at the Christmas program!

 

Here comes Santa Claus...

 

Christmas Party Fun!

 

Merry Christmas from 2nd Grade!

 

November 18-26, 2013

This past week and a half in second grade, we wrapped up our chapter on double digit subtraction with regrouping.  "If there's more on the floor, borrow next door.  If there's more on top, no need to stop!"  We also started our new chapter on money.  The first two lessons were an introduction to the coins and their value (which should be review from last year) and counting change.  Knowing how to count money is an important skill children will need for the rest of their lives.  Parents, please practice with your children at home!  We also wrapped up our month on nonfiction and did a couple more nonfiction book reports.  In phonics, we worked on R-controlled er, ir, ur, and also started talking about consonant le.  We finished our latest chapters in science and social studies, so be ready for tests to come next week.  Enjoy the 5 day Thanksgiving vacation break!

November 11th-15th, 2013

This past week we celebrated Veterans' Day by learning about the branches of the military and what they do.  We also talked about the history behind Veterans' Day and why we are thankful for our Veterans.  We did a writing craftivity where we wrote why we are thankful for our veterans and made bald eagles with our handprints.  We also attended the Veterans Day program on Monday and had a story read to us by a member of the Ladies Auxiliary.  The students also made cards to be delivered to local Veterans.  In math, we are now working on 2-digit subtraction with regrouping.  Math facts flashcards are going to be coming home this week for students to practice.  We are reading nonfiction books for Nonfiction November.  The students got to choose a nonfiction book from the library to read then did a book report on it.  We are working on identifying facts and new vocabulary.

Our Nonfiction Book Reports

 

 

We are Thankful for our Veterans

 

 

Week 10

This past week in 2nd grade was a crazy one!  With the Halloween party on Thursday, and no school on Friday due to conferences, we squeezed in as much as we could.  In math, we continued to work with regrouping in addition and rounding to the nearest ten.  We learned a little saying to help us with rounding:  "If it's 5 or more, raise the score.  If it's 4 or less, let it rest."  For grammar we continued to work on singular and plural possessives. In reading, we read a realistic fiction story and discussed the difference between fantasy and realistic fiction.  For the month of November, our principal has issued it be Nonfiction November!  We will work on reading and doing several activities with nonfiction stories this month.  Our Halloween party on Thursday was a lot of fun.  Thank you to our room parents for planning games and bringing snacks!

 

Week 9

Nine weeks down already!  Reports card went home and conferences will be next week.  We worked on adding some more artwork/writing to our hallway.  We made footprint ghosts and wrote an acrostic poem for the word GHOST.  We also worked on synonyms this week and made synonym candy corn and "spooks" to hang up to replace our antonym ants we had worked on previously.  In math we reviewed place value with a spooky place value game and we started Regrouping!  I was very pleased at how well the students did!  We did several different formats to understand regrouping from using unifix cubes to using magnets to visualize the concept of regrouping.  We also worked problems out on our white boards showing regrouping and how to "carry to the attic".  The students are doing very well!  In grammar we worked on singular and plural possessive nouns and our spelling words for the week contain the vowel teams of oe, oa, and ow.

Ghostly Acrostic Poetry

 

 

Spooky Place Value

 

 

 Spooktacular Synonyms

Week 8

This week in 2nd grade, we finished our chapter on data and graphs for math.  Next week we'll be starting 2-digit addition first with no regrouping, then regrouping!  We kept taking about vowel teams, especially ai and ay.  Several of our spelling words contained ai/ay.  We also wrapped up our chapter about plants in science.  In grammar we talked about correct ways to write abbreviations and we also discussed contractions.  We even played a candy corn contraction game.  For writing, we wrote about our "mummies" and made paper plate mummies with toilet paper and google eyes!

 

Week 7

This week in 2nd grade, we talked about antonyms.  We discussed how antonyms are words that mean the opposite or almost the opposite.  We even made "antonym ants".  The students got a word and wrote that word on their ant.  Then they had to look up antonyms for their word on a dictionary app on our ipads.  They had to find two antonyms for their word and write them on their ant also. Then we colored them and hung them up on our lockers.  Besides antonyms, we also discussed proper punctuation and letter writing for grammar.  We also wrote Halloween stories and published them.  The students drew out of a bucket for a character, setting, and two verbs that needed to be included in their stories.  As we are working on developing our writing, the students needed to have two paragraphs for their stories this time.  I'm pretty impressed at some of our writing abilities!  In math, we are working on interpreting data and making pictographs and bar graphs.  We also talked about Christopher Columbus and watched a video on his important voyage and why we celebrate the holiday Columbus Day.  In science, we wrapped up our chapter on plants with a test to come this week.  Our grass in our greenhouses sprouted and the students were able to take them home.

 

Our Antonym Ants!

Week 6

This past week in 2nd Grade, we went green...green thumb that is!  Plants was the topic for both reading and science.  We learned about parts of a plant and what each part does, plus we did a couple of experiments.  We put celery in cups filled with colored water and waited and watched how the stem of the celery acts like a straw.  After a few days we could see the water in the cup going down and the leaves changing to the color of the water!

 

For reading, we read Eric Carle's "The Tiny Seed".  We found out some other interesting facts about seeds and plants.

 

Then we made our own "greenhouses".  We cut the greenhouse out of construction paper and used a Ziploc bag as the "window".  After decorating them, we dipped a cotton ball in water and put grass seed on the wet cotton ball.  We put our seeds in the Ziploc bag and taped the bag into the inside of the greenhouse.  Then we hung our greenhouses in the window so the sun will shine on our seeds and after a while, we should be able to see them sprout!

 (Now we just need some sun after the last few days of clouds and rain!)

 

One other project we worked on this week was making bats to hang in our room to help decorate it for the month of October.  We took black construction paper and traced our hands on it with a white crayon.  We cut the hands out to use as the wings of our bats.  Then we cut out a body for our bats.  Some children chose circles for the body, others chose squares or hearts.  We also cut out two triangles for the ears.  Then we glued our bats together and added wiggle eyes and drew on a face.

"Spooktacular"!