Ms. Mottaz's Class: An AMAZING Week!

We have had an AMAZING week! The kiddos worked so super hard and had many fun events this week! :)

DBRL Field Trip

We had a fun field trip to Daniel Boone Regional Library on Tuesday! We learned about all the different parts of the library. We had an opportunity to explore the art that was created by Lee Elementary students - you should ask your kiddo who or what they saw in the different art on the walls (famous Missourians, fables & fairy tales, and nonfiction/technology). You can check out all of our pictures by clicking here.

Salina Yoon

Yesterday, Salina Yoon came to visit RBE!! The students were infatuated with her and it was so neat to see the excitement on their faces! When they got back to the classroom they worked SO incredibly hard on thank you cards for her and many of them wanted to enjoy her books again by rereading them. You can check out pictures of her visit by clicking here. If your family would like to go see Salina Yoon or other authors at Unbound this weekend here is the schedule.

This Week in 2nd Grade

Math

This week: We talked about partitioning and arrays. We learned that when you partition a shape it has to be divided into equal part. We also learned what an array is and that an array has to equal number in each row (picture below). For the array below you can describe it a variety of ways

5 by 3 -> this array is NOT a 3 by 5 because you always talk about the rows first
5 rows of 3
3 columns of 5
3+3+3+3+3=15 -> this array does NOT show 5+5+5=15 because when doing repeated addition you add the number in each row not the columns.
5 x 3=15 -> this array does NOT show 3 x 5=15 because when doing multiplication the rows always goes first

Next week: We will finish up Unit 8, take our Unit 8 post-test, and start Unit 9. If you want to help your child review for this test you can review the vocabulary that was in the blog on April 6 or the HomeLinks that came home a few weeks ago. Coming home in your child's Friday Folder is what we will be doing in our last math unit - can you believe that we are already getting ready to start our last math unit? Time is flying by!

Writing

This week: We started publishing our Which is Better writing. I am so impressed with how hard the kiddos have worked on this project
Next week: We will finish up publishing our writing. We will also be creating a project to go along with our writing. We will have a writing show case and be inviting parents and other students to see our projects. As soon as we have a better idea of when projects will be complete we will be sharing this date.

Reading

This week: We learned a new fancy word onomatopoeia and went on an onomatopoeia scavenger hunt in books. You should ask your kiddo what does onomatopoeia mean!
Next week: We will be talked about cause effects in stories that we read.

Word Study

This week: We focused on r-influenced words with the vowel i (ire, ier).
Next week: We will continue to focus on r-influenced words but with the letter o (ore, oar, oddball). Next weeks words are: shore, more, store, wore, soar, roar, board, hoarse, floor, four.

Science

This week: We continued our conversation of how the Earth surface changes by rapid changes. Students became experts on volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. They researched by reading articles, reading books & watching a short video on their topic. Then the students made a poster on their topic. Today the student had an opportunity to get together with other experts and share their knowledge. This type of learning is called jigsaw - each person is responsible for a piece of the puzzle and then when you put all the pieces together you see the whole puzzle.
Next week: We will continue to talk about what an organism needs to survive. Students will need to explain the basic needs of plants and how well or poorly a plant grows when on of their needs is removed (sunlight, soil or water). Student will also need to be able to explain how animal help plants reproduce (transferring pollen or dispersing seeds). This unit will transfer over to our field trip to Runge Nature Center on May 15. We would LOVE for parent volunteers to help chaperone this field trip. A permission slip will be coming home soon, but if you have not already put this date on your calendar please make sure that you have it!

Book Talks

Mrs. McKinzie came in today and did her final book talk of the year. She shared Surf's Up, Seven and a Half Tons of Steel and Alien Gets the Sniffles Too. The kids can check them out in the library next week!