We sure have been busy the past two weeks! Not only did we complete our mid-year reading assessment, but we also managed to squeeze in a few grammar skills and a readers theater performance as well!
Our story for the last two weeks was called A Birthday Mystery. We reviewed high-frequency words from the previous four weeks. Robust vocabulary words were bewildered, evasive, mull, and startle. I continue to be impressed each week and how well the students can incorporate these words into their everyday vocabulary. It's so fun to hear them speak like little adults, and it makes them sound and feel so smart! We finished up possessive nouns and also learned about pronouns. Ask your second grader to do the pronoun chant for you and to give you some examples of pronouns. We are also squeezing writing in whenever we get a chance, and our focus right now is on writing a paragraph using a topic sentence. We are really working hard to keep our writing on topic and give as many details as we can to support the topic sentence.
Next week we will be back on track with a regular schedule. We will begin lesson 16, which is a story called Mr. Putter and Tabby Write the Book. This story is realistic fiction - see if your second grader can explain what that means. Our focus skill will be setting. We will expand on what the students learned in first grade - that setting means where the story takes place - by adding in a when component as well. We will also be learning how to make our identification of a story's setting more specific than just "inside" or "outside." We will no longer have high-frequency words as a skill or assessment each week. Instead our quantity of robust vocabulary words will increase from four to six. The words will now appear in the story each week, just as the high-frequency words did in the past. The students will continue to be exposed to the words on a daily basis through our vocabulary lessons and now through the reading of the story as well. I suspect that there may be some difficulty transitioning to an increase in the number of words for the first week or two, but please be patient. Your second grader will catch on soon! The words for next week are cozy, enchanting, instead, thrilled, review, and celebrate. Our grammar skill will be adjectives, which will be our focus for the next five weeks of language arts lessons. We will continue to work on writing paragraphs using topic sentences. Spelling words next week have the kn, wr, ph, and ough spelling patterns. Words are:
knot, wrong, know, wreck, graph, wrap, tough, knife, phone, laugh, elephant, photograph, handwriting, knuckle, enough, letter, mother, answer, found, study
Challenge list:
Oops, I left this list at school. Will update this weekend with the list. Sorry!
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - art
Tuesday - music
Wednesday - gym
Thursday - library
Friday - music
Enjoy the weekend!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Just a Reminder
This week's post is a reminder to make sure you are checking my website weekly if you are not receiving paper copies of each week's posting. If would like to receive paper copies of each posting, please let me know - jot a note in your child's assignment book this weekend.
This week we began lesson 15. We are reading a story called A Birthday Mystery, which is a Reader's Theater. We also took advantage of the days when everyone was present to complete some mid-year testing. Due to this testing, we will be continuing with lesson 15 next week as well.
We are reviewing past high frequency words in lesson 15. Vocabulary words are bewildered, evasive, mull, and startle. We are working with plural possessive nouns this week and will be introducing pronouns next week. We are writing paragraphs in our journals using a topic sentence, and they are coming along so nicely! Ask your second grader to bring his/her journal home and share some of the stories with you! There will be no spelling test next week.
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - music
Tuesday - gym
Wednesday - library
Thursday - music
Friday - computer
Enjoy your weekend! :)
This week we began lesson 15. We are reading a story called A Birthday Mystery, which is a Reader's Theater. We also took advantage of the days when everyone was present to complete some mid-year testing. Due to this testing, we will be continuing with lesson 15 next week as well.
We are reviewing past high frequency words in lesson 15. Vocabulary words are bewildered, evasive, mull, and startle. We are working with plural possessive nouns this week and will be introducing pronouns next week. We are writing paragraphs in our journals using a topic sentence, and they are coming along so nicely! Ask your second grader to bring his/her journal home and share some of the stories with you! There will be no spelling test next week.
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - music
Tuesday - gym
Wednesday - library
Thursday - music
Friday - computer
Enjoy your weekend! :)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
We're Halfway Done!
Well, we are about halfway through the school year! I'm really proud of how far the kids have come in the past few months. Progress is good, and I am excited to see what the rest of the year brings!
This week we read a story called Rain Forest Babies. It was a nonfiction selection, and the kids were able to learn a number of facts about several different animals that live in the rain forest - the elephant, the tiger, the poison frog, the macaw, the kangaroo, and the sugar glider. We even got to see a real sugar glider on Friday thanks to Anna from Mrs. Schulte's class. So cool! The kids are in the process of working on fact books that highlight some of the information they learned from this story. They are looking good and should be in the hallway sometime next week.
We finished up our discussion of fiction and nonfiction. We still tend to confuse the two sometimes, but it is a skill we will continue to work on throughout the year. Our high frequency words for the week were care, interesting, father, thumb, touch, and sweat. Robust vocabulary words were adorable, assortment, habitat, and immense. Our grammar skill for the week was singular possessive nouns. This tends to be a pretty tricky skill for second graders, but I know they will learn more about it next year.
Next week and the following week will be an assortment (like how I used a vocabulary word there?) of different activities. We have some mid-year testing to complete, but I'm unsure as to exactly when that will take place. It is much easier for me to give these tests on days where no students are absent, so we will just be playing it by ear until we can get through the whole test. It is lengthy, but we will split it up into several small parts to be completed over a few days.
Also during the next two weeks we will be reading a story called A Birthday Mystery. It is a Reader's Theater, and the students will be performing at the end of the lesson. We will review both author's purpose and fiction/nonfiction. High frequency words will be a review of the words we have had over the past four weeks. Robust vocabulary words will be bewildered, evasive, mull, and startle. Our grammar skills will be plural possessive nouns and pronouns. Spelling words will be a review.
Words are:
wish, catch, very, huge, shadow, sandwich, nobody, celebrate, surprise, learn, change, off, play, spell, air, away, animal, house, paint, page
Challenge list:
sandwich, celebrate, surprise, imagine, gentle, perfect, birthday, twenty, shadow, chimney, change, off, play, spell, air, away, animal, house, paint, page
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - no school (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
Tuesday - library
Wednesday - music
Thursday - computer
Friday - art
A big thank you to all of the parents who attended our awards assembly on Friday. The kids did such a great job all semester, and I am so proud of them! It's always great to see the parents supporting their achievements as well.
Enjoy the long weekend!
This week we read a story called Rain Forest Babies. It was a nonfiction selection, and the kids were able to learn a number of facts about several different animals that live in the rain forest - the elephant, the tiger, the poison frog, the macaw, the kangaroo, and the sugar glider. We even got to see a real sugar glider on Friday thanks to Anna from Mrs. Schulte's class. So cool! The kids are in the process of working on fact books that highlight some of the information they learned from this story. They are looking good and should be in the hallway sometime next week.
We finished up our discussion of fiction and nonfiction. We still tend to confuse the two sometimes, but it is a skill we will continue to work on throughout the year. Our high frequency words for the week were care, interesting, father, thumb, touch, and sweat. Robust vocabulary words were adorable, assortment, habitat, and immense. Our grammar skill for the week was singular possessive nouns. This tends to be a pretty tricky skill for second graders, but I know they will learn more about it next year.
Next week and the following week will be an assortment (like how I used a vocabulary word there?) of different activities. We have some mid-year testing to complete, but I'm unsure as to exactly when that will take place. It is much easier for me to give these tests on days where no students are absent, so we will just be playing it by ear until we can get through the whole test. It is lengthy, but we will split it up into several small parts to be completed over a few days.
Also during the next two weeks we will be reading a story called A Birthday Mystery. It is a Reader's Theater, and the students will be performing at the end of the lesson. We will review both author's purpose and fiction/nonfiction. High frequency words will be a review of the words we have had over the past four weeks. Robust vocabulary words will be bewildered, evasive, mull, and startle. Our grammar skills will be plural possessive nouns and pronouns. Spelling words will be a review.
Words are:
wish, catch, very, huge, shadow, sandwich, nobody, celebrate, surprise, learn, change, off, play, spell, air, away, animal, house, paint, page
Challenge list:
sandwich, celebrate, surprise, imagine, gentle, perfect, birthday, twenty, shadow, chimney, change, off, play, spell, air, away, animal, house, paint, page
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - no school (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
Tuesday - library
Wednesday - music
Thursday - computer
Friday - art
A big thank you to all of the parents who attended our awards assembly on Friday. The kids did such a great job all semester, and I am so proud of them! It's always great to see the parents supporting their achievements as well.
Enjoy the long weekend!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday. It's hard to believe how quickly the breaks go!
We jumped right in this week, especially since it was only a four-day week. We read a story called Big Bushy Mustache. Though we have been talking about the differences between fiction and nonfiction all year, it was a main focus this week. We know a song about fiction stories and a chant about nonfiction stories. We found both kinds of books in our classroom library, and we sorted some of the stories we have read so far this year. High frequency words for this week were above, shoes, tough, wash, wear, woman, and young. Robust vocabulary words were route, semblance, distraught, and improvise. We began talking about singular possessive nouns in language. We discussed the difference between using an apostrophe to show ownership and just an s to make a word mean more than one.
Next week we will be reading Rainforest Babies. We will continue to focus on identifying stories as fiction or nonfiction. We will be completing a fact book with information about each of the baby animals we will read about. High frequency words will be care, father, interesting, thumb, touch, and sweat. Robust vocabulary words will be adorable, assortment, habitat, and immense. We will continue singular possessive nouns, which I am hoping to wrap up toward the middle of the week. At that point we will begin looking at plural possessive nouns. Spelling words for next week will have the r-controlled vowel spelling patterns spelled ir, ur, er, or ear. Remember that there are three options for spelling lists, so check the list in your child's traveling folder to confirm which words you should be studying. Words are:
fur, shirt, burn, stir, bird, turn, herd, third, learn, search, perfect, birthday, purple, circus, surprise, try, kind, hand, picture, again
Challenge list:
perfect, birthday, purple, circus, surprise, birdhouse, person, flower, stirring, burned, thirty, dirty, plural, monster, search, try, kind, hand, picture, again
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - music
Tuesday - computer
Wednesday - art
Thursday - music
Friday - gym
Stay warm this weekend!
We jumped right in this week, especially since it was only a four-day week. We read a story called Big Bushy Mustache. Though we have been talking about the differences between fiction and nonfiction all year, it was a main focus this week. We know a song about fiction stories and a chant about nonfiction stories. We found both kinds of books in our classroom library, and we sorted some of the stories we have read so far this year. High frequency words for this week were above, shoes, tough, wash, wear, woman, and young. Robust vocabulary words were route, semblance, distraught, and improvise. We began talking about singular possessive nouns in language. We discussed the difference between using an apostrophe to show ownership and just an s to make a word mean more than one.
Next week we will be reading Rainforest Babies. We will continue to focus on identifying stories as fiction or nonfiction. We will be completing a fact book with information about each of the baby animals we will read about. High frequency words will be care, father, interesting, thumb, touch, and sweat. Robust vocabulary words will be adorable, assortment, habitat, and immense. We will continue singular possessive nouns, which I am hoping to wrap up toward the middle of the week. At that point we will begin looking at plural possessive nouns. Spelling words for next week will have the r-controlled vowel spelling patterns spelled ir, ur, er, or ear. Remember that there are three options for spelling lists, so check the list in your child's traveling folder to confirm which words you should be studying. Words are:
fur, shirt, burn, stir, bird, turn, herd, third, learn, search, perfect, birthday, purple, circus, surprise, try, kind, hand, picture, again
Challenge list:
perfect, birthday, purple, circus, surprise, birdhouse, person, flower, stirring, burned, thirty, dirty, plural, monster, search, try, kind, hand, picture, again
Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - music
Tuesday - computer
Wednesday - art
Thursday - music
Friday - gym
Stay warm this weekend!
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