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!