Grade 2. December 21, 2016

Dear Families,

What a wonderful time we had making Gingerbread Houses with you. The students were so excited and had a great time as well. We hope they tasted as good as they looked! Here is a sneak peak into our final week of 2016.

In Writer’s Workshop, we are drafting and publishing away. We have also practiced using capital letters in our writing. Students have organized their writing and planned out how they want their book to be laid out. Many of them began with a table of contents so that they can see what the flow of their book will look like. Our kids did a great job researching and have a ton of information in their books. I can’t wait for the finished products!

In Reader’s Workshop, we are continuing to travel back in time through “The Magic Tunnel.” We are focusing on the character traits of John and Sarah. We have also compared how living today is much different than living in 1664. We will be discussing how the author shows us this by describing the setting, using details, and even doing research on the topic of New Amsterdam before writing the story. During the winter break please encourage your child to read on a daily basis.

In Math this week, we are moving into the data portion of our Measurement and Data unit. We learned about line plots as a way to organize data last week, and this week we are focusing on bar graphs. We will also explore the need to categorize data. For example, with an open-ended question like “What is your favorite weekend activity?”, the possible answers are endless. Therefore, mathematicians need to organize their responses into categories in order to make sense of the results. This work will extend into a survey project the students will create and work on when we return from break in January.

In Social Studies, we are learning about aspects of daily life in New Amsterdam. We brainstormed different jobs people needed in order to fulfill the needs and wants of the community, and then we read job descriptions of some of the most common occupations. We will also be playing popular games children played in New Amsterdam, including Nine Men’s Morris and Blind Man’s Buff.

Just a few reminders, The last day of school is Friday, December 23, 2016. We will resume back on Tuesday, January 3, 2017. We will be having our November/December Birthday Celebration on Friday at 10:10am. Thank you in advance to those who donated. Also, we encourage your students to leave their Pokemon cards at home. They are distracting and students are losing them. If we see the cards we will be taking them and reaching out to parents. Thank you for understanding.

We would like to say a big thank you to the families for the generous gifts and support throughout the year. We hope that you enjoy the time home with family and friends. See you in 2017!

Ms. Mathis and Ms. Anne

Kindness Quilts, created by classes 201 and 202