Happy New Year!

Hello Everyone!

December flew by in a flurry! Here's a bit of info to bring you up to speed in 2nd grade...

We are in the middle of Module 4-working on addition and subtraction strategies. The more fluent your child is with their math facts, the easier it is do add and subtract the larger numbers. We will be focusing on more strategies that help us become more efficient with our math.

In January we will be on week 3 for Unit 3 in ELA, keeping right on track with sight words and skills. In Unit 3 we are focusing on long vowel sounds as well as cause and effect, drawing conclusions, fact and opinion, making judgments, main idea, and summarizing.

In January we'll be picking back up with Science and starting "How Can We Stop Soil from Washing Away?" This is a fun science unit with lots of hands on exploring!

You should have received a note reminding you that the "High Five" program will be starting again January 3rd. For four Wednesday's in January we will have presentations to discuss body/stranger awareness.

Other classroom tidbits:

Hungry bellies would appreciate if you could send in a box or bag of a snack for our "Emergency Snack Bin!"

January Share topics:

1/2- Free Share
1/8- What is the best part of winter?
1/16-Share a picture of your house and tell us what you have around your house that helps stop erosion?
1/22-Opinion Sharing: Should kids have more or less recess? Why?
1/29- Who is someone you love? Tell us 3 things about them.

Here are a few pics from our Holiday Party-great fun was had by all! Thank you to Mrs. Cronin, Mrs. Gentile and Mrs. Feng for helping! Thank you to Mrs. Malay for taking a lot of great pictures!

Have a great break week! See you in 2018!

November

Whew! Has this been a busy month or what? I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving! Between Halloween, conferences and Open House things have been busy around Tecumseh! It was great to meet with most of you who were able to come to a parent-teacher conference. If you weren't able to schedule a conference, let me know if you would like to find a time to meet.

Just a few "housekeeping" details....

During conferences parents had a chance to sign up to be a parent reader. The following dates are still available: 2/16, 3/2, 4/6, 4/13, 5/4, 5/18 and 6/1. Send me an email if you'd like to sign up for one of those dates to come read to the class!

Report cards are coming home today, 11/17. Remember to keep the actual report card and sign and return the envelope. Thank you!

SAVE THE DATE: The 2nd grade annual performance of "Paint the Town December" will be Thursday, December 21, at 2:15pm in the cafeteria.

Here's a bit of what we've been up to:

In ELA we finished up week 4 focusing on the two sounds of oo (book, moon). We read the story "The True Story of Ruby Bridges." We will pick up with Week 5 after Thanksgiving break.

Students took the Module 3 End of Module Assessment today-we will start Module 4 after Thanksgiving break. In Module 4 we will begin practicing a variety of strategies to use to help us solve 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction problems.

For Social Studies we've been working on map skills and learning about the 3 types of communities with some lessons from our student teacher, Miss Vachereau.

The week after break I will be out of the classroom on the 28th and 29th for training on our new science unit, Erosion. We'll start this unit mid-December. I've heard it's a lot of fun with some great experiments that we'll be doing!

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

The End of October

Hello!
Life in 2nd grade is not slowing down anytime soon....here's what we've been up to and some information you need to know:

In ELA we have started Unit 2. In this unit we'll be focusing on the skills of author's purpose, classification, steps in a process, context clues, and graphic sources. We'll also be working on contractions, antonyms, and quotation marks.
Last week we read the story "Three Hens and a Peacock." Have your child tell you about the story! We also worked on nouns and contractions. This week we'll be talking about steps in a process as we read "Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie."

In Math we've finished the first half of Module 3-working with place value. We took our Mid-module assessment on Friday and will continue our work with Module 3 today.

In Science have wrapped up buoyancy and are looking forward to sharing the boats we've created! We'll take a turn towards a social studies focus for a few weeks now, discussing more about maps and communities. Our next Science unit, Erosion, will start in December.

We have Friday Parent Reader Openings! This Friday, 11/3 is available, December 1st, 15th, and 22nd and almost every Friday January-May in 2018. Let me know if you're interested in this Friday, 11/3! I'll have the sign-up calendar available during parent conferences as well.

Here are the upcoming Share topics for November:

Week of 10/30- Sharing the boats we created
Week of 11/6- No Share this week (it's a crazy week with no school for students on Tuesday and Friday)
Week of 11/13- Share a favorite Thanksgiving food item you enjoy
Week of 11/20- No Share this week (Thanksgiving vacation Wednesday-Friday)
Week of 11/27- Free Share- Share whatever you'd like (or tell us about your Thanksgiving)

I'm sure your child won't let you forget that tomorrow is Halloween and a half day of school! :)
Students should bring their costume to school in a bag-we will have time to change and get ready at school. The Halloween parade will be at 10:00am-all parents are invited to come watch!

Have a spooky fun week!
Mrs. France

Update!

Hello!
I hope everyone is finding time to enjoy this Fall Weather!

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to this week...

We finished Module 2 in math-overall students did a great job on what is one of our more "tricky" assessments! We've started Module 3 and are taking an in depth look into place value and how we can use place value skills to be efficient counters. Did you hear how we started off the unit yesterday? We found an efficient way to count up 981 straws! We started by bundling groups of 10, then bundled those into groups of 100.

We are wrapping up unit 1 of our ELA work and will be taking an assessment next week. We WILL still have new sight words and homework next week, but no spelling test on Friday. The best way to help your child prepare for our ELA assessments is to read together and discuss what you are reading. For this assessment your child will be required to independently read two of the stories and listen to the other two.

For some Social Studies fun this week Miss Vachereau had us create maps of the classroom. The class learned about the different types of maps and different elements they might find on a map or put on a map they create.

We have a few more activities we'll be doing to explore buoyancy. Here are a few pictures of the fun we had exploring the different loads our boats could hold.

Using ceramic masses to test our boats.

How many will your boat hold? 

Oops! This boat was carrying a load too heavy for it's size! 

What's coming up:

October 16th - 31st: Collection for Puerto Rico hurricane victims 

October 31st: Halloween! Parade at 10:00am, 1/2 day for students, parent conferences in the afternoon. 

October News

Happy October!
It's hard to believe we're in the season of costumes and candy...doesn't it feel like we just celebrated Labor Day?

Here's a bit more of an update of what we're up to these days:

In ELA, we're starting rotations of Daily 5 jobs. Ask your child what they did each day-Teacher Table, Read to Self, Word Work, or Listen to Reading. To get us in the swing of things we're only doing one rotation this week, next week we'll do 2 a day, allowing your child to practice their reading and spelling words in a variety of ways!

Our story this week is "Miss Nelson Has a Field Day." We'll be discussing story elements such as setting, character and plot, as well as compare and contrast. We'll be tested on this in a couple of weeks, so any chance to have your child compare/contrast two things would be great.

We are working on Narrative stories for writing. Today we discussed that a narrative story is a true event, tells about a small moment, and uses a lot of descriptions and details-we need to use our 5 senses when we're writing!

In Math we're finishing up our work with measurement this week and will have a math test Wednesday, 10/11. Today we explored finding the difference in measurements of two lines. We've been discussing how whenever we read the words "how much" (how much shorter/longer is line A than B, etc.) it is usually a clue to subtract. Your child will benefit from any extra practice using this language (How much taller are you than your brother? How much longer is the couch than the chair?) and strategies to subtract!

We're starting our first science unit this week-Buoyancy! We will be exploring the properties of objects that allow them to either float or sink.

Did you hear about our student teacher-Miss Vachereau? She started last Tuesday and will be here every Tuesday-Friday until the beginning of December. We are excited to have her and help her on her education journey!

A note will come home with these topics but here are the Share Topics for October:

Week of 10/2- Show or Tell about a hobby you have or a sport you play
Week of 10/9- Tell us about your favorite Fall activity
Week of 10/16- We will share "Candy Book Reports" we've created in school.
Week of 10/23- Bring a picture to tell about a previous Halloween costume you've had (not this years costume!)
Week of 10/30- Boats! (More information will come home, as this will be the culminating activity of our unit on Buoyancy)

Don't forget we have no school Monday, 10/9. Enjoy the Columbus Day Weekend!

Have a great week!
Mrs. France

In the swing of things....

Hello!
I hope everyone is starting to feel as though they're in a back-to-school-routine! We're just about there with things at school. Most routines are in place, we're building stamina for Daily 5 activities and will soon be on our way!

This is our first "full homework" week. Homework books should be returned by Friday with the "have to" sentences and "can do" choices completed. Your child should be practicing all 11 words (6 sight words, 5 target sound words) during the week to be prepared for a spelling test on Friday.

Here are some highlights of what we've been up to:

Read to Self

In ELA we are continuing our review of short vowel sounds, this week's focus is short e and short o. We're also reviewing the blends st, mp, nd, sk, and br. We'll be reading the story "Curious George Says Thank You" and discussing story elements such as character, setting, and plot. We are also working hard to build our stamina for read to self and learning new word work activities.

In Math we've started Module 2-work with measurement. Today we discussed measuring with accuracy. As your child completes their homework, please help them check for accuracy!

Building Stamina!  

We're continuing to work on our classroom community, but will be starting our first science topic-buoyancy-next week.

As I mentioned at Curriculum Night last week, I try to update here every 1-2 weeks to keep you in the know!

Enjoy the week and keep cool!

*Picture Day is Wednesday, 9/27!