100 Days Smarter!

Happy 100th Day of School!

Reading

The students are working on identifying facts and opinions in what they read. They have learned that a fact can be proven and is hard to argue with, while an opinion usually contains an adjective or an adverb like best, most, too much, etc. They even created “Fact and Opinion Art” by choosing a fact (like the background is blue) and an opinion (like it feels happy!) We will continue to study this skill next week and work on identifying the main idea of different passages.

Spelling

English?! Why do you have so many rules?! 😊 The students are learning how to make nouns plural. Here are the rules they have practiced so far:

  • Add “s” to most nouns, like dogs, cats, and cars
  • Add “es” to any noun that ends in ch, s, sh, x, or z, like wishes and foxes
  • Drop the “y” and add “ies”, like cries and candies
  • Add “s” if there is a vowel before the “y”, like plays, keys, toys, and guys
  • Drop the “f” and add “ves”, like halves and scarves
  • Sometimes just leave the word alone or totally change it, like on the irregular nouns moose and person – people!

The students will get plenty of opportunities to practice these skills throughout the coming weeks. Next week there will be no new words to study.

Vocabulary

The students have reviewed their first six vocabulary units and did a wonderful job learning the words! Our new words are alarm, collect, damp, insect, plant, safe, scatter, soil, team, and tool. They will have a chance to study the multiple meanings of these words, like how safe can mean you are not in danger or a safe can be a box in which you can lock your valuables.

Writing

The students wrote stories that focused on using their “author’s voice.” When you write with voice, your work should contain a lot of feeling. A story about being the flower girl in a wedding should have a happy and exciting voice, while a story about going to the dentist could have a scared voice. Next week the students will edit and publish these pieces.

This week the students learned how to use quotation marks around the dialogue in their writing. In second grade, quotation marks are also known as the “talking twins” or the “monkey arms.” 😊 They practiced identifying the tag in the sentence and where quotation marks are needed. For example, the tag in the sentence below is exclaimed Mrs. Felter.

“This is the best class!” exclaimed Mrs. Felter. 

Math

The students have been introduced to multiplying and dividing. When you multiple you simply add equal groups together, so 5 x 3 can be solved as 5 + 5 + 5. When you divide you separate a bigger number into smaller groups, so 15/3 can be solved by drawing three circles and then equally giving out the 15. In our next math unit, the students will work with sets of data to find the median (middle number) and mode (most popular number). They will also use data to create graphs.

Art

Next week, the students start their six-week block of art classes with Mrs. Lerner!