Realistic Fiction Celebration

Come join us to celebrate the completion our Realistic Fiction pieces! 

When: Friday, October 30th at 8:40am 

Where: Your child's classroom 

Why: Because you don't want to miss these amazing stories!

October Reader's Workshop

Reader's Workshop for October

         In our first unit in Reader's Workshop, the 2nd Grade wass working on building good reading habits. Students were learning how to shop in our classroom libraries, how to follow productive routines during Reader's Workshop and how to monitor their understanding while reading their individual books.

       The purpose of this unit was to support students as they got back into reading after summer vacation.  The unit reviewed monitoring for meaning, decoding, and fluency strategies as well as introduces some new strategies.  Also, this unit provided the opportunity for teachers to build a community of readers and set up positive reading habits for the school year.  

     In October, we are moving into unit 2...

Story Elements

Unit 2

In this 2^nd unit in Reader’s Workshop, the 2^nd Grade will be working on Story Elements. Students will be able to identify all important elements of their books. Namely...

      The main character

      Problem

      Attempts

      Solution/Resolution

      The students will also come to understand plot as the series of events that give a story its meaning.

Second Grade Students will also work on anticipating and/or predicting what

will happen in each new scene after the problem is identified. At the end of

their books, students will be able to differentiate the resolution from the

ending of the book and name the lesson(s) the main character(s) learned.

Some things to work on at home:

•        Have your child name the main character and problem at the beginning of the book.

•        Once the problem is identified, tell your child to stop when you notice a scene change (He was in the classroom but now he is in the library.) or when time has passed.  These are good places for readers to stop and think… Why is my character here?  What might happen? 

•        When your child has finished the book, they can retell their book using a 5-finger retell.

•        Identify the lesson learned.

•        Have your child sketch out a scene, including who, where and what is happening.

October Word Study

Unit 2

In Unit 2, students will be reviewing the bonus letter rule. 
Rule:  At the end of a one-syllable word, if the word has one vowel, followed immediately by an f, l, or s at the end, double that consonant. (The extra f, l, or s is considered a bonus letter because it is extra and does not make a sound)

For example:  glass mall off

When marking up a word with a bonus letter, a star is placed on top of the bonus letter. 

Also, in Unit 2, the students will be reviewing “glued” or welded sounds. 

The glued sounds are: all am, an, ang, ing, ong, ung, unk, ank, ink, onk, and unk

Some word that have glued sounds are: bank, song, junk, and pink 

When marking up a word with a glued sound, a box is placed around the glued sound. 

Unit 3

In Unit 3, the students will learn the exceptions to closed syllables.

Closed syllable exceptions follow the same pattern as a closed syllable BUT have a long vowel sound. 

The exceptions are: ild, ind, old, olt, ost 

Some words that have a closed syllable exception are: wild, kind, bold, and post

Also, in Unit 3, the students will be introduced to vowel team sounds. 

*Note: The students will NOT master vowel team sounds until later in the year. 

A vowel team is 2 vowels that are placed together that make 1 sound. 

Some examples of vowel teams are: 

          ai - bait  ey - key

          ay - play oi - coin 

          ea - eat  oy - boy 

          ee - jeep

Unit 3 Trick Words: 1. when    2. which      3.again   4.away       5.more 

Second Grade Trips in October

Green Meadows Farm

The second grade is going to Green Meadows farm! At the farm, students will have the opportunity to learn about animals and nature.  They will interact with many animals including chickens, pigs, and even get to milk cows! The field trip will end with everyone getting to pick a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch to take home!  

Information:

• Cost: $10 per person (adults and children)
• Time: We will leave the school at 9am and return by 1:30.
• Dress Code: Please make sure your child is dressed warm and wearing comfortable walking shoes.
• Lunch: We will be eating lunch on the trip.  We will provide cheese sandwiches from the cafeteria for students.  If your child does not like cheese sandwiches please send them with a packaged lunch that is easy to carry. 

October Writing 2015

October Writing 2015

This month, we are launching our realistic fiction unit.  Students will write two realistic fiction stories.  For each story, they will create a main character, secondary characters, and plot based on a realistic problem they may face in their own lives.  They will utilize a story mountain to plan at least 5 – 6 scenes for their story.  Students will focus on making their writing more interesting to readers by including dialogue, three step action, and inner thinking to convey feelings and a lesson in their stories.  One way you can support your 2^nd grade writer at home during this unit is by having them practice telling you stories or write realistic stories in a journal. 

October Read Aloud

At the beginning of this month we will be reading Magic Tree House Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne. The students will continue to learn about their characters, understand character relationships, agree and disagree with each other and have conversations about the text. They will pay attention to what the character's say, think, and do in order to formulate ideas about them, understand their feeling and provide a trait for to describe their character.

We will then continue the  month reading non fiction books.

We are working on different skills to help us become better readers. Some of these skills include:

1. After each paragraph we STOP and think  - What was the main idea? (What the paragraph was mostly about?)

2. When there is a picture on a page we STOP and think  - Why is this picture here? What paragraph does it belong to?

3. We notice the different features of non fiction and compare it to fiction books. (EX: italics, sub headings, captions, question and answer, zoom in and zoom out, definitions, table of contents, etc...)



Here are the different non fiction book we are reading this month:


Endangered Animals by Elise Forier                      Apes by Martin Jenkins     

   

                                 

Almost Gone by Steve Jenkins                           Magic Tree House Fact Tracker Dinosaurs 

                                                                                         by Mary Pope Osborne