Second grade - Grade School news
November 4, 2008
Greetings from Second Grade!
It’s hard to believe we are in the month of November! The days have been chock full of learning and singing and acting (our class play is next Friday, Nov. 14th) The second graders are an incredible group of children, and it is so much fun to see their individual, special talents shine through during our various activities. As teachers, we have enjoyed and look forward to spending time with you, the parents to discuss your children’s progress. School dismissal will continue to be at noon this week. *We do not have homework this week.
Although it seems ages ago, we are still flying high from our Theme Week festivities. Thank you parents for all of your assistance with carpooling to our field trip and your help during the Theme Week. It was a wonderful experience for all of us! Did we forget to thank you for helping with our wonderful Fiesta this year too? Thank you!
As you know, we began this year’s Language Arts program with a unit study on “Me Myself and I” and in Science we completed our unit on “Plants and Flowers” with labs, research, art and writing projects. We have a field trip scheduled to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden on December 2nd. This will prove to be a wonderful culmination of our plant study. We have a native plant lab scheduled and the beautiful grounds are worth every mile of the drive!
In October, Flat Stanley and Geography were our focus. We enjoyed adventures at home and at school with our Stanleys and look forward to hearing about their experiences around the world. But, while we’re waiting we have focused on our Ancestory. We loved hearing how you came to Ojai. The posters that the students completed for this project are on display in Meyer Hall until Monday. Please stop by and take a look.
We also put a Halloween twist on our community unit of study. We had fun creating our ghoulish town, “Shiverville”, complete with laws, town name and of course the Halloween community workers to help it run smoothly. (Thank you for your contribution of milk cartons and boxes). We will explore our own school community in language arts through the Black Lagoon book series. The children enjoy the “Black Lagoon’s” tall tales format to explain each person’s role. We may even compose our own book, “The Director from the Black Lagoon”. We’ll keep you posted.
We continue our weekly visits with the Kindergarten for “Reading Buddies” on Wednesdays. The 2nd graders are paired with a Kindergarten buddy who is their reading buddy for the remainder of the year. The children from both grades look forward to this chance to read and spend time with their little buddy. We’ll also be spending time with our friends in the Red & Blue Room.
In Math, we’ve continued to review concepts from last year (math facts one thru 20, tens and ones place value, skip counting, identifying odd and even numbers, and interpreting graphs and tally marks). Most recently, the second graders created their own word problems based on the story, “The Doorbell Rang.” They enjoyed baking cookies for the project and acting out story problems. Isn’t great when math involves food? Our next focus for Math will be on “Money”.
And in Language Arts, we are meeting in reading groups and continuing to make progress in our phonics and spelling studies. Creative writing continues to be a highlight in the second grade. They have wonderfully creative ideas and enjoy putting pencil to paper.
And, finally don’t forget to mark your calendars for our Second Grade musical, “Turkeys Go On Strike” on Friday, November 14th!
Well, this just about covers most of the highlights from the last few weeks and gives you a glimpse of what’s to come. As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Mrs._Roe Mrs._Ricasata
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