Weekly Update 9.24.12

This week we will continue to put the finishing touches on our Daily Five routines.  We also introduce Work on Writing and Listen to Reading.  We will be ready ready to launch our full Daily Five implementation and guided reading next week!  Some of our Work on Writing activities include Journal Prompts, Vocabulary Journal, Poetry Journal, and Whole Class Journals. 

Our whole class reading lessons will focus on activation of schema and retelling.  Our text connections for the week include A Chair for My Mother, The Art Lesson and Scholastic News magazine. 

In writing, we will work on learning the friendly letter format including greeting, date, body, and closing.  We will prepare our family letters for curriculum night.  These letter will move through the writing phases of planning, rough draft, conference and final copy.  We will also learn the word endings -ll, -ff, -ss, and -zz.

In math, we will continue on with Unit Two.  We gave our Unit Two pre-assessment last week in order to develop small guided math groups to help students become proficient in all content covered in Unit Two.  Our whole group lessons this week will focus on addition facts, doubles facts, turn around facts, and addition strategies.  We will also continue working on the speed and accuracy of our addition and subtraction math facts by doing "Mad Minutes".  Mad Minutes are a series of timed quizzes in order to improve the speed recall of basic facts through 20.

In science, we will conclude out unit on frogs.  We will have our assessment on Friday.  Students will be asked to put the four stages of the life cycle in order and describe each stage using at least two accurate facts.  Please encourage your child to review their study cards at home this week!  We will also begin to introduce our first social studies unit on goods and services.

A new homework component will be coming home today.  Students will come home with their weekly reading logs.  The Shrewsbury Public Schools policy is that students in grade two will have 20 minutes of homework per night Monday-Thursday.  In addition to the math homework that comes home each night, students are expected to read nightly as well.  The reading log asks for the book title and a parent initial.  Please see this new form in your child's homework folder tonight!

Important Date: Curriculum Night is Thursday September 27 at 6:30.  If you are unable to attend, please let me know and I can send home my handouts for your review!  Looking forward to meeting you all soon!

Weekly Update 9.17.12

This week in literacy we will begin working on our Daily Five routines.  Students will be doing independent sessions of Read to Self and Word Work activities.  Small group reading and word work sessions will also begin this week.  We will introduce the reading strategy of activating schema.  Schema is a reader’s prior knowledge.  Activating schema helps readers relate to the text and make connections to literature.  Our text connections for the week include My Great Aunt Arizona and Patches Lost and Found.  We will also learn about compound words.

In writing, we will be looking at complete sentences vs. fragments.  We will begin writing out first personal narrative and work on topic development.   Students are encouraged to find the “seed story” or “small moment” as they chose topics. 

Unit One in math concludes this week.  We will have our assessment on Wednesday afternoon.  Our lessons this week will focus on greater than and less than, temperature and addition number stories.  We will have a pre-test for Unit 2 on Friday.

In science, we will be making our study cards for the life cycle of the frog.  We will create a card with a picture and facts for each one of the four stages (egg, tadpole, froglet and frog).  Students will bring home the study cards on Friday and will be able to review them at home for the assessment next week.  We will also continue to read about the life cycle of the frog and complete our frog scavenger hunt.

We will speak about Constitution Day this week by reading an article in Scholastic News. 

Homework starts this week!  Students will come home with their homework folder starting Monday afternoon.  They are expected to complete the nightly math assignment and return to school the next day.  On days that we have an assessment (Wednesday this week), we will not have a homework assignment.  There is no homework given over the weekend. 

Scholastic Book Orders

Today our first Scholastic Book orders will be coming home in the Monday Folder.  If you would like to order, there are two ways to do so!

1. Paper Order Form: Simply complete the order form on the back of the Book order catalog that comes home in the Monday Folder.  Please attach a check (no cash!) and I will take care of the rest!  Please return paper order forms by Sept. 21.

2. Online Ordering: Here is our class link to order books online:

https://orders.scholastic.com/FXGYK

The class activation code is FXGYK.  You can also simply go to scholastic.com and follow the links to book orders.  You will need the activation code.  Complete your online order from your home computer.  Please have online order submitted by Sunday Sept. 23!

I PICK Poster...Tips for Choosing a Just Right Book

Here is a picture of our I PICK Anchor Chart displayed in our classroom library!

Weekly Update 9.10.12

This week during our literacy block, we will continue to create a classroom community of readers.  We will talk about the importance of schema.  Schema is a reader’s prior knowledge.  We will discuss the difference between fiction and non-fiction genre and will sort books into their genre category.  Some of our text connections this week include Sheila Rae the Brave and a Time for Kids article called Fly with a Butterfly.

We will also introduce another component of Daily Five called Word Work.  We will establish our word work expectations and practice the routines and different word work activities.  We will also introduce our vocabulary journals as well.  Please look for a detailed explanation of the Daily Five coming this week on the blog!  Last week, we introduced the Read to Self component of Daily Five and will continue to practice and perfect the Read to Self procedures and expectations, and build our reading stamina to 20 minutes.

In writing, we will begin writer’s workshop by establishing routines and introducing our booklets for personal narrative writing.  We will also discuss the different genres of writing including personal narrative, expository and fiction.  We will begin to discuss topic selection for our first personal narratives. 

In math, we will continue on in Unit One.  This week our lessons will focus on patterns on the hundreds chart, number grids, equivalent names for numbers and counting patterns.  We will also have some baseline assessments on telling time and counting coin combinations. 

In science, we will focus on the animal group of amphibians. After a general overview of the amphibian group, we will focus our study on frogs.  The main teaching point for this unit will be the life cycle of the frog.  This week we will look at characteristics of frogs and begin to look at the frog life cycle.   We will have a frog scavenger hunt on Friday in order to learn more fun facts about frogs!

Weekly Update 9.4.12

This week, we will continue building out classroom community of readers.  We will learn and practice routines and active listening.  Our first component of Daily Five, Read to Self, will be introduced.  Read to Self is a time when students read, and sometimes respond, independently.  In order to help students make the most of their Read to Self time, we will discuss how to select a "just right book".  We will learn the acronym I PICK.  Please see our I PICK anchor chart photo later this week on the blog!  During the week, students will also work on building their reading stamina, as we work on reading independently for an increased amount of time.

Some of our text connections this week include McDuff Moves In, Goldisocks and the Three Libearians (great story for choosing books), and The Kissing Hand.  We are also reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as our read aloud book!

In writing, we will introduce our writer's notebooks and our writing folders.  Students will complete heart maps in order to develop a sense of what is important to them.  This heart map will help with topic selection as students prepare to write personal narratives and will be kept in the reference portion of our writing folders.  We will have the school wide baseline writing assessment this week as well.

Unit One in math is underway.  Unit One covers topics from first grade, and serves as a review and a way to practice math routines.  This week our lessons will cover basic addition facts, grouping by tens, and number patterns. 

In science, we are learning about different animal groups.  Each day we will learn about one of the following groups: fish, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians.  This will lead us into next week when we will begin our unit on frogs.