Although Monday was the Martin Luther King holiday we are spending some time this week learning about him and his important and true words. He said something like, "Hate cannot conquer hate but love can conquer hate." We are learning a bit of history about slavery, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights and how we should treat all people. We will also be doing some writing about what our dreams are and about Dr. King's big dream.
The keyword is "Freedom."
We are finishing up the vocabulary and math from last week. We will have a spelling test on Thursday. The spelling this week is that both "ou" and "ow" say /ou/ as in cloud and now. The students need to recognize when each one is used.
We will have a presentation to our class tomorrow by the Safe School Ambassadors from the school.
We are also finishing our unit on Healthy Lifestyles.
The students are to turn in their Math Games on Thursday. The Reading Response Journal will be collected on Friday. I will send home a fresh RRJ for students to use for makeup work for missed homework assignments.
I especially hope that all of the children will continue to read and record their minutes while they are off track. It is also important for them to work on Math Facts, Handwriting Books and memorizing how to write their name, address and phone number.
Have a great time off track. Look for more here on February 12th. I will look forward to seeing the kids again on February 16th.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Winter Learning Fun
Last Friday we read a book called "The Big Snow". We looked at photographs of snowflakes taken by Snowflake Bentley. We had a snowball fight with wadded up papers - we had written three things about ourselves on our paper. The snowball fight got the papers all mixed up. Now we are reading the 'snowball' papers one at a time and trying to guess who it belongs to. We also made cool 'supposedly' symmetrical snowflakes with Q-tips and glue. Monday morning we will find out how they turned out. You could come by and see them hanging from our classroom ceiling.
This week we will be learning about penguins as well as other Antarctic and Arctic animals.
Reading
Using books about penguins and other animals we will learn about the differences between fiction and non-fiction, we will learn about cause and effect and we will each complete a mini-book report.
Spelling
We will be learning to spell words with the long u sound. Some of these words use "ue", "ew", or u(consonant)e to create the long u sound. We will also learn the differences in spelling and meaning of: to, too, and two.
Math
We are firming up our understanding of even and odd numbers and counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. For example if there were 5 students in a room how many eyes would there be? How many legs would there be? How many toes would there be? etc.
Vocabulary
We have read the book "A Bad Case of STRIPES" by David Shannon. The vocabulary words we are learning are:
contagious
distraction
remedies
vanished
altered
perplexed
Healthy Lifestyles
Last week and this week we have been studying healthy lifestyles. We have learned about diseases. There are two main types of diseases - communicable and non-communicable. We have learned about some of the diseases in each of these categories. We have also learned about disease prevention through hand washing, good hygiene, nutrition, and exercise. This week we will also learn about avoiding tobacco, drugs and alcohol and more about nutrition and the food guide pyramid.
It seems to me that a good keyword for this week is "Penguins". I love it that they look so proper and polite in their tuxedo suits and I am amazed at what they go through to bring new penguins into existence. Both parents go through extreme hardship to help the egg then the chick to survive . Thanks for all you are doing as parents to nurture your little chicks and help them survive and grow. I care deeply for each of my students. They are sweet, wonderful children. This last week was a difficult one in our classroom. Not all but many of the students were wired and hyper on many occasions. They seemed to be talking out and not paying attention a LOT more than usual. I would appreciate it if you would talk to your child about the need to focus and try extra hard to listen when I am giving instruction and to be in control as to appropriate levels of noise in the classroom. Thank you for your efforts to help in this way. - Mrs. Taylor
This week we will be learning about penguins as well as other Antarctic and Arctic animals.
Reading
Using books about penguins and other animals we will learn about the differences between fiction and non-fiction, we will learn about cause and effect and we will each complete a mini-book report.
Spelling
We will be learning to spell words with the long u sound. Some of these words use "ue", "ew", or u(consonant)e to create the long u sound. We will also learn the differences in spelling and meaning of: to, too, and two.
Math
We are firming up our understanding of even and odd numbers and counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. For example if there were 5 students in a room how many eyes would there be? How many legs would there be? How many toes would there be? etc.
Vocabulary
We have read the book "A Bad Case of STRIPES" by David Shannon. The vocabulary words we are learning are:
contagious
distraction
remedies
vanished
altered
perplexed
Healthy Lifestyles
Last week and this week we have been studying healthy lifestyles. We have learned about diseases. There are two main types of diseases - communicable and non-communicable. We have learned about some of the diseases in each of these categories. We have also learned about disease prevention through hand washing, good hygiene, nutrition, and exercise. This week we will also learn about avoiding tobacco, drugs and alcohol and more about nutrition and the food guide pyramid.
It seems to me that a good keyword for this week is "Penguins". I love it that they look so proper and polite in their tuxedo suits and I am amazed at what they go through to bring new penguins into existence. Both parents go through extreme hardship to help the egg then the chick to survive . Thanks for all you are doing as parents to nurture your little chicks and help them survive and grow. I care deeply for each of my students. They are sweet, wonderful children. This last week was a difficult one in our classroom. Not all but many of the students were wired and hyper on many occasions. They seemed to be talking out and not paying attention a LOT more than usual. I would appreciate it if you would talk to your child about the need to focus and try extra hard to listen when I am giving instruction and to be in control as to appropriate levels of noise in the classroom. Thank you for your efforts to help in this way. - Mrs. Taylor
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Happy New Year! 2010
Here is hoping you had a wonderful holiday break. One of the favorite activities at my house was playing "Scrabble" with all my grown up kids. So I thought "Scrabble" would be a great keyword for our post this week. I found that knowing a lot of second grade spelling words comes in very handy while playing this game.
THANKS - I offer my sincere thank you to all who gave me gifts this past month. I feel very blessed by your generous offerings of Christmas wishes to me. I especially feel honored to have the privilege of teaching your children. They are sweet and adorable. The variety of their skill levels presents some challenges to me as their teacher but I do honestly enjoy being with them and trying to meet their needs. Thank you again for your generosity.
MATH
We are still really working on a variety of ways to solve story problems with both addition and subtraction and with double-digit numbers. Students should continue to practice counting by 2s, 5s and 10s, and counting money. These are great activities for home practice along with practicing all basic math facts. We will also be doing some work with even and odd numbers this next week.
SPELLING
On December 22nd I sent home spelling lists for Unit 13 –
Spelling Principle – Long O spelling
• oa as in boat
• ow as in bow
• oe as in toe
The students will be tested on these words on this Thursday January 7th.
I will post again in the next couple of days to update on anything new that comes up when we return to school tomorrow. Remember to write the keyword on your child's tracking sheet so they are rewarded for your checking this site. Thanks for using this technology tool to help us keep in touch.
THANKS - I offer my sincere thank you to all who gave me gifts this past month. I feel very blessed by your generous offerings of Christmas wishes to me. I especially feel honored to have the privilege of teaching your children. They are sweet and adorable. The variety of their skill levels presents some challenges to me as their teacher but I do honestly enjoy being with them and trying to meet their needs. Thank you again for your generosity.
MATH
We are still really working on a variety of ways to solve story problems with both addition and subtraction and with double-digit numbers. Students should continue to practice counting by 2s, 5s and 10s, and counting money. These are great activities for home practice along with practicing all basic math facts. We will also be doing some work with even and odd numbers this next week.
SPELLING
On December 22nd I sent home spelling lists for Unit 13 –
Spelling Principle – Long O spelling
• oa as in boat
• ow as in bow
• oe as in toe
The students will be tested on these words on this Thursday January 7th.
I will post again in the next couple of days to update on anything new that comes up when we return to school tomorrow. Remember to write the keyword on your child's tracking sheet so they are rewarded for your checking this site. Thanks for using this technology tool to help us keep in touch.
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