Your child is bringing home the 1st Quarter Report Card today. Please review this important document with your child to help him/her understand the importance of working hard and learning at school. You may keep all of the items inside the report card envelope. Please return the empty envelope to school (with your signature) on Monday.
Technology:
Students have been working on the laptops in our classroom for the past month. This week we worked with Destiny Quest. Destiny Quest is an electronic catalog of our May Watts Library. Students can access this site using their UN and Password (located on a sticker inside their home folders). Once students are on Destiny Quest, they can recommend books to other friends and teachers at May Watts. This is an excellent source to find books from our library that your child may want to read. If your child enjoys a particular book, he/she will also see similar books to look into.
I will continue to guide students through the catalog during the next several weeks. Meanwhile, you may want to explore this site with your child to see what you can find. I am finding the more tabs I click on, the more in-depth and interesting it gets!
[For your convenience, I have added a link to Destiny Quest in the left hand column of this blog.]
Reading Rocket:
Please continue encouraging your child to read daily, and record minutes read on the Reading Rocket site (which is conveniently located in the left-hand column of this blog). The Reading Rocket Password is located on a sticker in your child's home folder. October rewards will be handed out on Monday. Please remind your child to record his/her reading minutes on the Reading Rocket by10/31 . Goal: 300 Minutes.
Reading Assessment:
Mr. Putter & Tabby Fly the Plane
Your child is bringing home his/her most recent reading assessment. Now that the first quarter of the school year is over, the assessments will include a few additional areas of focus. Components to take note of when reviewing this piece with your child include:
Comprehension:
Students are encouraged to use open books during the test. This supports the "reread for meaning" skill that we have been learning for the past several weeks. The left hand column of this section now contains page numbers, Inf. and blank squares.
- The page numbers provided guide students to the correct page where the answer to the question can be found. This will be faded throughout the year.
- The blank squares are for students to write down the page number where the answer to the question was found. These empty boxes will increase throughout the year as students become more independent with this skill.
- The "Inf." marks stand for "Inferences". These questions expand and deepen understanding by combining what a student reads, along with prior knowledge to go beyond the words on the page. As students transfer from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" they will be exposed to questions that require higher order thinking skills.
Hedgehog Bakes A Cake
Your child is reading Hedgehog Bakes a Cake, by Maryann Macdonald. In this story, Hedgehog wants to make a yellow cake. His friends stop by to help, but each one gives bad advice about baking and Hedgehog ends up with a terrible mess on his hands. After his friends leave, Hedgehog locks the door and starts over. This time he follows the recipe, and later he and his friends enjoy a delicious cake. Please encourage your child to read Hedgehog Bakes a Cake over the weekend. Vocabulary Power precedes the story.
Focus Skill: Synonyms
Vocabulary Power:
batter-thick liquid mixture used in cooking
buttery-full of or covered with butter
perfect-as good as something can be
recipe-set of instructions, or steps, used when cooking or baking
smeared-spread something sticky or greasy
yellow cake-cake that is yellow because it contains egg yolks
[Interactive Blog Link: Right hand column_Reading Target Skills_Synonyms Easy or Synonyms Super]
Writing:
As we continue our journey through paragraph writing we have been working on organizing, writing, revising and editing our paragraphs. During parent/teacher conferences in November, you will see how your child is coming along...from rough draft to final copy.
Science/Writing/Reading:
This week in science we have been expanding our knowledge of the water cycle through Reader's Theater and Poetry. Students read and performed a script about two drops of water that traveled throughout the water cycle. Then, students wrote an Acrostic poem about clouds. These poems are displayed in the 2nd grade hallway for all to enjoy!Math:
We have been learning to make change by "counting up" from the lower value to the higher value to find the difference.
We have also been working with frames and arrows having two rules.
[Interactive Blog Link: Right hand column_Math Practice Sites_Money Making Change]
[Interactive Blog Link: Right hand column_Math Practice Sites_Counting Change]
[Interactive Blog Link: Right hand column_Math Practice Sites_Change Maker Funbrain]
Art Awareness
October's Art Awareness program was presented by Mrs. Freedlund. She taught the students about Diego Rivera's painting "The Flower Carrier". Students in 2BR had an opportunity to draw themselves as the flower carrier and fill their basket with various materials to experience color and texture.
http://www.oceansbridge.com/paintings/artists/r/rivera-diego-new/small/El-Vendedor-de-Flores.jpg
