October is Here!

We are thinking of falling leaves and pumpkins, cooler weather and spooky times ahead.
Actually the class has come up with a list of about 20 questions about autumn and they will be doing some research and writing answers to the questions. Our ultimate goal is for the class to write an informational book about fall. Each of the 2nd grade classes will be writing a book about one of the seasons. This is a project that is required by the new Language Arts Common Core. It will be done over the next few weeks, mostly during our rotation time.

SPELLING and Language
We are working with the consonant blend ck in combination with each vowel. The students will learn "The CK Rap". They will read a poem called "The Train" in which they are learning about rhyming, rhythm, and repetition. We will also do a quick-write class book called "A My Name Is Alice" where we will be learning about alliteration. All of these are an introduction to poetry. (They will be writing poems about autumn as part of their autumn book.)

This last week the students practiced finding the beginning, middle and end of a story. We learned about thinking about the Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How? in what they read. This also relates to the Characters, Setting, Problem and Solution in the story. Then we learned about the roles of authors and illustrators. We have done a fun project where they were given a brief story and had to figure out the Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How? of the story and use that information to illustrate the story. They actually did a very good job at this. Now they are finishing up a sequel to that project by looking at an illustration, writing down their own ideas of characters, setting, problem and solution and then using that information to write a story about the illustration. This new Common Core is really pushing these kids to be deeper thinkers and harder workers.

MATH
Today we did an activity called "How Many Pockets?" The students put one connecting cube in each pocket they were wearing. They then stacked all their own pocket cubes into a tower on their desks. We used this data to make a line plot graph. Then each table discovered ways they could count how many pockets were at their table. Finally we found ways to find out how many pockets were in the class today. I hope you have fun counting pockets at your house.

We are starting study of counting money. This is an area where practicing at home with a parent is very helpful. Please take time to reinforce the names and values of coins and to practice counting small amounts of money. Start small and with the pennies and nickles and increase the difficulty as the child's skill increases.

VOCABULARY
We did not get the test done last Friday so we will take the test tomorrow. After that I will choose a new vocabulary book and publish the new vocabulary words here.

This week's keyword is "Cemetery".