Weekly Update 5.20.13

This week in literacy we will focus on the skill of synthesis.  With this comprehension strategy, students will monitor the overall meaning of text and recognize that thinking may change during the course of a story.  Readers also take opportunities to share, recommend, and discuss text with their peers, teachers and families.  Our text connection for the week will be The Great Kapok Tree.  In guided reading groups, I will be using part of the week to being administration of the end of year individual reading assessments.  These will also continue into next week.

In writing, we shift our focus to opinion writing.  Our topic for the week will keep with our outdoor fun theme in writing this month.  Students will be asked to write their opinion based on the following prompt: What is the best time of year? School or summer vacation?  Students will be expected to give three reasons to support their opinion.  Students will also begin to use evidence and examples to support each reason.  Students will complete a graphic organizer and then write their piece in paragraph form.  The homework assignment this week is similar to this in class writing experience.  We will also look at dictionary skills and guide words this week.

In math, we will complete Unit 11.  Our lessons this week will focus on multiplication and division fact families and basic multiplication facts.  We will have our math assessment next Monday.

In social studies we will conclude our unit on timelines.  Students will have a mini-assessment this week in which they will need to put events in chronological order and answer questions based on the timeline.  Their project will also contribute to their overall grade.

Please remember that the timeline project is due in class this Friday!

As we approach the end of the year, there are a few important events that are ready to go on our calendar! 
May 30: Sing and Swing Music Presentation @2:00
June 19: Fraher/Kinback Class Writing Celebration @9:15
June 20: Move Up Day and Last Day of School (early dismissal)

Weekly Update 5.6.13

This week in literacy we will be discussing theme or the author's message.  We will be using Leo the Late Bloomer as our text connections.  Students will be working on transferring their thoughts into a written reading response using a topic sentence, details with supporting text evidence and a closing sentence.  All guided reading groups will be starting new books this week and continuing their book group discussions.

In writing, we will continue working on our outdoor fun personal narratives.  This week we will be focusing on the main event of the piece.  We will also focus our revision on vivid verbs.  Our lessons will concentrate on using different words for "said".  We will also look at poetry and look at the technique of line repitition.  Our grammar focus this week will be on the use of articles a/an.

In math, we will assess Unit 10 on Tuesday and begin Unit 11 on Wednesday.  Unit 11 will focus on whole number operations.  Our lessons this week will concentrate on addition and subtraction number stories using dollars and cents.  As always, Fridays we will be used for small group review, preview and enrichment. 

We will begin our social studies unit on timelines this week.  We will use the text connection Diary of Worm to help kick off our unit.  Students will be working on putting events in chronological order (also our vocab word of the week)

We are in need of a few classroom supplies to get us through the rest of the year.  Any donations of paper towels, wipes and/or tissues would be greatly appreciated!

Weekly Update 4.29.13

I am back in the classroom as usual this week.  Thank you to Mrs. Stech for her hard work during her takeover weeks! 

This week we will focus our whole group reading sessions on character traits.  Students will be responsible for identifying personality traits of characters and also identifying text evidence to support their opinions.  We will be discussing this concept as well as creating written responses.  Students will be using their opinion writing paragraph template using a topic sentence two reasons with supporting evidence and a closing sentence.  Our text connection for the week will be Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters.

In writing we will be starting a new theme of outdoor fun.  Students will write to a vareity of genre under this theme.  This week we will be working on a personal narrative about a fun outdoor experience.  Students are now required to write their narratives using all components of the writing diamond.  These include an entertaining beginning, descriptive setting, fully developed main event and an extended ending.  We will also be learning about Haiku poetry and alphabetical order to the third and fourth letter.

In math, we continue with Unit 10.  This week our lessons will focus on place value to the ten thousands and grouping with parentheses.  We will assess unit 10 early next week.

We have a special presentation by the Acton Discovery Museum Wednesday on the different states of matter.  They will be visiting our classroom with a variety of different experiments.  We will also review the core concepts and vocabulary of our unit and will have our assessment next Monday.  Study cards will be coming home this week to help prepare.  I will also send home an electronic copy of the PowerPoint presentation showed in class to help review as well.

Have a great week!

4.22.13

Just a reminder, Mrs. Stech will continue to assume full classroom responsibilities this week.  Next week, I will be back in the classroom as usual!  Please see the note about this week's activities from Mrs. Stech below.

This week in writing, the students will compose their own haiku and acrostic poems about science. They will also apply their knowledge of math to science by collecting data and making glyphs for the class bulletin board. In addition, the States of Matter Project will be added to the bulletin board as the students complete them. Through experiments, the students will also observe chemical as well as physical changes to matter.

Weekly Update: 4.8.13: A Note from Mrs. Stech

This will be a busy week for the students. April Jones, a local author, visited the students and shared some of her books. The students will learn firsthand what it takes to be a good writer. In addition, on Friday, the students will have an opportunity to see “Charlotte’s Web” at Mechanic’s Hall.

The students are learning how to write a persuasive paragraph. They are reading about the language used in persuasive writing. The students are also learning to back up their opinions with reasons and examples, as they share their point of views on different topics. 

We have begun our Science unit on the three states of matter. They have discovered that matter is everywhere around us and is anything that takes up space. Through music and movement, the students will learn how energy affects the different states. The students will be making posters to illustrate the different states. They will also be contributing to our bulletin board in the hallway. In order to do this, however, the students will need pictures to cut out and sort into the different states of matter. If you have any magazines you could donate to the class for this purpose, it would be greatly appreciated if you can send them in this week.


Thank you, Mrs. Stech.

Weekly Update 4.1.13

This week, we will shift gears into a new comprehension strategy.  Our focus strategy will be inferring.  Inferring is when reader's draw conclusions from text.   Readers take the information from the text and merge it with their schema, or prior knowledge, to draw a conclusion.  This week our text connection is the story What Mary Jo Shared.  Students will be discussing inferences as well as listening to "think alouds" in order to understand the metacognitive process that occurs when readers make inferences.  Students will also begin to identify text evidence to support their inferences.  Guided reading groups will be finishing up their non-fiction material this week before moving on to new fiction stories next week.

In writing, we are wrapping up the publishing process for our Trimester Two stories.  The publishing process has been very helpful as students have learned more about revising, editing and conferring.  They have learned how to accept feedback, offer feedback to others, identify areas for improvement and set a plan on how to improve their work.  We continue to work on opinion writing in our reading response journals as we write about texts and focus on finding text evidence to support the main opinion in these pieces.

In math, we will conclude Unit 9 this week and have our assessment on Tuesday.  The rest of the week will be spent reviewing secure second grade skills in small groups for both review and enrichment opportunities.  These secure skills include subtraction with regrouping, word problems, as well as telling time and elapsed time.

We will be discussing timelines in social studies this week.  We will begin by defining timelines and creating timelines of important personal events.  We will then take a look at timelines that show information from important dates in history.

Just a reminder, Mrs. Stech, our student teacher, will be taking over the class starting on Monday.  She will be in charge of planning and delivering instruction for all academic areas and will be running the classroom all week long.  I will be in the building all day as well and will be available if needed.  As always, I am available on email throughout the day for questions, concerns and any dismissal/attendance notifications!

Upcoming Dates:

Tuesday April 9: Early Dismissal for Students
Friday April 12: Field Trip to Mechanics Hall 12:30 showing of Charlotte's Web
Friday April 12: Spring Vacation Begins

Weekly Update 3.25

This week in literacy we will be wrapping up our non-fiction unit.  We will review the different features of non-fiction text that we have been working on.  These include caption, bold face words, glossary, index, table of contents, maps, photographs and charts.  All guided reading groups will also be reading short non-fiction articles as well.  We will focus on identifying the main idea as well as supporting details.  Our text connection this week will be a non-fiction article on animal adaptations.

We will also be working on our reading response journals with a focus on using text evidence to support thinking.  This relates to both fiction and nonfiction reading responses.

In writing, we will be selecting our "best pieces" from Trimester Two.  Once the piece is selected, students will work on editing, revising, peer conferences and teacher conferences.  After all of these steps are complete, students will be publishing their work.  Our grammar focus this week is compound sentences.

In math,we continue on with our measurement unit.  We will focus the majority of the week on learning about perimeter and area.  Students will still be working on word problems as well as explaining the strategies used to solve the problem.  As usual, Fridays are reserved for review and enrichment focus groups.

We will read our Book of the Month in preparation for Friday's All School Meeting.  Our March book is The Ant and the Elephant.  We will be reading, discussing and writing about the author's message of this book.

Report Cards will go home next Monday April 1!

Please remember that our student teacher Mrs. Stech will be starting her first takeover week April 8.  She will assume all of the classroom responsibilities.  Her second week of full student teaching will be April 22.

Weekly Update 3.11.13

We continue to work on our non-fiction unit this week.  Our text connection for the week will be Biggest, Fastest, Strongest.  Students will be working on citing new facts that they learned and questions that they wonder about.  They will also work on identifying a "Wow!" fact as they read.  "Wow!" facts are pieces of information from the text that spark the students' interest as they read.  Guided reading groups are finishing up their latest chapter books this week and will be moving on to non-fiction articles.  We will also use some time this week to finish up Trimester 2 assessments.

In writing, we will be working on the persuasive genre of writing.  Students will be working on book recommendations where they will be required to write a topic sentence, details and supporting text evidence and a closing sentence.  We will also use the same format as we begin to write about the author's message.  We will learn about the capitalization of book titles and that book titles should be underlined in writing.

In math, we will review and assess Unit 8 Monday and Tuesday.  We will begin Unit 9 on Wednesday.  Unit 9 concentrates on measurement.  Our first two lessons will focus on measuring with yards and meters and linear measurement.  We continue to work on subtraction of two and three digit numbers and word problems.

In social studies, we will assess the oceans and the borders of the United States on Friday.  Students have already made their study guides and they should be reviewing in preparation for Friday at home. Students will need to identify and label the five oceans on a blank world map.  They will also need to draw the international boundary lines between the United States, Mexico and Canada.  They will also need to label these countries on the map as well.

Weekly Update 3.4.13

This week in literacy we will continue working on non-fiction text and will focus on asking and answering questions.  Students will reflect on text, before, during and after reading and generate questions after this reflection.   We will discuss how readers find answers to these questions.  Readers can find answers right in the text, readers can infer answers to questions by using text clues and their schema.  Readers also sometimes come across questions that can not be answered and may need further investigation from other sources.  We will explore these different methods of answering questions.  We will also being to do some individual reading assessments as the close of Trimester Two approaches.

In writing, we will take time to prepare for our Trimester 2 writing assessment on Friday.  Last week, we wrote to a practice prompt and this week we will look at the feedback forms and conference to see strengths and areas for improvement before the assessment.  Students are expected to include all parts of the writing diamond including an entertaining beginning, descriptive setting, a main event on one small moment and an extended ending.  We will also learn about proper and common nouns as our grammar focus.

We continue on with Unit 8 this week as we extend our knowledge of fractions.  This week our lessons will focus on equivalent fractions, comparing fractions and fraction number stories.  We will be using fraction cards to help make the concept of equivalent fractions more concrete.  We will also begin to assess trimester two report card skills as well.

In social studies, we will talk about the five oceans of the world.  Students are responsible for naming and locating the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Southern Oceans.

Weekly Update 2.25.13

This week in literacy we will begin a new unit on non-fiction text.  To start off the unit, we will connect the strategy of asking questions to our non-fiction pieces. Our text connection this week will be Recess at 20 Below.  This book also ties in nicely with our science unit on weather.  In addition to applying the strategy of questioning to our non-fiction unit, we will also be looking at features of non-fiction text such as index, glossary, bold face words, and headings.

In writing, we will talk about an author's purpose of writing.  Authors write for one of three reasons, to entertain, to inform or to persuade.  We will take a look at examples of these different types of writing.  We will work on both persuasive writing and personal narrative writing, or writing to entertain, this week.  In persuasive writing, we will focus on writing with a topic sentence, two or three reasons or pieces of evidence that support the topic sentence, and a closing sentence.  We will also address persuasive writing throughout the year in our reading response journals.  Students will also be learning about abbreviations.

In math, we will start a new unit focusing on fractions.  This week, students will be learning the vocabulary numerator and denominator.  Students will be learning about equal parts of a whole, collections of things and how fractions relate to groups and equivalent fractions.  We continue to practice the secure skills of word problems and subtraction with regrouping as well.

In social studies we will address our Trimester Two mapping standards.  This week will begin to learn the different oceans of the world and their place on the world map.  We will also continue to work on our leadership project based learning experience.  Students have conducted their interviews in person or via email.  Those who conducted a face to face interview used the iPad to record their interview to make sure the information was remembered accurately!  This week we will take our notes or recordings of the interviews and summarize them into a one page written piece.

Weekly Update 2.11.13

This week we will continue to look at the strategy of determining importance in text.  We will discuss the difference between important vs interesting pieces of information.  Our text connection for the week will be Ibis.  Guided reading groups will be finishing up their books before we head into the vacation week and will be working on some short non-fiction passages in their sessions this week.

Part of our writing block this week will be used to work on our social studies project.  Last week we launched the project based learning experience on leadership.  Students chose one member of the school or the community they felt was a leader and are set to interview them.  Some students will be working in teams of two, while others elected to work alone.  This week, students will be developing a introduction email to send to their leader and will be arranging either a sit down interview or an email interview.  We will use this week to generate the questions for the interview as well as to schedule and conduct the interviews.  So far, this project based learning experience seems to be generating a lot of interest and enthusiasm from the students!  Please ask your child about it at home!

We will also be reviewing plurals and looking at irregular plurals during writer's workshop.

We will conclude unit 7 this week and will be able to fit our assessment in before the vacation.  Right now, we plan on having the assessment on Wednesday.  The rest of our unit 7 lessons this week will focus on measurement, data collection, graphing and finding the median number.

In science, we will be looking at different types of storms, specifically hurricanes and tornadoes.  Students will be engaging in some hands on activities to simulate these storms as well as some different reading activities.

We will hold our Valentine's Party on Thursday afternoon at 1230.  Students are invited to bring valentine cards for each student in the class that will be distributed during the party.  If you need another copy of the class list, please let me know and I can send one electronically.  As always, please send your child with a snack for the party, as food will not be provided.

We will have All School Meeting on Friday.  Our book of the month for February is Odd Velvet, a story about acceptance of others.

Valentine's Day

We will be having a Valentine's Day party on February 14 at 12:30.  A class list has been sent home in the Monday Folders for those who would like to participate in a valentine exchange.  Bringing a valentine is optional, but if your child would like to participate, please ensure that a valentine is provided for every member of the class!  Also, please supply your child with a snack for the party as food will not be provided here at school!

Weekly Update 2.4.13

This week we will shift gears to a new comprehension strategy known as determining importance.  This strategy asks the reader to identify important vs. non-important parts of text and use their knowledge of the important parts to synthesize the text for themselves and for others.  Our text connection for the week will be Me First.  We will be using this strategy in whole grou lessons, guided reading and in our reading response journals independently.  During Daily Five this week, students will be asked to write about an important character from their Read to Self book and identify reasons and text evidence that makes them important to the story. 

We will focus on our main event in Writer's Workshop this week.   The focus strategy will be "Show Don't Tell".  The use of this strategy allows the writer to show emotion in his or her writing through description, similes and elaborative detail.  We will also look at plurals ending in y and the change y to i and add -es rule.

In math, we continue on with Unit 7.  Our lessons this week will focus on addition of three or more numbers, patterns in doubles and halves, weight, and data collection.  We will continue to practice addition and subtraction with and without regrouping as well as word problems and the explanation of strategies used to solve.

We will extend our unit on weather with information about clouds this week.  The three different types of clouds we will study are cirrus, cumulus and stratus.  We will also being our new unit in social studies on citizenship and leadership.  We will start this week by identifying leaders within our school, community and world as well as identifying qualities of good leaders.  We will launch a project based learning experience on this topic next week.

We have a school wide presentation on Abraham Lincoln on Thursday morning. 

Friday morning is our field trip to Mechanics Hall.  Please ensure that your child is at school promptly by 9:00.  We will be back in time for lunch and our regular afternoon routine.

Weekly Update 1.28.13

This week in reading we will wrap up our unit on questioning.  We will extend the strategy of asking questions this week by discussing thick and thin questions and lingering questions.  Thick questions are questions that lead to group discussion, often have a long extended answer and require the reader to use their skills of inferring and activating schema in order to answer them.  Thin questions can be answered with a word or a sentence and often times the answer lies right in the text.  They are simple answers and do not lend themselves to discussion.  Lingering questions are questions that remain with the reader when the book is finished.  Lingering questions allow the reader to use their skills of inferring and predicting to develop possible answers to these types of questions after the story is over.  Our literature connection this week is The Incredible Paintings of Felix Clousseau.  We will also use our class read aloud book Holes and guided reading books to practice these types of questions.

In writing, we will take a look at simple plurals ending in s and es.  For our craft lessons, we will be looking at red flag transition words in the main event of our personal narratives.  Red flag words bring excitement and sentence variety to stories as well as help transition to different events.

We will assess Unit 6 in math today.  We will begin Unit 7 on Tuesday.  Unit 7 focuses on Patterns and Rules.  Our lessons this week will address extension compliments of 10, patterns in counting, and mental math.  We will continue to revisit subtraction with regrouping as well.  We will give our Mid Year Assessment this week.  This assessment will cover material taught over the first half of the school year.

In science, we continue to talk about the water cycle.  We will finish up our study cards and they will be sent home for additional practice.  Students should know the four stages of the water cycle and be able to describe each stage.  The assessment will be given next Monday.  An optional word bank will be provided for the assessment.  We will work on making an interactive poster to help extend our knowledge of the water cycle this week.

Our field trip to Mechanics Hall is next Friday.  If you have not submitted your permission slip and 9.00 payment, please send it in this week.  If you need another copy, please let me know!  Our chaperones will be Anderson, Gilmore and Ghidella.  Thanks to all who volunteered!

We have plenty of openings for Guest Reader from now to the end of the year!  Please let me know via email if you would like to come in any Monday from 230-3!

Weekly Update 1.22.13

This week, we will continue working on the strategy of asking questions.  We will continue to discuss the questions that arise while reading text both before, during and after reading.  Our text connection for the week will be The Paper Crane.  Guided reading groups will also be working on this strategy both in discussion and in reading response writing.  We will also introduce our reading response journals this week.  The reading response journals will be a place for students to write about their interpretations, thoughts, feelings and insights about books they are reading during independent time.  We will be doing a lot of modeling on how to create a strong reading response written piece.  This ties in with our persuasive and expository writing curriculum.

In writing, we will continue to work on the main event in our personal narratives.  This week we will be discussing red flag words as part of our main event.  Red flag words are transitional phrases used at the beginning of sentences to provide sentence variety.  Some examples of red flag words include "In the blink of an eye", "Just then", or "All of a sudden".

We will finish up Unit 6 in math this week.  Our lessons will focus on multiplication, division and also a review of Unit 6.  We will have our assessment on Monday.  We will also be working on multiplication word problems and using arrays or drawings to show our work. 

In science, we will be starting our second mini-unit in regards to weather patterns.  We will be working on the water cycle for the next couple of weeks.  Students will be expected to know the four stages of the water cycle (precipitation, collection, evaporation and condensation) as well as be able to describe each stage.

We welcome Marcia Stech to our classroom as our student teacher.  Marcia currently works in our classroom as a child specific aide, but will take on the additional role of student teacher starting this week.  Mrs. Stech has worked in Shrewsbury Public Schools as a child specific aide/instructional aide for the past ten years.  As Marcia begins her work as a student teacher for her education license, she will start by observing and teaching one or two lessons in reading or math a week.  By the end of her practicum in April, Mrs. Stech will take over all the responsibilities of the classroom, and teach all subject matters, for a two week period.  Please let me know if you have questions!

Stay Warm!!

Weekly Update 1.7.13

This week in literacy we will continue talking about the comprehension strategy of questioning.  OUr literature connection for the week will be Galimoto.  We will discuss our questions before, during and after reading as well as record them in writing.  Students will also practice this strategy in guided reading and independently during their read to self time. 

During Writer's Workshop, we will introduce the main event.  In a personal narrative, the main event is the heart of the story containing actions, thoughts and observations.  The main event of the story tells, in detail, the experience that the author is sharing with the reader.  To introduce this important topic, we will discuss the difference between a fully developed main event and a summary.  We will be looking at different writing samples in order to show high standards of writing.

Unit Six continues on in math this week.  Our lessons will focus on gathering data, graphing data, word problems and double digit subtraction.  We will introduce the concept of subtraction with trading (also known as regrouping or borrowing).  This is the first introduction of this skill.  It is not a secure skill at this point, but it is by Trimester Three.  While working on the Unit Six content, we will also continue practice core skills such as double digit addition, coins, time and place value.

In science, we have begun our weather unit.  We are starting this unit by talking about the season cycle.  Students will be working on a project in class to answer our driving question: "What is the best season for someone to visit Shrewsbury?"  We will also discuss the change in seasons as it relates to the Earth's position to the sun.

If you wish to order from the Scholastic Book Orders this week, please submit your paper or electronic form by Friday!

Homework as usual this week!  Nightly math homework Mon-Thurs and reading homework due on Friday!

Weekly Update 1.2.13

Happy New Year!  Before the brief outline of this week's classroom curriculum connections, I would like to thank everyone for the class holiday gift.  It was very thoughtful and extremely generous!  I hope that the holiday season was enjoyable and memorable for you all!

This is a short week, but we are back into full swing in the classroom!  This week, all reading groups will be starting new books for reading and book discussion.  Guided reading groups will begin to focus even more on book discussion and reading response writing as this is a critical skill as second grade moves forward.  As a whole class, we will begin to talk about the comprehension strategy of asking questions.  Readers ask questions before, during and after reading.  This week we will introduce the strategy and question words.  We will also model the strategy with our whole group read aloud of The Ghost Eye Tree.  We will also introduce and practice contractions.

In math, we will begin Unit 6.  Unit 6 will focus on whole number operations and numbers stories.  This week, our lessons will be about addition of three or more numbers and comparison number stories.  There will be regular math homework Wednesday and Thursday evening.

We will introduce our new science unit this week about weather.  One of the repeating patterns in weather that we will be studying are the four seasons.  The literature connection this week is The Reason for Seasons.

We have many opportunities for Guest Reader!  Some of our available dates include:
Jan 7
Jan 28
Feb 4
Feb 11
Feb 25

Our regular guest reader time is Monday from 230-300.  This allows enough time for one book and a small craft or activity or 2-3 books of your choice!  Please let me know if you would like to come in for guest reader!  Repeat visits are welcome!!