Posted by kavery508 | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on March 2, 2015
It’s Read Across America Week! This nationwide effort is sponsored by the National Education Association with the aim of drawing attention to the importance and joy of lifelong reading. That’s an everyday goal of our classroom! The event is always paired with Dr. Seuss books, which we will share this week. On Friday we will be honored by a community member who will come in to read to us and share the importance of reading in our everyday lives. Our week will conclude with our class participating in our own Reader’s Theatre reading of The Sneetches (see video below) and a grade-wide celebration of reading at our monthly Grade 1 & 2 School Meeting.
You can learn more about the day, including science and math activities that can be done at home, at http://www.nea.org/grants/886.htm. This year’s theme book is Oh, The Places You’ll Go. Here it is being read aloud by U.S. service men and women (from the DVIDS website: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/392728/read-across-america-2015-service-members-read-oh-places-youll-go#.VPMuyGd0z3g) –it puts a new spin on an old idea!
Our CAFE focus is on identifying and correctly using grammar (singular and plural nouns, adjectives, homonyms, etc.). We’ll sing along to Schoolhouse Rock videos from Netflix.com (remember those old chestnuts?) and apply our learning with word play and scanning text.
We will end the trimester by revisiting and extending our learning of Informative Writing. Being naturally curious, kids are all experts on something: sports, music, building, animals, etc. How do experts use their passion about a topic to write informational text that teaches others what they know? We will answer that question by exploring our passions and using our Grade 2 Informative Pillar to structure short articles about a topic. You and your child can study great examples of short nonfiction at home with any of the links found on this blog post from Hello Literacy: http://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/02/sources-of-short-web-based-text.html
We are coming to the end of Chapter 6: multiplication of 2s, 5s, and 10s. Kids should know what multiplication means; strategies for multiplication; ways to model multiplication (arrays; bar models; drawing representational groups) and how to apply all of the above to solve real-world problems. We will take the tests on the chapter this week and continue to practice ways to solve problems.
In Social Studies, our study of geography continues with an examination of countries and continents. What exactly does each of these mean? How are continents and countries made? Which maps are best for learning about and locating these different places? National Geographic Online is a fantastic stop for all things geographical, including the photos for which they are famous as well as games and articles for kids: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids-world-atlas/maps.html
How does weather change day to day and over time? We have spent much of the trimester answering this question using scientific investigations, content learning, and observations. Having created bar graphs to show our data around temperature, we will learn this week how to analyze them. Part of analyzing data is to accurately report what the data shows, instead of what we wanted to find. Another part is noticing trends and putting the data together to comment on it. We will learn the difference between these two skills and apply them to report out on our findings.
