Our Week in Review 10.24 - 10.28

ECHO

Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

This past week we continued our fairy tales unit of study. We read various versions of the book Cinderella. This week we are focusing on The Three Little Pigs. Today we are reading the tale during Reading Workshop. On Wednesday, we read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! On Friday, we will begin discussing how a fairy tale may have different versions. We will then be comparing different versions of The Three Little Pigs. We have also been talking about an author's point of view. The Three Little Pigs is written from the pig’s point of view while The True Story of the Three Little Pigs is written from the wolf’s point of view. We are going to continue to compare fairy tales and folktales over the next few weeks! The following week we will be focusing on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Lake Champlain Basin

Last week on Thursday we had a guest teacher in 2nd grade. We had Ms. Stephanie Larkin from the ECHO come in and teach our class about the Lake Champlain Basin. Ms. Larkin brought in a replica of the Lake Champlain Basin. Together we discussed what pollutants are around the lake such as fertilizer, dog waste, oil leaking from cars, manure, sand/dirt, etc. We polluted the replica with different food items (sprinkles for the dog waste, cinnamon for dirt, etc.). After our replica was all polluted it rained! Students were amazed as to how the fertilizer from a farm runs down the mountain, into a stream and then into the lake, along with many other pollutants. By the end of the demonstration the lake was rather dirty. Students learned that what we do at home and in the community has an impact on Lake Champlain. Now that we have learned how the lake is polluted we are going to learn how we can help protect and clean the lake.

 

Our Week in Review 10.17 - 10.21

Wonder of the Week -- Are Fairy Tales True?

I think fairy tales are true because princesses and castles are real.  (Clara)

I think fairy tales are not true because they do not tell what really happened in life. (Kiera)

I think fairy tales are not true because their is not such thing as ogres and monsters.  (Owen)

I think fairy tales are true because magic is real. (Sullie)

Name That Number

Fairy Tales and Folktales

Today we began our new unit of study: Fairy Tales and Folktakes.  To launch this unit of study students were immersed in various fairy tales and folktale books. After exploring various books in this series we learned the following:
- Fairy tales / folktales are fiction and they have characters
- Most Fairy Tales have elements of 3 (3 characters, 3 wishes, etc.)
- Some stories are "switched around" (The 3 Little Pigs and The 3 Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig)

Tomorrow we will begin our first Fairy Tale Cinderella.

Explore Day in Math

Today in math we had an explore day. Students rotated through three different stations. 

Station 1 -- Using Tools to Add 
In this station students used the open number line and the number grid to add ten to a number. We practiced the following problems: 62+10, 39+10 and then we had a challenge 45+13!

Station 2 -- Sorting Dominoes 
Students selected a domino and decided what category they should sort the domino into: those with two even-numbered dots, those with two odd-numbered dots, and those with one even and one odd numbered dots. 

Station 3 -- Making Geoboard Shapes 
Students made shapes, designs and pictures with rubber bands on their geoboards and recorded them on their geoboard dot paper. Students also worked on dividing their shapes into halves and fourths!

Thank You Mr. MacAuley

The second grade team would like to extend a big thank you to Mr. MacAuley who came on Friday and helped us clean up our garden beds and winterize them. Mr. MacAuley is an essential to our garden's success and we are very appreciative of all that he does for the PPS community!

Our Week in Review 10.10 - 10.14

Odd or Even?

In math today we reviewed odd and even numbers.  To practice we played a game with partners.  One partner grabbed a handful of an object, counted the number of objects and recorded the number was odd or even.  The other partner then grabbed a handful of an object, counted the number of objects and recorded if the number was odd or even.  Partnerships then combined their objects, found the sum and determined if that number was odd or even! This is a great game that students can play at home!

Pinky and Rex -- Character Traits

Last week in Reading Workshop we read Pinky and Rex. Our mini-lessons focused on Pinky, Rex and Amanda's character traits. Below is each character we focused on and their character traits for our first Pinky and Rex book. Be sure to ask your child what they learned about each character based on their character traits.

 

Our Week in Review Video -- Oct. 3 - 7

Mystery Skypes Last Week

Last week we had two very exciting day in second grade.  We had our first "Mystery Skype" of the school year.  On Thursday we joined our buddies from Ms. Warren's class and the room was filled with excitement! We skyped with Ms. Giacomini 3rd grade class located somewhere unknown to us. The goal of our Mystery Skype was to ask yes/no questions to help us determine what state Ms. Giacomini's class was located in. Based on the answers to our questions, we figured out that Ms. Giacomini's class is located in Illinois!  On Friday we skyped with Ms. Haught's 3rd grade class.  After asking yes/no questions we found out their class is located in West Virginia.  Superintendent Minor was in the building on Friday and joined us for this Mystery Skype! Below are some photographs from yesterday's Mystery Skype. For more information about Mystery Skyping click here.  

Have You Filled a Bucket Today

Last week we read the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  The book is about how we all have invisible buckets.  Our bucket holds our good thoughts and feelings about our self.  We feel happy and good when our buckets are full and sad and lonely when our buckets are empty.  As a class we discussed how we can fill each other’s buckets.  We talked about how we can fill someone’s bucket by saying something kind, giving someone a smile, being nice to someone, etc.  After the read aloud we completed sheets of paper congratulating our classmates when we caught them being a bucket filler.  Each student has a hook in our classroom where they hang their bucket filler notes.

Character Introduction

Today was our first character mini-lesson.  We began the unit by reviewing the different story elements (character, setting, plot, problem and solution) we learned in our previous unit.  We then discussed how over the next few weeks we are going to take a closer look at characters.  Before we begin learning about characters, we have to know who characters are. In this lesson students learned that characters are all around them, they are in the books that they ready and in the shows that they watch.  Students then turned and talk with their partner about different characters that they know in their lives.  After turning and talking students shared out (student thinking is below).  In addition, students talked with their partner about what they already know about characters and how we can learn more about characters. For example, I shared that I know some characters talk and some don't talk (student thinking is below).  Our next mini-lesson will focus on brainstorming different character traits! 

SWR - -Week 6

This week our SWR skill focuses on when to use -k and -ck at the end of a word. At the beginning of our lesson we reviewed what consonants and vowels were. We then brainstormed words that end in -k and words that end in -ck. We ended the lesson with a word search!