Learning goals: Week 2

Hello parents!

This week we are picking up the pace as we really start working on second grade curriculum! I am going to make it a habit to share our learning goals with you for each subject area.

Reading: Sequence of Events. Today we began discussing how the sequence of events in a story is important and how without it a story doesn’t make sense. This week we are working on defining and being comfortable with the terminology.

Math: Automatic recall of math facts. For the first few weeks we are really focusing on reviewing addition and subtraction fact strategies such as “Doubles and Near Doubles,” “Making a Ten”, “Adding in any Order”, and “Adding more than 2 numbers.” Mad minute math sheets may come home to practice fact fluency. It’s so important for students to build automatic recall of their basic facts before they move into 2-digit addition and subtraction.

Science: Today we started learning about the Moon and its phases! A major point for students to recognize is that the light we see from the moon is actually the sun’s light being reflected. Another important idea is that the moon doesn’t physically change shape, but the amount of light and shadow we see changes. This week we will be building a moon phase model with oreos! Look out for the Instagram photos!

Writing: We are continuing to build our idea library in the back of our writer’s notebook and will have our first long write this week.

This Thursday we will be having our first lunch bunch to discuss our lunch Book Club.

Let’s have a wonderful week!

 

First days

Our class is off to a great start! If you ask your students about their day, make sure to ask them about Dragon Dollars and Daily 5. We’ve just started both! Our Dragon Dollars are our classroom currency. My past kids know that I am a fan of both sci-fi and fantasy, and there are many dragons in my room! They became featured on our classroom money last year and were a big hit. The bills are multi-colored and come in $1s, $5s, $10s, and $20s to encourage students to learn to skip count and practice adding up multiples of tens and fives.

The kids earn Dragon Dollars for being caught modeling good behavior, for turning in important papers, and for doing their classroom jobs (which will be applied for starting next week!). With the money, they are able to buy rewards, pay fines after receiving warnings for behavior (hopefully not!), and to even pay rent on their desk. I teach them basic personal financing during our year-long adventure with our classroom economy, including how and why we budget and save. Their paychecks will be more than enough to pay the rent on their desks, and I help them plan to achieve this manageable expense. If you have questions, please let me know! When speaking to them over the past few days, I could see that this was a major point of excitement for them.

Daily 5 is part of our daily reading block. During this time I will be working with students in guided small groups, while the rest of the class is actively engaged in reading stations. The program I use is called “Daily 5” which has five different components: Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Listen to Reading. Today we learned about the different expectations that go into Read to Self, and practiced building our stamina. As a class, we are almost at a full 5 minutes where they are all engaged in their reading. Over the next few weeks, the kids will be able to focus longer. Many are able to sit and read for more than that now, but this is a whole-class effort. 🙂

Our Parent Orientation is this Thursday! Please feel free to join us in the library to learn more about what second grade is all about and to come meet me and ask any questions.

Dragons and daisies!  Thank you for an amazing start. I am so fortunate to be teaching all of your wonderful children this year.

 

Welcome to Second Grade!

Hello parents and students!

I am so happy to have you join me this year. A personal goal of mine is to integrate more technology into communication and into instruction. My intention is to use this blog to provide information on what is happening in the classroom, our learning goals, and to celebrate successes. You also might find information about class projects or links to helpful videos. Newsletters will also be attached here.

I have had one family sign up for Remind so far! The information on how to do that is included in the weekend “Homework” packet that came home on Husky Night. If you haven’t had a chance, please take the time to do that! It is my primary way to deliver reminders and information to you, and you are also able to communicate to me through the app.

 To sign up for Remind- text  “@swi16-17” to #81010.