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"!

Week 5

Week 5 was Homecoming Week!  We had a lot of fun days of dressing up. Wouldn't you know it, the week was nice and warm and then on Friday, it was cool and cloudy!  The rain held off for our parade, but it was kind of on the chilly side.  But we still made it through! :)  We also took our second science test on animals and started to really dig into subtraction in math.  A new math vocabulary word we learned is difference.  We also worked on the use of quotation marks in grammar along with combining sentences together with the same subjects or same predicates.  We are really going to start working hard on writing.  We will be focusing on writing with complete sentences with proper punctuation and forming paragraphs.  Our next AR goal for the month of October is 8 points and as always, keep practicing math facts, addition and subtraction.

Class Color Day: Red

Wacky Day!

Parade Day: We are detectives for the game CLUE.

Happy Homecoming!  Go Wildcats!

Week 4

Week 4 was a busy one.  Our PE teacher is back from maternity leave, so we now have PE every day for 20 minutes.  This will take place of our morning recess.  Besides exercising our bodies, we've been exercising our minds!  In math, we wrapped up Chapter 2 on addition.  We learned how to add 3 digits and how knowing our doubles facts helps us with doubles plus one or minus one.  Subtraction is next! We wrote Fall poems that needed to rhyme and we also took our first Social Studies test, which most all of us did very well on.  Again, I'm very impressed that everyone returned their study guides and received 2 bonus points on their test!  The students are also working hard on getting 4 AR points by the end of the month.  Almost everyone is already there!  Next week will be homecoming week so there will be plenty of fun days to dress up and of course our parade will be on Friday.  Go Wildcats!

 

Reading for our 4 Accelerated Reader points for the month of September.

 

 

 

Our theme for Homecoming is Board Games.  2nd Grade picked "Clue". 

We will be detectives for the upcoming parade on Friday!

 

Week 3

Welcome to week #3.  Thankfully it's a lot cooler this week, which makes it much more pleasant in the building!  This week, we took our first science test on living and nonliving things.  I'm very pleased that almost everyone brought back their study guides signed.  Every time we take a science or social studies test, I'll send home a study guide for the students to use to help them study.  If the parents sign it and the students return it to school by the test day, they'll receive 2 bonus points on their test.  I'm very pleased at how well everyone did...way to be Super 2nd Grade Studiers! We also typed our first stories for the year.  We'll be doing a lot of writing this year and typing too, so they more we do it, the easier it'll get for the students.  We've also been talking a lot about V-E words (vowel, consonant, silent e) for example: make, bake, rake, etc.  There are several V-E words on our spelling test this week.  In grammar, we are working on writing complete sentences and talking about subjects and predicates.  In math, we learned two new vocabulary words:  sum and addends.  The students are also working on their addition facts.  Keep practicing those flash cards!!