March 2016
Dear Parents of 2nd graders,
We would like to thank everyone who helped make our Valentine parties such
huge successes!
This month in reading, students will begin to read poetry as well as narrative
fiction. They will learn about rhyme and alliteration and how they supply rhythm
and meaning to a poem. Students will use the strategy of visualization to gain
information from illustrations and use the words to demonstrate understanding
of characters, setting, and plot. Also in reading, students will read realistic
fiction to look at the character’s point of view and describe how characters in
a story respond to major events and challenges. Finally, will participate in inquiry
discussions and will ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of
key details in a story.
In writing, we will continue to study and write opinion texts . Recently, student’s
selected a book that they believe all second graders should read and will write
a book review to answer the question “How do ideas in a text connect to you?”
Student’s will read and analyze mentor book reviews to develop an anchor
chart of elements of opinion writing. The book review will state their opinion and
support it with reasons and evidence from the story. Students will use flexible
thinking as we revise the book reviews with our peers. Students will also use
adjectives and adverbs to make our writing interesting and descriptive. The
students are working on irregular plural nouns, irregular past tense verbs,
compound words, adverbs, and contractions in their word work.
In math, we will begin our month finishing up our focus on word problems (one
and two step.) Our next instructional focus will be telling time to the nearest five
minutes using a.m. and p.m. They will also tell time in a variety of ways (8:30,
half past 8, a quarter til…). Following our unit on time, students will study
fractional parts. In Grade 1, the concept that a fraction represents part of a
whole was developed. Students represented ½ and ¼ in pictures and symbolic
notation. In Grade 2, students model, read and write numerals that represent
common fractions of circles and rectangles. We will also learn that equal
shares of the same whole might not have the same shape. Additionally, we will
be counting objects in arrays, rows and columns of equal amounts to visualize
multiplication as repeated addition.
Our social studies Economics unit continues this month as students will explore
services provided by private business and the government. Additionally,
students will explore market situations. Students will learn about how buyers and
sellers exchange goods and services and the different ways to pay for these.
Additionally, the students will explore, Economics: Making Important Decisions.
This introduces economic concepts to help students learn the economic
decision making process and its consequences. There will be many economic
terms and concepts to learn such as wants and needs, human and capital
resources, goods and services, income, specialization, etc. This particular unit is
usually a favorite among the students due to its practical, real-life applications.
In science this month, we are continuing to observe and illustrate the changes
in the moon, while making predictions and asking questions about the changes
we are noticing. Additionally, we will create a plant habitat for our beans and
will record the growth of a bean seed as well as make scientific
illustrations and observations on the life cycle of the bean. Later in
the month, we will be learning about life cycles in plants and
animals.
A few notes….
A big thank you to ALL of the chaperones who volunteered for our trip to
Imagination Stage. Our field trip will be this Friday, March 4.
You should have received a Parent Survey in the mail last week. This survey is to
gather information about students to plan instruction for the upcoming school
year. The survey allows you to share skills, strengths, and qualities you see in your
child. Please make sure to complete it and return it to your child’s teacher this
week.
Be sure to dress your child in layers with hats and gloves. We can never tell if the
temperature will be going up or down and we want everyone to be prepared
for outdoor recess in all cases.
Have a great month!
The Second Grade Team
Mrs. DeHaas
Mrs. Titherington
Mrs. Oxman
Mrs. Levy
Ms. Williams
Mrs. Podor