We have AMAZING parents!

We are so lucky to have such an amazing group of parents this year!  We have loved being able to talk and share with you about your child over the last two weeks.  Thank you so much for coming and talking with us!  I just can't believe that we are a third of the way done with your child's second grade year.  Please remember, if you have any questions as we continue throughout the rest of the year, please let me know.

Veteran's Day Assembly

Yesterday we had our Veteran's Day Assembly.  Mrs. Sharp does a wonderful job to make this assembly happen every year!  The second graders sang two songs during the assembly and last week we made a poster to hang up in the gym for the assembly.  Below are a few pictures from the assembly and a class picture in front of our poster!

Special Events Next Week!

• Our first trimester pizza party is scheduled for Wednesday, November 15.  Your child can bring a special drink (Gatorade, juice, soda) to enjoy.  If you choose to send in a drink for your child, please make sure that the container is not glass.  Your child will still need a snack to enjoy in the morning.
• Our November school-wide celebration will be stuffed animal day on Friday, November 17.

Meals of Wheels Food Drive

Just as reminder that 2nd grade is bringing in peanut butter for the food drive. If you are wanting to donate a jar of peanut butter the table is set up in the foyer outside the RBE office.  All food items are due by November 14.

What's Been Happening in 2nd Grade?

• Math: We are wrapping up our third math unit on subtraction next week.  We will be testing over this unit on Tuesday.  Coming home in your child's Friday Folder is a set of Home Links for Unit 3.  These are worksheets that can be used to review the concepts that we covered during this unit.  Also, if you would like your child to complete a Home Link for homework instead of playing a game that works!  These Home Links do not need to be returned to school completed, but are simply a resource for you.  Next week, we will be starting Unit 4 which is over time and measurement.

Here we are using our math resources to figure out a problem.  Some students are using the classroom number line and others are using the number grid in their student notebook!

• Writing: This week, the students worked hard on their writing their second personal narrative. As they finished writing their story, they went back and revised/edited their writing.  We use ARMS and CUPS for this process.  We are working hard with the students that they can ALWAYS do something to make their writing better.  The students also met with a writing partner to go over ARMS and CUPS (below are some pictures of the writing partnerships).  Their second personal narrative has a lot less teacher input, so we can see what the students can write on their own.  Next week, we will be publishing our writing and getting creative by letting the students pretend to be a turkey and try to persuade us to not eat turkey for Thanksgiving. 

• Reading: This week, we focused on answering questions from the text and specifically talking about how to refer back to the text to answer questions.  We read about carving pumpkins and spiders.  We had a conversation about that it is important when answer comprehension questions from a text to use the text to support our answers, and that we can't just use our schema (what we already knew about the subject).  Next week, we will talk about two different parts of speech: nouns and adjectives.
• Science:  This week, we learned about the three different states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.  We sang about the states (song below to the tune of "Farmer in the Dell") and learned about how the molecules move (or don't move) in the different states.  Next week, we will continue to learn about states of matter and on Friday we have some fun science stations about matter!

Here we are pretending to be the molecules of  a solid all close together.

• Word Study: Over the last five weeks we have focused on long and short vowel words and understanding that adding the "magic e" to the end of the word makes the vowel say it's name.  The next spelling patterns we will be talking about are other ways to make a long vowel sounds. Next week we will focus on two different long a patterns (ai and some more "magic e" words).  Next week's long a (CVCe) and long a (CVVC) words are: blame, snake, fame, taste, stale, brain, paint, chain, wait, main.

Special Readers

We had two special readers this week!  Noelle L. filled up a sticker chart and chose to read a book to the class earlier this week. Today, Bradyn shared a book that he had been working really hard on!  He has been reading the I Survived series and wrote his own version of surviving a tornado.  We talked about that writers can get ideas from other authors!

Nut Free Classroom

As a reminder, our classroom is now a peanut and tree nut free classroom.  Thank you for making the effort that your child's daily snack do not include peanuts, peanut butter, nut products, or processed where nuts are processed.  Thank you in advance for checking your child's ingredient list on his/her snack.  A note and a list of different snack options that are peanut free came home in your child's Friday Folder last week (or click on the link).  The items you pack in your child's lunch box do not have to be peanut free.

I hope that you have a wonderful long weekend and remember that there is no school tomorrow due to Parent/Teacher Conferences!