Important Dates: Monday, Dec. 19: No School - Start of Winter Break Monday, Jan. 2: No School (New Year's Day Observed) Tuesday, Jan. 3: School Resumes Tuesday, Jan. 10: Field trip - Mercer Slough Monday, Jan. 16: No school - MLK Day Hi families, This week day by day: Monday: Penguin craft day was a hit! I hope you enjoyed the stuffed penguins that came home. Let me know if you would like the directions to make your own at home. Tuesday: We prepared for our writing celebration by editing, coloring and reading like experts. In math, we practiced our 2-digit addition strategies with a new game called Save Twenty. Wednesday: We wrapped up our first non-fiction writing unit with our non-fiction writing celebration on Wednesday. Thank you to all who could make it. For those of you who could not, students' writing will be on display in the hallway for a few weeks in January. Please come and check it out! Students went around the QAE neighborhood to deliver our New Year's cards. Students did a nice job knocking on doors saying hello to folks around the school. Thursday: Students started writing their own gingerbread fairy tales, changing settings, characters and plots to create their own fractured fairy tales. In math, students played 100-chart Hop Scotch. Friday: We finished up and shared our fractured fairy tales and celebrated our hard work with hot chocolate and Inside Out. Thank you to everyone for the thoughtful and generous gifts. Have a lovely winter break, merry holidays and I will see you all in 2017!
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Important Dates: Monday, Dec. 12: Penguin Day Wednesday, Dec. 14: Non-fiction Writing Celebration 7:55 - 8:15am (Yes, on Wednesday!) Wednesday, Dec. 14: Neighborhood Walk - Deliver Postcards Friday, Dec. 16: Unity Celebration - Inside Out and Popcorn Monday, Dec. 19: No School - Start of Winter Break Monday, Jan. 2: No School (New Year's Day Observed) Tuesday, Jan. 3: School Resumes Hi families, This week we have been taking a look at variations of the Gingerbread Man, reading the traditional story followed by reading corresponding "fractured fairy tales." While reading these stories, we have been working on our retelling skills, making sure to include setting, characters and plot. We have discussed how plot lines follow patterns. Plots often have characters finding or creating a problem and then they often solve these problems by the end. We had an interesting conversation about how there can be several problems in one story. Typically, the biggest problems involve the main characters, and in the endings characters often resolve these problems. These resolutions can sometimes solve other minor characters' problems as well. Next week, we will compare and contrast stories and write our own gingerbread fractured fairy tales! Writing: We are finishing up our teaching texts, adding comparison, revising and editing, and making sure our table of contents have the right page numbers. Looking forward to sharing our books with you on Wednesday first thing in the morning. Math: We are building strategies for 2-digit addition in math. So far we have covered adding by place value, adding part-by-part and adding with friendly numbers (make friendly numbers or break numbers up to find friendly numbers). Next week, we will continue practicing these strategies as we add 3 or more 2-digit addends. Important Dates: Dec. 5 -9: Food Drive for Pike Place Market Dec. 5-9: Raise for Maize Wednesday, Dec. 7: Hour of Code Monday, Dec. 12: Penguin Day Wednesday, Dec. 14: Non-fiction Writing Celebration 7:55 - 8:15am Friday, Dec. 16: Unity Celebration - Inside Out and Popcorn Monday, Dec. 19: Start of Winter Break Monday, Jan. 2: No School Tuesday, Jan. 3: School Resumes Hi families, As we prepare for the holidays and a time of giving and reflection, our school community is doing its part to contribute. Next week, we will hold a food drive for the Pike Place Market and hold a fundraiser for our sister school, Dwankhozi. Students and families are welcome to bring in non-perishable items and toilet paper on Tuesday for the food drive and the total of donations for Dwankhozi on Friday, December 9. In our own class, we discussed some of the pressing issues we've noticed around our community. Here is a list of some of the problems students have noticed around the community:
Students read about their topic, wrote down some of the causes of the problems, and as a group came up with some ideas on how to solve some of these problems. Students showed compassion and thought as they came up with creative ideas. Some included machines in the ocean to pick up trash to writing letters to the president to shut down cigarette factories. Take a look at the photo so see some of the other creative solutions students came up with. Math - Students are taking their first look at solving different types of word problems. These types fall into four categories: join, separate, part-part-whole and comparing. We will practice these word problems again in the winter. Writing - Students have been feverishly writing to teach all they know about topics they are experts on. We will have our writing celebration on Wednesday, December 14 first thing in the morning. Reading - We have been growing our knowledge across multiple non-fiction texts, comparing information between books of the same topic and taking notes on new and imporant key words. Using our wide awake brains, students have used text features such as captions, labels, subtitles and glossaries to help gain and grow their knowledge. |
Ms. ThibautOne of the second grade teachers at QAE. Read this blog and stay up-to-date on classroom activities. Archives
March 2017
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Ms. Thibault's 2nd Grade | Class Blog |