The first three weeks of school have flown by! The students in Room 204 have been hard at work: reading, writing, drawing, discussing, comparing, solving, playing, and thinking. We are working on building our class culture, learning school routines, and developing rules to live by. We have been kind and friendly, curious and careful.
Here's a quick overview of what we've been working on so far. For more pictures (and videos!) check out our blog: bit.ly/204blog
Reader's Workshop
Writer's Workshop
Social Studies
Science
We are working on science skills, especially developing questions, making observations, discussing what we notice and wonder, and self-assessing the quality of our work.
Check out the video about our raisin experiment on our blog to see more!
Housekeeping News:
Back to school night is next Thursday, October 1st. Second grade starts in the gym at 6:30 pm for a presentation by Ms. Kaplan, then goes to classrooms from 6:45 to 7:15, then visits the specialists in the cafeteria from 7:15 to 7:45.
School Site Council meets next Monday in the Library from 7 to 8 pm.
Check out Ms. Kaplan's blog for regular school updates and news: http://mskaplanlowell.blogspot.com/
Check out our class website: bit.ly/204rocks
blog: bit.ly/204blog
and Instagram: @lowell204
We are reading a variety of narratives. We started with books about school (Chrysanthemum, Clark the Shark, and I Was a Second Grade Werewolf, among others), moved on to some fun Mo Willems books, and began an author study of Peter Brown.
We also started learning some of the routines and activities we will be using during word study this year.
We started the year writing true stories about our summers. We discussed and practiced making a graphic organizer to plan out a story before writing, making a list of ideas, adding detail, changing words from boring to amazing, and practicing spelling tricky words on the back of our paper. We also widened the scope of what we can write about. Instead of just focusing on true personal narratives, some children are choosing to write fictional narratives so they can develop story problems and solutions.
Math
Our first math unit of the year has focused on reading, writing, understanding, and comparing three-digit numbers up to 1,000. We also added and subtracted 1, 10, and 100 from three-digit numbers.
We also had a problem solving challenge involving some hippos and a board book that Mr. MacLellan reads to his six-month-old son. Ask your student how they did!
At home, you can use a deck of cards to play two games we have played in class:
Double Compare - divide the deck in half, pull the top two cards, add the values together, and compare with your opponent. The player with the greater value takes the cards, as long as they remember to say "___ is greater than ___". With a normal deck of cards, aces can be 1 and the face cards can be wild cards.
Highest 3 out of 6 - Each player starts with 6 cards in front of them. You need to make the highest three-digit number you can with digits on your cards. After both players make their highest three-digit number, they compare, just as they did in Double Compare. A normal deck of cards adds an extra element to the game, as 10s can push the numbers into the thousands!
You can also quiz your student on combinations to make 10 and adding 1, 10, and 100 to any three-digit number.
We talked about behaviors and actions we want to see in school, and are developing a list of rules to live by in second grade. These will be rules that apply to our behavior anywhere we are, in school and out. Once we settle on language and categories we agree on, we will sign our names to a classroom agreement.
Additionally, we discussed our hopes for the year, and ways that we want to grow as students.
We have a great year ahead of us!
visit our website: sites.google.com/site/lowellroom204
read our blog: lowellroom204.blogspot.com
follow us on Instagram: @lowell204
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