Happy Friday!

This was an awesome 5 DAY week! I have noticed that the students are growing more and more independent. In the classroom, I see each student completing his/her centers, reading stories, studying spelling words, and brainstorming new writing ideas all by themself!

Reading

This week, we continued looking for the author’s purpose for writing (to entertain, inform, show how-to, persuade, etc.) and identifying the main idea of what we were reading. Finding the main idea of a text can be a tricky skill for second graders because it asks them to think about big, general ideas, instead of focusing on smaller details. The students can practice determining the main idea at home by trying to tell you what they read in only one sentence!

Next week, we will continue working on finding the main idea and the students will learn how to make inferences from the text using clues from the author!

Spelling

This week the students studied words containing short “a” and “i” sounds like in the words introduction and average. Next week, the students will work on words containing the short ‘e” and “o” sounds, like in check and boss.

Vocabulary

The students completed their first vocabulary unit this week! Our Vocabulary Workshop curriculum requires the students to do a lot of independent reading and problem-solving. They also get the opportunity to read short pieces of text and answer comprehension questions in complete sentences (this reviews so many of the skills they are learning!) Our next set of words will be bench, bridge, cross, crowd, deep, fresh, frown, signal, travel, and worry. The students will have the chance to learn the multiple meanings of the words, for example cross can mean to go from one side to the other and it can mean to feel angry.

Writing

This week, the students studied nouns (people, places, or things) and that only proper nouns need to be capitalized. Next week, the students will learn the correct way to write dates like: Friday, November 8, 2019. As they write their stories, the students are practicing using these skills! The students are learning to write stories with a beginning, middle, and end.

Math

Our third math unit covers time, money, addition, and subtraction. As the students learn these skills, new levels of challenge are being added, like subtracting two-digit numbers and learning how the hour hand moves slowly to point to the next hour, so at 9:50 the hour hand is closer to 10.

Social Studies

We have gotten all the way from 1537 to 1995 in our study of how the community of Charlotte has changed over time! We have learned about Catawba Native Americans, the settling of Charlotte by Europeans, the gold rush, first train, building of factories and mills, getting the Carolina Panthers, and more! When we have completed this unit, the students will begin studying natural resources as part of their first science unit!