The Seventh Week of Second Grade

We had another busy week in Room 104. We finished up our module in math, worked with solids in science, and are reviewing skills encountered in Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop.  Let's learn more!

Our morning block of learning included a new list  of spelling words through the Words Their Way program. We studied words with the short and long u in them, taking note of the silent e. During our morning meetings, we had our last students sharing their "All About Me" posters.  This week we learned about Jonas, Reid, Christian, Sofia, and Mr. Ricker.  All posters will be on display through the end of the month. During our ELA block, we focused more on genre, retelling, and lessons learned in our reading. We reading "Mercy Watson Fights Crime" during Read Aloud and "Boo! Katie Woo!" for Shared Reading. We also started Reading Buddies for the first time this week. We will be visiting Mrs. Fogg's fifth grade class every Tuesday to read and learn with a buddy. It should be awesome! In Writer's Workshop, we wrote another narrative story. We keep working on clear and detailed sentences, plus adding details and craft moves to make them more powerful. Phonics instruction was around homophones. We made our own set of illustrated homophones this week. We also practiced handwriting, accessed RAZ-KIDS on our iPads, retold a story we read, and practiced fluency and comprehension in small groups at W.I.N. time.

 In Science, we continued to study matter. We spent the week reviewing what we know about solids, including their properties and materials that are part of them. Then we tried grouping solids with the same properties. We found out that two or more objects can have the same property. We also used what we know about properties and materials to build towers out of different objects. Student were challenged to build something 45cm tall and be able to survive a fan's breeze without tape or glue. Instead, we used cups, craft sticks, rubber bands, cardboard, aluminum foil, straws, and more. We had some interesting structures! We ended the week with a quick comprehension check to see what we know.

In Math, we finished Module Two on Measuring Length. We developed some estimation strategies using mental benchmarks and trying to solve two-step word problems. Those were a bit tricky, so we will revisit that skill more throughout the year. Then we reviewed measuring with traditional rulers and paper clips, mental benchmarks, and word problems before assessing our skills on Friday. Next week we will start a new module on place value. We also got to visit Music with Ms. Brown, write letters about the monarch butterflies and descriptive words in Spanish with Sra. Colmenero, check out books in the library with Mr. Withers, use paint to make a picture in Art with Ms. Sundquist, and play some games on scooters in P.E. with Mr. Simatic.

Have a great weekend!  Remember that we DO have school this Monday, October 14. See you then!