March/April Writing Workshop

March/April Writing Workshop

Second grade is working hard to persuade you!  During the month of March, students have been testing various products, such as food, games, dances, and short movies.  We have developed our opinions and have been creating persuasive reviews to convince our readers to trust our opinion.  During this unit, we have been working hard to draft the first of several multi-paragraph essays.  We are learning the structures of a persuasive essay – introduction that shares an opinion and description of the product; 2-3 body paragraphs that give supporting reasons and evidence; and conclusion that restates the opinion and offers a recommendation.  Students are revising their work by adding voice, description, comparisons, and exaggeration.  

Following our persuasive review unit will be a book review unit.   Students will apply their knowledge from the persuasive review unit to draft four-five paragraph essay that reviews a book of their choice.  They will learn to create an interesting lead that gives a description of the book without giving away the ending, as well as quoting from the text to support their reasons and ideas.  We can’t wait to share all of our recommendations with you!

March-April Reader's Workshop

                      March-April Reader's Workshop

Second Grade Super Sleuths

This month in reader's workshop the second grade is reading mystery books. Teacher's will launch this unit by first creating a classroom mystery that the students need to solve. The classes will pay close attention to the clues they find along the way.

The mystery unit will begin with classes reading a mystery book together. Once they find out what the mystery is, the class will track each scene that led to a new clue. Students also will track the suspects by paying close attention to the suspicious behaviors of the secondary characters in the book. The student's goal in this unit is to solve the mystery before the detective.

Here are the two books we will read in class together: 

Next, students will be reading mystery books in partnerships. All second graders will have their own Detective's Folder with mystery vocabulary and their own mystery tracking sheet that they will use to follow the mystery as their reading their books. Our Second Grade Sleuth's are very eager to solve all of their crimes!

March Math Workshop

                          

Problem Solving with Length, Money, and Data

This unit gives the children the opportunity to practice addition and subtraction strategies within 100. They will also use problem-solving skills as they learn to work with various types of units within the context of length, money, and data.

The children will be using picture graphs, bar graphs and line plots to represent and read data. 

   Bar Graph   

   

                                                                  Line Plot
                         

                         
                                                          Picture Graph


New Key Vocabulary Words  For This Unit
Data- facts or information that is gathered 
Table- showing/ displaying data using rows and columns.
Bar graph- a diagram showing data using lines or rectangles of equal width. 
Picture Graph-  uses pictures instead of bars to show data.
Line Plot- a graph representing data with an X above each instance of value on a number line.
Legend- information on a graph that explains what the symbols represent.  
Scale- ordered marks used as  a reference standard in measurement.
Degree- measurement unit for temperature.
Foot (ft.)- a unit of length equal t 12 inches. 
Inch (in.)- a unit of length
Yard (yd.)-a unit of length equal to 36 inches or 3 feet. 

Degree- measurement unit for temperature.



How You Can Help At Home 
-Ask your child to count the coins you received in change when you  go shopping. You can also give your child a handful of coins and ask them to count how much money they have.
- Once your child has learned a few ways to represent data, find something around the house you can make a line or bar graph about (ex: types of stuffed animal, or colors of LEGO pieces)  

March/April Read Aloud

In March we will be starting our author study on Roald Dahl. We will start by reading the book Fantastic Mr. Fox where the students will track the main characters journey and understand the lesson at the end of the book. Then we will read the book The Witches. The students will watch the movie Matilda that was based off of Roald Dahl's book Matilda. At the end of this author study, we will end by reading the book Boy, which is an autobiography written by Roald Dahl. 

This autobiography describes Roald Dahl's life from birth until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, the public school system at the time, and how his childhood experiences led him to writing as a career. After this book, the students will understand why Roald Dahl wrote his books. They will understand what childhood experiences led him to write each book.