Second Grade News December and January Edition
Language Arts
In Writer's Workshop we studied the genre of fiction. The second graders learned more about story structure, identifying the five parts of a story: setting, characters, problem, solution and events. We read My Father's Dragon as a class, analyzed Elmer's character and wrote our own fiction stories with interesting characters that talk. Our next unit of study in Writer's Workshop was an author study. We read many books by Angela Johnson and made the observation that she likes to write books about families. We compared and contrasted the stories that we read and identified writing techniques she uses, such as ellipses, comeback lines, beautiful language and leads about the time of day and weather. The students wrote small moment stories and tried to incorporate some of these ideas into their own writing. We will celebrate these stories in class this week, before the students bring them home to share with you!
Math
The students have been learning about double digit addition and subtraction with and without regrouping. We worked hard to recognize the relationship between addition and subtraction and how knowing your addition facts is a strategy to help with subtraction. It is really important that the students memorize their addition and subtraction facts. So for homework, they should practice, practice, practice!! Our next unit of study is measurement and probability. The students learned why having a standard unit of measure is important and practiced measuring objects in the room in inches with a ruler and a yardstick. We also learned about perimeter and measured the perimeter of different objects in the room in centimeters. We will have fun applying our measuring skills by applying them in real ways, like cooking!
Science
After our wonderful study of habitats and animal adaptations, (did you see the article in the About Us?!) we began a new unit in Science; studying matter. The students learned that everything in the universe is made up of matter. Matter has three states: solids, liquids and gases. All matter has mass and takes up space. We also investigated each of the three forms to identify their unique properties, and compared and contrasted how each form is alike and different. Next, we will explore changes in matter!
Social Studies
We have been learning about how we are a country of many different people. We have been reading stories in our Basal readers with multicultural characters. We learned that culture is a group of people's way of life and culture can be expressed many ways; through clothing, holidays, celebrations and traditions, food, music, dance and art. Next, we will study different multicultural versions of Cinderella, and the students will write their own fairytales. Also, it was great to have Clara's parents visit to teach us more about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., sharing with us a yummy tradition of their own--"soul food" macaroni and cheese!