April 24, 2015-

Please make sure you checkout your child’s online report card.  Enjoy our bird photos!

Reader's Workshop

Once upon a time… in the land of Dublin Land the second grade students began reading many fairy tales. We have immersed the students in fairy tales, fables, and folk tales this past week and will continue in the coming weeks.  The readers are becoming experts on the characteristics, setting, and magic of the fairy tale.  We have read several classic fairy tales… Cinderella, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Beauty and the Beast, just to name a few.

Writer's Workshop

Last week, students took their favorite non-fiction piece to publish.  Writers had to grab their audience with precision, persuasion, and power.  Their words needed to teach and inspire their audience.  I learned so many new and interesting facts about the students’ topics.

Birds, birds, birds… BIRDS!! We are spending time learning about the different types of bird books we’re using for our research on birds. We continue to gather information about birds as we look at field guides, bird type specific books and general bird books. Please remember, if you have any bird books at home, we’d love to take a look at them at school too!

Students will become a bird expert on their chosen bird over the next several weeks.  Please send in your bird facts/information as soon as possible- we’ve already started to dive into the research process.  Researchers have already written facts about their bird physical description/characteristics, habitat, and nesting.

Social Studies

Our Walled Lake/White Lake history unit had us looking the differences from the past until now.  Our community has changed a great deal, especially the Dublin school.  It used to be a one room school house.   Thanks for your support with the school comparison venn diagram.  We shared our findings on a class venn diagram and thought many things were funny.  Don’t forget the artifact museum is this Friday, May 1^st.

Science

We focused on the moon by learning the different phases that it goes through each month.  The scientists learned that the moon is always a sphere/ball, but the refection from the sunlight is what causes it to show the different phases.  Students created their own Moon Phase booklet to help be prepared for their Air and Weather test in May.

Students made kites this week, but we are waiting for warmer weather to try them outside.

Word Study- all students learned these lessons in phonics

·       vowel patterns- ai, ay, ee, ow, oa, ea.  Students played Crazy Eights to reinforce these skills

·       consonant cluster - st at the beginning and ending of a word (stop and fast)

·       consonant clusters at the end of a word- mp, nd, nk, nt. Students played Lotto with these clusters

·       CVVC patterns in words

·       More word chunks- ain, ay,

Math

Last week we finished unit 7.  Students used data collection to fill out data charts and graphs.  Kids had to find their arm span and how far they could jump.  Then we found the class median value (middle value).

Money, money, money continues to be the focus for unit 10.  The continuation of ballpark estimation is still going on, this helps calculate if you have enough money for a certain item to purchase.  Mathematicians played many games that reinforced the skill of counting money.  The more opportunities you can give to your child to count money, the better! 

Upcoming Events

Artifact Museum- Friday, May 1^st