We have been busy writers this week working to show, not tell, our feelings and actions. We practiced turning boring sentences like "I was angry" into detailed interesting sentences like "My hands curled into fists. My heart began to beat hard. I felt like a volcano about to explode." Ask your child what we can do as a writer to help us show not tell.
In reading we focused on making predictions. Ask your child when they can make a prediction, as well as if predictions are just guesses. We read a fun story, Gilbert the Great, about a shark whose best friend moves away and practiced our predicting power!
In math we became a human number line and had great discussions about where to place numbers and why. We learned that it's best to start by placing anchor numbers. Ask your child what are some anchor numbers for a 0 to 10 number line, a 0 to 20 number line, and a 0 to 100 number line.
It was another great week of learning and fun. Have a great weekend!

Today we had blast with DJ Reggie learning hip hop moves while learning about the importance of Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, and Caring! The kids danced, laughed, and practiced these important characteristics to work together and have fun. It was a great assembly and we want to thank our PTO for making it happen!

This week we were so excited to start our first Project Lead The Way unit with Mrs. Williams. This Week the kids were introduced to the real world problem of preventing a landslide from destroying a house and began learning about maps which will help them later during the design process. Ask your child about the map they made.
We were also very busy in writing focusing on adding details to our writing by stretching out the setting using our five senses and showing our emotions instead of just telling them. (See anchor chart below).
Math has been all about word problems this week. The kids worked hard to solve a variety of word problems with different unknowns. We also introduced Xtramath a program that helps build fact fluency. Directions for how to access this program from home were sent home. Please let me know if you have any questions.
In reading, we practiced flipping the vowel sound when a word didn't sound right (changing the vowel from short to long or vice versa). We also started to work in thinking about the meaning of words that are easy to read but tricky to understand like this line in one of our read aloud a "Pills are such pills". Ask your child what pills means.

Have a great weekend!

The kids were all smiles for picture day! Everyone looked their best and came in excited to have their picture taken. When we were done with our own pictures, we read the book Picture Day Perfection, about and boy and his attempt at the perfect picture, but his perfect picture might not be what you expect. Ask your child how this fun book ends!

Which one was your child's favorite? I love them all!

We finished our first full week of school! The children are becoming more confident with the routines and procedures and our classroom is buzzing with the excitement of reading, writing, and math. This week we've increased our stamina and have started to push up our sleeves and tackle tricky words. Ask your child what strategies they can use when they come to a tricky word. We also started working on word problems and pushing ourselves to be flexible mathematicians by solving problems using addition and subtraction. Ask your child what their favorite math game was this week. It was a great week in room 30!
Have a great weekend!

We had a great first week of school in Room 30! We worked on learning routines and procedures to help us work smoothly in the classroom. We also began building our classroom community through different activities such as morning meeting, sharing our summer adventures, and designing t-shorts for our bulletin board that tell about ourselves. It was a busy week! I hope your child came home every day excited about being a second grader, I know it's going to be a great year! Pictures will be coming soon.