December 2014

This past month in 2nd Grade was very busy.  We had the hustle and bustle of Christmas programs, Christmas parties and of course wrapping up our first semester.  We finished up our last social studies test on consumers and producers and our last science test on natural resources.  We also finished up the first book in our reading series and ended with the story Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type. We also did a writing activity about "applying" for Rudolph's job.  In math we started working with money and we also made Christmas ornaments for our parents.  This first semester was busy but fun and we are looking forward to a great second semester starting in January!

November 17-25, 2014

Well the month of November has flown by! These past two weeks in second grade were busy learning about food chains/food webs in science, a brief overview in social studies about the Native Americans, the pioneers, moving west, and the Civil War. We talked about verbs and past tense verbs in grammar, we made Thanksgiving cards and wrote about why we were thankful for our families, and we started typing in computers!  I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break. Only three, busy, crazy weeks in December and it'll be Christmas break!

 Making Food Chains...

 Thanksgiving Cards...

We used our faces for the head of the turkey and our hands for the body. We then glued feathers on and added legs.  Inside the card, we wrote: "I am thankful for (mom, dad, etc.) because..."

Nov. 3-7, 2014

We've been pretty busy in 2nd grade these past two weeks.  We wrapped up October with a fun Halloween party and jumped right into November!  This past week we worked on verbs in grammar and of course kept reviewing nouns as well.  We read an African folk tale about how our body became assembled and discussed what makes a folk tale different from other genres of stories.  In math, we started addition with regrouping.  We've been practicing regrouping with addition of 2-digit numbers.  In science, we are talking about food chains and food webs.  Next week we will make our own food chain projects.  In social studies, we are reading about U.S. history and just read about the Revolutionary War.  We also discussed Veterans Day and what it means to be a veteran.  We did a craftivity where the students made eagles using their hand prints and wrote why they are thankful for our veterans.

Oct. 14-17, 2014

This past week in 2nd Grade, we read about visiting a hospital and an emergency room for reading.  We worked on R controlled words for phonics and long A words for spelling containing the vowel teams of ai/ay.  In Math we worked on picture graphs and problem solving by making a table to help us.  In grammar we worked on proper nouns and abbreviations of certain proper nouns like Mr., Mrs. Dr., Ms., etc. In science we continued our study of plants.  We made greenhouses and "planted" grass seed on a wet cotton ball so we can watch it sprout and see the roots grow.  Very exciting!  The students can't wait until the grass sprouts and they can see it start to grow!

We also had a cool show-n-tell this week!  A student brought in an actual shark's jaw and we were able to see all the teeth inside of it!

Oct. 6-10, 2014

This past week in 2nd grade, we worked on similes in language arts and made our own similes on Popplet.  We also talked about antonyms and made antonym ants.  In science we started our chapter on plants and did an experiment using celery and colored water to see how the stem of the celery works like a straw to suck up the water and take it to the leaves, changing the color of the leaves.  In math, we started working with data and picture graphs.  We also wrote an acrostic poem about GHOSTs and made a footprint ghost to go with it.  One other project we did was make bats to "spookify" our room.  We traced our hands for the wings of the bat!

 Silly Similes

 Spooktacular Bats!

 Super Science

 Antonym Ants

 Working Hard

Ghostly Acrostic Poetry

Sept. 29-Oct. 3, 2014

This past week in 2nd Grade, we read the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.  This story is a great intro to our next chapter in science on plants.  We also did an author study on Eric Carle and read several of his other books and watched a video in which Carle demonstrates how he does his artwork for his stories.  In Phonics, we worked with R Controlled words and talked about how the r in ar, or, er, ir, and ur is like a "bully".  The r makes those vowels say the r sound.  In grammar we worked on nouns and using commas in series.  For math, we worked on how addition and subtraction are related and how to subtract all or subtract zero.  We also did an Educreation project on the iPad using subtraction story problems.  We took our science test on animals which all the students did very well on.  In social studies we discussed land forms like islands, peninsulas, mountains, plains, etc.

Sept. 15-19, 2014

This past week in 2nd Grade we learned how to email.  The students are able to email me on their iPads and I can respond back to them.  We also worked on a new app called Chatter Kids.  In reading we read the nonfiction story Meet Rosina which is a story about a girl who is deaf.  The students then used the app Chatter Kids to take a picture of Rosina from the text and could make her mouth move while they recorded their own voices retelling the main idea/key details from the story.  This was a very fun way to work with retell and main idea!  In phonics, we worked on the vowel teams of ee,ea, oa, and oe.  In grammar we worked on predicates and using commas to separate day/year and city/state.  In math we worked on addition doubles and doubles plus one.  In science we started talking about mammals and birds and in social studies we took our first test over communities.  This past week was also homecoming week, so we had a lot of fun participating in the various dress up days and of course got to be in the homecoming parade.

Ready for the Parade!

Pajama Day

 Wacky Day

Dr. Seuss Character Day

Twin Day

Spirit Day

Sept. 8-12, 2014

This past week in 2nd grade, we read a nonfiction article about wildfires.  We discussed the difference between fiction and nonfiction and we discovered the main idea and supporting details of the article.  We also did another Popplet on the story using main idea/details and this time learned how to take a picture with our iPads and incorporated that into our Popplets.  In Phonics we continued to work with V-E words and the vowel teams of ai/ay and oe/oa.  We talked about in a vowel team "When two vowels go walking, the first vowel does the talking."  Meaning that in a vowel team, you say the name of the first vowel only.  In Grammar we worked on subjects and identifying complete and incomplete sentences.  In Math we continued to work on addition incorporating the mathematical terms sum, doubles, and addends.  We used another app on our iPads called Educreations.  There students had to come up with an addition story problem and the app records their voice while they draw the problem out then it plays back their writing and voice so we could share with other students in our class what our story problem was.  (Very cool!  The students really enjoyed it!)  In Science, we took our first test over Living/Nonliving Things and all the students did very well!  In Social Studies, we are preparing to take our first test on Communities/Citizenship this coming week.  Also this coming week is Homecoming so to gear up for that we did an acrostic poem on a football player for WILDCATS.  Our theme for Homecoming is Dr. Seuss and in 2nd Grade we are doing "Green Eggs and Ham".  So look for lots of pictures of our fun dress up days and activities next week!

 Main Idea/Supporting Details Popplet

 Working hard on our acrostic poetry.

Our upcoming Homecoming theme!

Sept. 2-5, 2014

This past week in 2nd grade, we read the story Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea. We did several activities around the story including writing a letter to a friend, writing a paragraph in our journals about someone special to us describing that person and what makes them special and making a Popplet.  Popplet is an app we have on our iPads.  In that app students can make boxes that connect to each other (like a story web) and they can use either text, drawing, or a picture.  We worked on describing the beginning, middle, and end of the story and then students could draw a picture of Mr. Putter and/or Tabby. Students then learned how to take a screenshot of their work so they could print their Popplets.

In Phonics, we continued to work with V-E words; in Spelling we worked on short e, o, and u words; in Grammar we continued to work on different types of sentences (commands and exclamations); in Science we wrapped up our first chapter on living and nonliving things...our first test will be coming up next week; in Social Studies we talked about different types of communities (rural, suburban, and urban); and in Math, we worked on comparing numbers using the vocabulary greater than, less than, and equal to and we worked on patterns.  We are also working hard on practicing our math facts with Rocket Math and Math Facts in a Flash.  Continue to work with your child at home on their math facts and encourage them to keep reading their AR books!

Working on mastering our math facts with Rocket Math

 Journal work

Reading Groups