Reading: Second graders have been working in same-book partnerships to strengthen comprehension skills and overcome common challenges while reading longer books (keeping track of characters, remembering different story lines, thinking about how the book fits together). Partners made a plan for how much to read during independent reading time and then came back together to talk about their books. This past week, students formed goal clubs. Second graders chose a goal to work on related to the three main parts of the unit: reading fluently, understanding literary language, and keeping track of longer books. Second graders made a plan with their group members for how they would work towards their goal each day and then checked in and gave each other feedback. All of our work over the last two weeks has helped to set the stage for our next reading unit, Series Book Clubs.
Writing: Dialogue has been a big focus in our writing recently. Second graders are continuing to practice writing dialogue with correct punctuation, including using question marks and exclamation points in dialogue. We also used dialogue to show a character’s personality and thought about character’s traits and wrote dialogue in a way that reflected these traits. Next week we’ll begin publishing in a different way. Rather than rewriting a final copy of a story, second graders will be creating audio books!
Math: Second graders studied fractions and learned to identify and represent halves, thirds, and fourths. We connected this to our work with geometry and two dimensional shapes. Now we are studying three dimensional shapes. Second graders enjoyed creating models of cubes out of toothpicks and model magic. They also created models out of paper of five different three dimensional shapes. We have learned that faces are the flat surfaces of a 3D shape and edges are where two faces connect.
Second Step: In Second Step we have begun a new unit on Emotion Management. We have learned that when we have strong feelings, it’s hard for our brain to think. The feeling part of the brain can take over and we can lose control of the thinking part of our brain. We learned the following steps to manage strong feelings.
- Stop (use your stop signal such as saying “Calm down”, “Relax” or “Chill out”)
- Name Your Feeling
- Calm Down (use a strategy- we will discuss this in upcoming lessons)
Conversation Starters:
What stop signal did you choose for yourself when you need to calm down?
What goal are you working on in reading?
What is the most challenging part about designing your Maglev train?
Dates to Remember:
Tuesday, February 13th: Early Release
Wednesday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day (Optional- students may bring in Valentines)