Gr2 Blog Week of March 22, 18

Dear Families,

It was a pleasure meeting with all of you last Thursday at Parent Teacher Conferences. We look forward to an engaging and exciting last few months of the school year.

Both classes made their way to 826NYC for an amazing field trip that sparked our imaginations and renewed our enthusiasm for writing. We hope that you enjoyed reading the book that your child collaborated on with the class, along with your child’s own ending! We will be emailing you the pictures from the day! 

In Writer’s Workshop we are continuing to work on our drafts. As we finish our stories, we are starting to revise and edit. Each day we are focusing on different elements of writing that can support our writers, based on the needs that arise, including time transitions, adding sensory details, and focusing on a character’s feelings. We are also taking a deeper look at sentence structure and grammar. Here are some points that we focused on:

• Parts of a Sentence
  • Subject (noun)  and Predicate (verb)
• Fixing Sentence Problems
  • Sentence Fragments
  • Rambling Sentences
• Time Transition Words:
  • Beginning: First, In the beginning, To start, It all started when ….
  • Middle: Then, After, Next, Also …..
  • Ending: Finally, At the end, Lastly, In conclusion …..

In Reader’s Workshop, we have begun Series Book Clubs. Our clubs are meeting weekly to  read together, post-it ideas, and talk about their books. One major thing that we are focusing on during this time is thinking more deeply about the main character. The students are learning how to support their claims with evidence from the text. For example, the student below is using evidence from the text to help explain why he/she thinks the character is not happy. This is a skill that is going to help the students increase their reading comprehension.

A student wrote: “I think Ralphie is not happy because in the book it said he did not smile at all.” 

In Math Workshop we are becoming box builders! We have been studying the attributes of rectangles. We have looked at 2D shapes and 3D shapes. Our students have been using a set amount of tiles (for example, 12) to determine how many different rectangles they can make with that number. The term congruent led to a lengthy discussion of whether a 3×4 rectangle is the same as a 4×3 rectangle. The kids had strong opinions! Later this week we are taking the investigation further by using specifically cut pieces of index cards to make 3D rectangular prisms. Be on the lookout for some amazing pictures!

Here are some reminders:

• School Surveys can be completed online.
• Scholastic Orders will be placed this week.
• Spring Break begins on March 30th and school resumes April 9th.

Have a great week,

Ms. Mathis and Ms. Anne