Thank you to all our wonderful Mayflower sailors & Pilgrims, and their families who came to watch! You can view photos of our reenactment on the Longfellow homepage, or use this direct link: http://www.op97.org/longfellow/archives0910/mayflower/index.html You can also print a copy of the Book It Calendar from Longfellow’s homepage, in case you ever misplace your original.
Our Camouflage selection for this week is an African folktale, “How the Guinea Fowl Got Her Spots”. As we read this delightful story, reminiscent of Kipling’s “Just So” stories, we will work on the thinking skills of classifying & categorizing, predicting & verifying as well as drawing conclusions. The vocabulary words for this story are: glossy, delicious, cautiously, scramble, slinking.
Math Unit 4 is on developing strategies to do more complex addition and subtraction in our heads. The attached newsletter explains this well, and shows some excellent diagrams to help students organize their thinking, and visualize how to solve math word problems. You can reinforce what your child is learning in school by prompting him/her to use these strategies & tools at home. Also, please do not teach your child how to do pencil & paper vertical addition/subtraction of 2-digit numbers. In this unit your child will be learning other more concrete, 2nd grade level of thinking & understanding as s/he works with these bigger numbers (eg. tally marks, the 100 chart).
Social Studies:
* Our final Tasting travels take us to Europe again: Sweden, for yummy blueberry soup!
* We will tie up our Pilgrim learning by doing some math, reading and writing related to Pilgrims.
* We start Unit 4: People at Work. The Kindness Market started years ago, as a way to help my students understand the concepts of goods, consumers & producers. We will learn about Olivia’s dad’s job tomorrow, as he shares about his work studying the brain and all the things our brains can do. If you would like to teach us about your work, in 2nd grade terms, please let me know.
Touch Typing: We have begun using the computer program, “Custom Typing”. Your child can also work on this at home, as long as you can supervise and make sure s/he is using the correct hand position & fingering. S/he knows the correct ID & password-these IDs are Not to be used by anyone else, because this program really is customized to your child’s skill and progress. Your child can find the “Custom Typing” link is right on the district homepage. Also, is there a parent who could come for an hour a week to help ensure that the students are using the correct finger on the keyboard? If so, please contact me.
Homework
Daily: Home Link (??), Read aloud for 20 minutes and fill in your Book It calendar; count coins, practice your spelling & vocabulary words; use the vocabulary words in your conversations!
Due tomorrow: Salmon-colored Kindness Market planner & the November Book It Calendar; If you can, bring the Pilgrim packet I handed out last Tuesday.
Due Wednesday: library book; Spelling workbook, pages 58-61; those doing challenge words, write a meaningful sentence with 5 of the challenge words instead of doing pages 60-61. Leave your sentences in the spelling workbook, at this week’s lesson.
For Friday: reading, vocabulary & spelling (long /i/ sounds) tests. Optional: Book orders due, so your books will be back before the winter break. Please email me if you want to order online. Math-a-thon participation form due for extra math work/fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hosp.
Due next Monday: Mad Minute D2
Due any day next week: Book report: bring in the book and a creative project related to the book; using either the fiction or nonfiction story map as a guide, tell us about the book, and why you liked it (for further information, see my webpage).
Coming… Tuesday, Dec. 15: Kindness Market--have your home-made goods here ready to sell by 8 AM.
Also coming home today: spelling words, Everyday Math letter/resource for parents, Mad Minute D2, Dec. Book It Calendar, Book Order forms…
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Week of November 23, 2009
There are no tests this week other than today’s math test. We are reading a charming fiction story about camouflage, “Hungry Little Hare”, and students are expected to learn these vocabulary words from the story: scent, avoid, disguise, disappear, sneaky.
After Tuesday morning’s time travel to 1620, in the afternoon our “Tastings” geographic travel takes us to Greece.
There is no homework due next Monday, but there is a lot coming up to keep in mind. Remember to continue your daily 20-minute reading at home. For some, the 5-day break from school may be a perfect time for you to work on your next book report (& project) due the week of Dec. 7, and/or making crafts to sell at our Kindness Market (Dec. 15).
Coming home today: End-of-trimester timed tests of addition & subtraction facts (some of you wrote goals about improving your word on basic facts.)
Due Dates:
Tuesday, Dec 1: Salmon colored Kindness Market planner & the November Book It Calendar
Week of Dec. 7: Book Reports (see description of the 3 components on my webpage)
Tuesday, Dec. 15: Kindness Market-have your “goods” here ready to sell by 8.
This is the final invitation to families who are available to come to our Mayflower reenactment… Come to Room 203 at 9:50 (stop first at the office to get a pass). We will start promptly at 10:00.
Students, remember to bring or wear your “costume”.
I wish everyone a renewing and meaningful Thanksgiving weekend!
Ms. Lambshead
After Tuesday morning’s time travel to 1620, in the afternoon our “Tastings” geographic travel takes us to Greece.
There is no homework due next Monday, but there is a lot coming up to keep in mind. Remember to continue your daily 20-minute reading at home. For some, the 5-day break from school may be a perfect time for you to work on your next book report (& project) due the week of Dec. 7, and/or making crafts to sell at our Kindness Market (Dec. 15).
Coming home today: End-of-trimester timed tests of addition & subtraction facts (some of you wrote goals about improving your word on basic facts.)
Due Dates:
Tuesday, Dec 1: Salmon colored Kindness Market planner & the November Book It Calendar
Week of Dec. 7: Book Reports (see description of the 3 components on my webpage)
Tuesday, Dec. 15: Kindness Market-have your “goods” here ready to sell by 8.
This is the final invitation to families who are available to come to our Mayflower reenactment… Come to Room 203 at 9:50 (stop first at the office to get a pass). We will start promptly at 10:00.
Students, remember to bring or wear your “costume”.
I wish everyone a renewing and meaningful Thanksgiving weekend!
Ms. Lambshead
Monday, November 16, 2009
Week of November 16, 2009
This is Longfellow’s nonfiction week… so this week’s story map is to be filled out on the gold nonfiction form. If you would like to read a biography (also nonfiction), ask me for the biography story map form. Our Camouflage selection for this week is also non-fiction, but written in poetic form; its unconventional language (poetic imagery and expressions, uncommon vocabulary and sentence structure) make it more difficult to capture the facts. To help prepare for Friday’s test, for homework, students are to fill out a 2nd nonfiction story map on “How to Hide an Octopus and other Sea Creatures”. The vocabulary words for this story are: enemies, creature, fades, drab, design.
In math we’ve worked on counting out change in different ways, and using different combinations of base 10 blocks to represent the same number, reading analog clocks. The new things we are learning this week are how to make change by counting up, and doing frames and arrows when there are 2 different rules for the arrows. The most difficult aspect of these skills is concentration!
Our Tasting travels take us to Europe again: Switzerland! Our Social Studies learning also includes the early history of our country, about the Native Americans who were here first, then about how settlers came from England, to Jamestown and Plymouth Colony. Preparing for our Mayflower reenactment will really deepen our learning about life 400 years ago!
Homework—start talking at home about possible ‘products’ to ‘produce’ for Kindness Market (It’s a concrete way of putting our learning into action. It ties together what we've learned in our reading about Kindness; we use the math skills we've worked on as we make change, and doing this market helps us really understand what consumers & producers are (from our Social Studies book) when we, the producers, make things to sell to the consumers, or customers, at Longfellow School. This year's Kindness Market will be on Tue AM, 12/15); plan what you will wear for our Mayflower reenactment;
optional: be a salesperson and see who would like to buy an Uno’s Pizza! (The main purpose of this PTO fundraiser is to purchase televisions for every classroom—useful for videos, DVDs and to display computer material.)
Daily: Home Link (??), Read aloud for 20 minutes and fill in your November Book It; count coins, practice your spelling & vocabulary words; use the vocabulary words in your conversations! Math: practice telling time on an analog clock, have someone quiz you on “complements of 10” (the number to add to a given number to make the sum of 10; eg, 6 is the complement of 10 for 4.)
Due Wednesday: library book; Spelling workbook, pages 54-57; those doing challenge words, write a meaningful sentence with 5 of the challenge words instead of doing pages 56-57. Leave your sentences in the spelling workbook, at this week’s lesson.
Due Thursday: nonfiction story map on “How to Hide an Octopus” For Friday: Math study guide is due; timed tests on basic +/- facts; reading, vocabulary & spelling (long /e/ sounds) tests. Optional: Uno’s Pizza orders are due, including online orders.
For next Monday: Nonfiction story Map on a book you read at home, Mad Minute D1; Unit 3 Math test
For next Tuesday: Families are invited to come for our 10 AM “Pilgrim Children on the Mayflower” reenactment (note the earlier time). Students need to have their costumes & props here.
Planning ahead… The next creative, oral book report will be due during the week of Dec. 7
Important items also coming home today: spelling words; Salmon Kindness Market planner; Mayflower reenactment information; math unit 3 study guide
In math we’ve worked on counting out change in different ways, and using different combinations of base 10 blocks to represent the same number, reading analog clocks. The new things we are learning this week are how to make change by counting up, and doing frames and arrows when there are 2 different rules for the arrows. The most difficult aspect of these skills is concentration!
Our Tasting travels take us to Europe again: Switzerland! Our Social Studies learning also includes the early history of our country, about the Native Americans who were here first, then about how settlers came from England, to Jamestown and Plymouth Colony. Preparing for our Mayflower reenactment will really deepen our learning about life 400 years ago!
Homework—start talking at home about possible ‘products’ to ‘produce’ for Kindness Market (It’s a concrete way of putting our learning into action. It ties together what we've learned in our reading about Kindness; we use the math skills we've worked on as we make change, and doing this market helps us really understand what consumers & producers are (from our Social Studies book) when we, the producers, make things to sell to the consumers, or customers, at Longfellow School. This year's Kindness Market will be on Tue AM, 12/15); plan what you will wear for our Mayflower reenactment;
optional: be a salesperson and see who would like to buy an Uno’s Pizza! (The main purpose of this PTO fundraiser is to purchase televisions for every classroom—useful for videos, DVDs and to display computer material.)
Daily: Home Link (??), Read aloud for 20 minutes and fill in your November Book It; count coins, practice your spelling & vocabulary words; use the vocabulary words in your conversations! Math: practice telling time on an analog clock, have someone quiz you on “complements of 10” (the number to add to a given number to make the sum of 10; eg, 6 is the complement of 10 for 4.)
Due Wednesday: library book; Spelling workbook, pages 54-57; those doing challenge words, write a meaningful sentence with 5 of the challenge words instead of doing pages 56-57. Leave your sentences in the spelling workbook, at this week’s lesson.
Due Thursday: nonfiction story map on “How to Hide an Octopus” For Friday: Math study guide is due; timed tests on basic +/- facts; reading, vocabulary & spelling (long /e/ sounds) tests. Optional: Uno’s Pizza orders are due, including online orders.
For next Monday: Nonfiction story Map on a book you read at home, Mad Minute D1; Unit 3 Math test
For next Tuesday: Families are invited to come for our 10 AM “Pilgrim Children on the Mayflower” reenactment (note the earlier time). Students need to have their costumes & props here.
Planning ahead… The next creative, oral book report will be due during the week of Dec. 7
Important items also coming home today: spelling words; Salmon Kindness Market planner; Mayflower reenactment information; math unit 3 study guide
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Week of November 9, 2009
Kudos to Jackson, Jane, Olivia & Julian for their kindness in bringing in a combined $27.49 for UNICEF! The timing was great, as we began our study of money in math – everyone had a part in counting the change!
Coming…
* tomorrow – the fall goals we set at conference time will be taped into your take-home folder, to serve as a reminder for you. I also plan to return graded tests & book reports soon.
* “Pilgrim Children on the Mayflower”, Tuesday morning at 10:15, 11/24. A reenactment by the Second Grade Historians in Room 203. Parents are welcome to come.
* 2nd Grade Kindness Market, Tuesday morning, 12/15. This is a holiday market in which each family contributes homemade crafts to be sold. Buyers are 1st and 2nd graders, Longfellow staff, and parents. The profits raised by this event are donated to a charity chosen by the children in the 2nd grade classes. Past charities have included the American Red Cross, the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and the Oak Park Education Foundation. This Kindness market gives continued practice of the lessons learned in our Kindness reading unit, and also reinforces both our math (money) and social studies (economics) curriculum. More information will come next week. Some people find the Thanksgiving break to be a good time for making these crafts.
Our second camouflage story is “They Thought They Saw Him”, a fictional story about how a chameleon escapes its enemies. The vocabulary words for this story are: swoop, ridge, wakeful, grip, glistens. Our spelling words give practice with the different spellings of the long /a/ sound, and the extra workbook pages focus on the important use of base words, prefixes & suffixes. Each student has chosen & we are now editing his/her best writing of the fall.
This week’s math activities focus on counting out the change in different ways to purchase different items, reading analog clocks, and connecting time to the events of our day, and collecting data which we represent in a bar graph.
Our Social Studies/Tasting travels take us to Antarctica… the only place we visit that is not a country!
Our science study of erosion continues with investigating water & wind erosion. When the weather cooperates, we will do this on a little walking field trip to Longfellow Park’s sand area.
Homework
Daily: Maybe a Home Link. Read aloud for 20 minutes and fill in your November Book It Calendar (now available on the Longfellow home page); count coins, practice your spelling & vocabulary words; use the vocabulary words in your conversations!
Due Wednesday: bring your library book if you want to check out a new one! Spelling workbook, pages 50-53; those doing challenge words, write a meaningful sentence with 5 of the challenge words instead of doing pages 52-53. Leave your sentences in the spelling workbook, at this week’s lesson. For Friday: reading & vocabulary tests, spelling test on long /a/ sounds in words.
For next Monday: Story Map on a book you read at home, Mad Minute packet C2, gym shoes
I’m off today, enjoying an early Thanksgiving weekend with my children & sons-in-law.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Week of November 2, 2009
Last week’s book reports were well-done! I was impressed with how beautifully these 2nd graders did, this first time giving an oral report to the class! Sharing their enjoyment of these stories inspires their classmates, so we’ll keep the projects here a few more days before sending them home.
I hope to get some photos of our wonderful Halloween characters in costume mounted onto my blog (webpage linked to Longfellow’s page). Our party was wonderfully sane, creative & enjoyable, thanks to our parent helpers: Lori (Julian’s mom), Annette (Kai’s mom), Joan & Don (Eleanor’s parents), Dragana (Nina’s mom), Alison (Joseph’s mom) and Tali (Ian’s mom)! We made & munched on vegetable skeletons and apple/nut/olive faces, and then ate ghosts!
Today we began a new reading unit, called “Look Again”. It’s about how we need to “look again” in order to see animals that are using camouflage. We will read a lot of nonfiction, or expository writing, including our first selection, “I See Animals Hiding”. So, in addition to learning a lot about camouflage, and how many animals use it, we’ll also learn the characteristics of expository writing, in preparation for the research & expository writing we will do later this year. The vocabulary words for this story are: unaware, slithering, wariest, natural, invisible. Our spelling words teach us about the funny schwa sound – a vowel sound in an unaccented syllable that is neither short nor long. In the workbook we are also practicing how to use more precise, interesting words in our writing, such as enormous instead of big.
Tomorrow is our Unit 2 Math test on the material we went over today (on the study guide). See the attached worthwhile Family Letter on Unit 3. We will work on: frames & arrows using 2 different rules; money; and “place value” using base 10 blocks; you can reinforce place value at home by using coins: 47 cents is 4 dimes + 7 pennies. The dimes are like our 10’s longs, the pennies are like the 1’s cubes. An important money skill to learn this fall is how to make change.
Our Social Studies/Tasting Travels take us to the land “down under”: Australia, home of Granny Smith apples.
Did you hear that our live worms arrived on Friday? So now we’ll observe to see if & how worms aid in the making of compost. In our study of rocks, we are learning about erosion.
Homework
Daily: Read aloud for 20 minutes and fill in your new November Book It Calendar; practice your spelling & vocabulary words & math facts (Every day do a Mad Minute worksheet and use your triangle flash cards.) See how many vocabulary words you can use in your conversation!
Due tomorrow: Be ready for the math test; optional: bring in your October Book It Calendar & UNICEF box (kudos to you if you collected for UNICEF on Halloween!)
Due Wednesday: bring your library book if you want to check out a new one! Spelling workbook, pages 42-45; those doing challenge words, write a meaningful sentence with 5 of the challenge words instead of doing pages 44 & 45. Leave your sentences in the spelling workbook, at this week’s lesson. For Thursday: reading & vocabulary tests, spelling test on the schwa sound
For Friday: Enjoy the holiday to honor our country’s Veterans; think of what you can do as a citizen of our country and of the world, to contribute to peace and the health of our planet.
For next Monday: Story Map on a book you read at home, Mad Minute packet C1, gym shoes
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