The Week We Had
This week, second graders returned to our normal schedule and routine – thank goodness! Our mornings have been very productive. Our anchor text we’ve focused on is called Pioneers to the West. Students are learning about the westward expansion that took place in our country in the 1800s. The text introduces them to some famous names – George Staples, John McWilliams (even Julia Child), Levi Strauss, Laura Ingalls, and Ruth Chrisman. This is always a favorite in second grade, and it has led to great discussions. Students have returned to narrative writing. We’ve used some of these great stories from real people to inspire our work in describing characters, setting, and being able to build up to a problem in our writing.
Connecting to our unit with westward expansion in our country, we’ve continued to focus on map skills and identifying different things that make up our country. It has been a lot of fun to build on the excitement of learning about our history and what states make up our country.
Math continues to build quickly. We’ve moved from even and odd to a focus on recognizing patterns with numbers and counting by groups. Arrays have been introduced and discussed, as well as correlating problems. This unit builds the foundation to the multiplication skills that will be taught to all at the beginning of third grade!
The Week to Come
We hope that everyone enjoys the long holiday weekend! Next week is a full week, but a crazy one. First of all, students are coming home with Walk-A-Thon information today. They’ll have their collection envelope and information about what this is all about. Our Walk-A-Thon is on April 28, but please look to collect and return money by Thursday, April 27.
Next week in class, we’ll continue with the topics, themes, and focuses mentioned from this week. It’ll be a busy week where we contiually build on all of our work that has been introduced this past week. Please know that the entire second grade team will be assisting with third grade for Math Air Assessments on Tuesday and Wednesday. This will be the last of it, but it’ll involve second graders working with guest teachers again.
Thursday is our field trip day! Please have your student here on time, as we leave by 9:20 for the buses. Students will need a packed lunch in a disposable bag. We go rain or shine, so please plan accordingly for weather. We’ll talk about this more next week, and we’re very excited for a great day of learning outside the classroom!
Superb Second Graders 