Students participated in a bus safety assembly last week and practiced exiting out of a school bus.  They love seeing Buster the bus move throughout our gymnasium.

Word Study

We continued working with vowels and vowel patterns last week.  Students played a concentrations game matching words with a vowel’s short and long sound.  This week we practiced high frequency words.  Students are learning that these words act as anchors, keeping readers anchored to the text.  We also introduced the concept of synonyms (words having similar/same meaning, such and like and enjoy) and played the memory game with these.

Additionally students are being taught to use our word wall in the classroom as well as our individual student dictionaries.

 Reader’s Workshop

We launched our next Reading unit titled “Tackling Troubles”.  Our lessons focused on helping readers tackle problems while reading.  Last week we shared how readers look closely at words, especially finding word chunks they know, reading words all the way through to the end etc.  They also learned about flipping vowel sounds and sometimes consonants like g.  Next, we discussed how using the meaning from pictures or other parts of the sentence can help reader’s decode words.  This week we talked about using high frequency words and the need to know many words in a snap and also how important it is to learn new words and their meanings.

In our classroom we post strategies we are learning and using on our CAFÉ board.  Students should be able to explain to you what each letter stands for.   Ask your child about this.

This past week 2nd grade teachers had substitutes all day for our reading DRA testing.  By having current data on all students’ reading levels we will soon be able to begin our guided reading groups.  Once these groups begin your child will be bringing home guided reading books approximately twice a week.

*Please be sure your child has started recording minutes read on the Oct. reading log.  If by chance it is lost during the month, simply record it on any piece of paper!  These are due Oct. 31st and are very important to our data collection this year.

Writer’s Workshop

 We started our “Authors as Mentors” unit.  In this 5 week study we are discovering writer’s craft from authors we know and enjoy.  Last week we launched with Kevin Henkes finding that he uses writing craft such as rule of 3, repeating lines, personification and more.  This week we are reading books from Cynthia Rylant.  She is a master with descriptive language and more.  After reading books from these authors we chart their styles and then borrow some of their craft to write our own stories.  At this time the focus truly is on borrowing these styles.  However, through conferencing we are also addressing some mechanics of writing with students, such as using periods or leaving more spaces between words.

Math

We are in the middle of our 2nd unit, Addition and Subtraction Facts.  This a key unit in 2nd grade!  All 2nd grade classes are stretching out this unit to build in extra time for teaching & practicing specific strategies.  So far we have reviewed number stories, counting on, doubles, rules such as +0, +1, & +9, we are working on the near doubles strategy and also turn around short cuts.  These are strategies we will consistently review and practice throughout the year.  PLEASE quiz your child on his/her double facts and also be sure s/he is able to count on.  For example when adding 5+12…they should be able to start with 12 and then count on with 5 fingers “13, 14, 15, 16, 17”.

Social Studies

In our unit about our surrounding community students are recognizing that they belong with groups within our community such as our school group, 2nd grade group, church groups, sports groups etc.  We are also beginning to understand features of our community that can be categorized as human or natural.  We took a walk outside last week naming things around us that were either human or natural features.  Each child was asked to create a map of his neighborhood.  This was not to teach mapping, but to help students see these features.  In our next unit we will teach actual map mapping skills.

Upcoming Events

•             Oct. 17th Dublin Fun Run