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.

March Word Study

*For the rest of the our Word Study curriculum this year, we will be focusing on 

double vowel syllable words.* 

Unit 11
The students will be learning about the long e syllable. Students have been exposed to the different sounds of long e. Now, they will be given the opportunity to spell words that have the long e sound. 

Trick words:  school, too, many 




Unit 12
In this unit, students will practice the spelling of another double vowel syllable word. 

Trick words: mother, father, brother

At home, students can review their vowel teams each night before or after completing their homework to help strengthen their spelling skills. 

February Math Workshop

February Math Workshop


                          

FEBRUARY MATH WORKSHOP

GRADE 2

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION WITHIN 1,000 WITH WORD PROBLEMS TO 100.

In this unit, the children build upon all their previous work with place value. They extend their work with addition and subtraction solving algorithms with numbers up to 1,000. The children will continue to use drawings and models to help them to understand the steps needed to solve the problems.They will be using a variety of strategies ( the arrow way, number bonds, totals below, vertical way etc.)They will also continue to work with various types of word problems with numbers up to 100.

Strategies from  left to right:   Tape Diagram, Number Bonds and Arrow Way

                                                      Totals Below Strategy

New Key Vocabulary For This Unit

 - Compensation: a simplifying strategy where the children add or subtract the same amount to or from both numbers to create an equal but easier problem. e.g. 610 - 290 = 620-300 = 320

- New Groups Below: show newly composed units on the line below the appropriate place in the addition problem.

   - Algorithm: a step by step procedure used to solve a problem.

How You Can Help At Home
     -practice counting backward and forward by 10's and 100's.

     -practice finding 10 more or 10 less, and/or 100 more or 100 less than any  2-digit or 3-digit                 number.

February Field Trips

National Museum of the American Indian

Cost: Free!

Time: We will leave the school at 9:30 and return by 1:30.

Lunch: We will be eating lunch in the classroom when we return to school.  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. 

The second grade is finishing their unit on Native Americans.  We have read many books in read aloud and done a project! To help further our study we will be visiting the National Museum of the American Indian. We will be participating in Native American story telling and then be able to tour around the museum to see other artifacts and learn more information.

February Celebrations!

Non-Fiction Celebration

Come join the second grade in celebrating our non-fiction unit! Students researched different animals to become experts.  Then, they wrote a non-fiction narrative and created realistic dioramas to show their animal in its habitat.  All second graders and parents will visit each classroom to see all the amazing work throughout the entire grade!

When: Friday, February 12^th at 1:40pm

Where: Start in your child’s classroom then visit the other second grade rooms