May 2015

Enjoy all the artifacts, kites, ACES -(all kids exercise) and field day photos!

Reader’s Workshop:

We are still immersed in the study of folk tales.  This week’s focus was on fractured fairy tales. A fractured fairy tale is a story that uses a fairy tale that you know and changes the characters, setting, points of view or plots. The mentor texts that we focused on this week were The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Rough Faced Girl, Somebody and the Three Blairs and Little Red’s Riding Hood.  Students were really amused with these stories and how the authors added their own special twist to the traditional fairy tales that we know and love.  They were excited to make plans to write a fractured fairy tale of their own in Writer’s Workshop!

Writer’s Workshop:

Our Ornithologists put the finishing touches on their magazine articles about their special Michigan bird.  Many different writing concepts were introduced to your child in this unit:

• Learning how to research information, remember the important facts and put it into their own words
• Cross check information to make sure that the facts are correct
• Learning about different nonfiction features in a field guide:  nesting, eggs and young, habitat, migration, food, physical description, range, interesting facts and illustrations with labels.  They used this information to write a magazine article about their bird.
• Scientific pictures and details that help the reader learn facts about the subject of the magazine
• Writers use what they know about the writing process to publish by:

-Making plans for revising

-Subtracting things that may be unnecessary or confusing

-Editing the piece for correct punctuation and correct spelling

-Writing an opening that will “grab” their reader’s attention and  

  Make them want to read more.

Your child was very excited about this unit of study and has become an expert on their Michigan bird.  When they bring their articles home, please praise your child for including the features that published authors include when writing “Magazine Articles”.  I’m sure you’ll be amazed at all of the information that your child knows about their Michigan bird!

Word Study:

We have been learning about the sound that “a” makes in different words such as: cake,play and rain. They also practiced sorting and creating words with word patterns of: -ake, -ack, -ail, -ale, -ank, -ame, -ask, -ate and –ash. Our second graders ended the week reviewing important high frequency words by playing a fun game of Go Fish!

 

Math Workshop:

Our mathematicians have been reviewing the important concepts of multiplication and division.  They learned the strategies for multiplying numbers by 0, 1, 2, 5 and 10.  I also taught them a nifty little x 9 trick with their hands!  Students were able to find quite a few patterns when completing these multiplication problems, which was really exciting to see!  A set of fact triangles came home with your child this week.  They don’t need to be returned; however, please use them to get a jump start practicing their multiplication facts for third grade.  Their third grade teacher would be thrilled if they knew their basic multiplication facts at the beginning of the year! We ended the week by learning how you can figure out division facts by using multiplication facts. 

Our final benchmark assessment will be on Wednesday, May 27^th.  The study guide have the other day.

Social Studies:

Our Artifacts Museum was a huge success!  Students brought in some really interesting artifacts (many of which reminded me of how old I am) and were very eager to share them with their classmates.  We also started our final unit on Leading Our Community.

Science:

Our meteorologists have been very busy:

·       making journal entries about the weather

·       learning about the different types of clouds and what kind of weather they bring

·       constructing pinwheels and kites and learning how air makes them move

We will be finishing our Air and Weather unit in the next few weeks.

Important Dates/Events:

Monday, May 18^th:  Jiffy Field Trip Permission Slip and $5 due

Thursday, May 21^st:  Field Day.  We will be going out in the morning (9:10-11:20). PTA will be providing a hot dog lunch.  If your child doesn’t like hot dogs, they may bring their own lunch.

Wednesday, May 27^th:  Math Benchmark Assessment

Thursday, May 28^th:  Volunteer Breakfast: 9:15-10:30 am.

Friday, May 29^th:  Field Trip to Jiffy Factory

Wednesday, June 3^rd: Dublin’s Ice Cream Social Pre-sale bracelet deadline ($12). All orders must be received by the end of the school

Friday, June 5^th:  Pre-sale bracelet pick-up begins at 4:30 pm at Dublin.

Dublin’s Ice Cream Social: 5:30-8:00 pm.