2nd Grade
Welcome to our class website! I am looking forward to a wonderful year of learning and growing together.
I hope you all are out enjoying this gorgeous fall weekend! We had another busy week, but tried to squeeze in a few minutes of extra recess here and there to soak up this nice weather we've been having. Here's what the kids have been working on in class: Reading: Strategies to improve their fluency: - pay attention to punctuation marks - notice special types of print (bold words, capitals, italics) - read dialogue and know who is talking - read dialogue the way the author wants you to (said, shouted, cried, asked) - stop to think during reading, and write your thinking on a sticky note! - asking questions before, during and after reading. At home, help your child remember these strategies when they do their reading homework. Writing: The kids are drafting their personal narrative. We have worked on how writers: - follow a plan when they write - describe the setting using the 5 senses - stretch out important actions step - by - step Math: Last week, we finished Unit 1 and took the end of the unit assessment. I will share your child’s score at upcoming conferences. So far in Unit 2 we have worked on: - counting 3 digit numbers by grouping into ones, tens and hundreds - learning what place value is (ones, tens, hundreds) - determining totals using place value - adding 3 digit numbers using place value Science: In science, we are continuing to learn about maps. Last week, we focused on what a scale is and how a scale is used on a map. In the pictures, you will see the kids playing a vocabulary game with this unit’s vocabulary. These are the vocabulary words they need to know: map, landform, bodies of water, key/legend, symbol, compass rose and scale. We will wrap up this science unit next week with a fun project and our unit assessment. Important Dates: Thursday, Oct. 25th - FUNtober (Colter Pride event) Friday, Oct. 26th - No School (teacher in service) CREST Day Wednesday, October 31st - Halloween party 1:15-2:00. Parade - 2:00 outside of CES Monday, Nov. 5th - Parent-teacher conference week (I will be in touch) Tuesday, Nov. 6th - Election day Friday, Nov. 9th - No school. Conference trade day. Wednesday, Nov. 14th - Picture Retake Wednesday, Nov 21st - No school. Thanksgiving break begins. I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall weather and colors! We had a great week starting with a very fun field trip. We learned about maps and different ecosystems while we were at the visitor's center. Then the kids learned how to draw landscape pictures from a pARTners artist. Their paintings turned out really great! And to top off our field trip we saw a baby bear! Here is what we've been up to in the classroom this week: Reading: This week we worked on...
This coming week we will continue to work on strategies to accurately read, then we will begin to work on phrasing and expression. How to help at home: Please help your child use these strategies when they make mistakes during their reading. First, see if they stop when it doesn't make sense. If they don't, remind them to think about what they are reading and always go back to a word or words that don't make sense together. Writing: This week in writing the students...
Next week we will work on how to form complete sentences and will begin to plan and draft our stories! How to help at home: Ask your child to tell their story aloud adding descriptive details about what the setting looks like and how they felt during their story. Science: This week in science the students...
How to help at home: This week I will send home a blank map template and the kids can create a map of their room to bring back to class and share! This is optional of course. Math: This week in math the kids...
We will take our Unit 1 assessment on Monday and we will begin Unit 2 on Tuesday. Look for an overview of Unit 2 in your child's take home folder this week. Community Building: On Friday, we focused on kindness and how we should treat each other this year in class. The students brainstormed ideas on the following "How should we treat each other" charts: student to student, student to teacher, teacher to student, students to class. They came up with some great ideas! Please read the following letter from myself and the other 2nd grade teachers: Colter 2nd Grade Families: We as a second grade team are writing to ask for your support, as well as just inform you, of our efforts to change some new games and behaviors we are seeing, especially at recess. As we are approaching Halloween, the talk has become more and more 'scary' including an increase in play around scary movies. Our concerns are that these actions and conversations are making some students feel unsafe. This week we are going to each talk to our class about what are appropriate versus inappropriate topics and play at recess. Thanks for following up with your child at home, and, of course, please reach out to us if you have any questions. thanks, Colter 2nd Grade team We had a busy short week with lots of learning, but also a lot of fun. The kids seemed to have a great time completing their first journal entry in their pARTners journals and they also had a great time during our first camp out! Here is what we have been learning: Reading The students are working on...
How to help at home? Ask your child questions about their just right books. For example, can you talk about the important parts of the story? Who are the characters? What is the problem and solution? What is the high point, or most exciting part and how do you know? What do the characters learn in the end? Writing In writing, we are beginning our personal narrative unit where the kids are writing about a small moment from their life. So far we have worked on...
Next week the kids will get to tell multiple small moment stories, then will pick a story idea for their first story to publish in 2nd grade. How to help at home? Talk to your child about their story ideas. Ask them why it is a small and special moment. Ask them to try to tell their story out loud with details. Science: Our unit question in science is how can flat maps show us where landforms are located? In class we are working on...
How to help at home? Talk about the landforms and bodies of water you see while driving around town. Look at and discuss different kinds of maps. Observe how maps are usually looking down, like a bird’s view. Math: In math we are working on...
How to help at home? Have your child draw you a number line and explain how to use it for addition and subtraction problems. Dates to Remember:
Mon. Oct. 1st - 2nd grade (all day) field trip to GTNP and Kelly Warm Springs Tues. Oct. 2nd - Math Mindset Parent Night - 5-7 @ MMES Sat. Oct. 13th - Pumpkin Sale on Town Square Friday Oct. 19th - PTO Parent Night Out, 6:00-9:00 Friday Oct. 26th - No School (CREST Day for students) The kids loved our Brown Bag share time! Everyday last week the class was so excited to hear more about each other. We learned that so many students love hatchimals, LOL dolls, pokemon cards and we have many other unique interests that make our class special.
Here is what we've been up to this past week: Reading: We have continued to build routines, focusing on Just Right books, thinking while reading and reading stamina. We have also focused on the theme of friendship during our read aloud time and have worked on noticing when characters change and what we can learn from our books. Math: In number corner this month we are focusing on odd/even numbers, addition and subtraction to 20 and beginning to work on understanding an analog clock. During our math lessons, the students used a legend to create their own beetle glyph, showing how unique each student is in class (favorite season, favorite sport, family members and birthday month). We then sorted these beetles using a venn diagram and worked on reading and creating graphs. Next week: Wednesday 9/19 - Students will take their Fall EasyCBM assessment (measuring how many words correct per minute they read, accuracy percentage and comprehension) Thursday 9/20 - Students will take the Fall WYTOPP interim assessment for math *Both assessments will be at 8:20am NEW DATES: Thurs. Sept. 27th - PTO outdoor movie night at CES, 7:00 (Ferdinand) Fri. Sept. 28th - No school - No CREST Mon. Oct. 1st - 2nd grade (all day) field trip to GTNP and Kelly Warm Springs (more information coming next week) Sat. Oct. 13th - Pumpkin Sale on Town Square Friday Oct. 19th - PTO Parents Night Out, 6:00-9:00 Friday Oct. 26th - No School (CREST Day for students) Dear 2nd Grade Families,
I am so excited to be your 2nd grade teacher this year. Second grade is a fun year packed full of field trips, projects, games, science experiments, tons of learning and lot of fun. I hope you can use this website to get information about our schedule, what your child's day is like and also learn about me. I do most of my parent communication through e-mail, please let me know if that does not work for you. I will also update this section of our website with information about what students are learning and working on in class. Soon I will send home information about our class SeeSaw. I plan to post most of our class pictures to our SeeSaw blog, then you can see what is happening in the classroom! Also, throughout the year please don't hesitate to contact me about any questions or concerns you have. My email is [email protected]. I look forward to meeting everyone soon! Much love, Mrs. Hoogestraat |