January 31, 2020

Reading

To be a strong reader, you must be able to decode words quickly and accurately, so practicing phonics skills is very important! The students completed a middle of the year phonics assessment and they have made so much growth! Recently, they have practiced reading different vowel patterns. They have studied the r-controlled vowels, like in the words car, enter, bird, born, and fur. They have also learned to read the “oys” like in the words boil and toy, and the “ows” like in the words cow and shout. Next up are the “aws” like in the words awkward and August and “dges” as in bridge and smudge. 

One of the hardest reading strategies the students work on in second grade is providing evidence from the text for their thinking. We are working on starting sentences with, “I know this because in the text it says…”, and then the students can point to where they got the information for their thinking. This strategy can be practiced with any book or passage and helps the students think deeply about what they are reading.

Spelling

The students are studying how to make nouns plural. They have learned to add an “s” to most nouns and an “es” to any noun that ends in ch, s, sh, x, or z (like dishes and boxes.) This is a tricky skill that we will continue to practice. Next, the students will learn to drop the “y” and add “ies” on words like cherry and country (unless the “y” is proceeded by a vowel, like in the words guys and boys.) They will also study irregular plurals like child – children, deer- deer, and tooth- teeth. English has so many rules and many of these patterns are repeated in third grade so that the students can master them. 😊

Vocabulary

This week’s words are agree, bare, famous, feast, gentle, hero, leader, notice, search, and weak. Many of the words are homophones (words that sound alike but mean something different, like week and weak) and the students will study this skill as well!

Writing

The students have learned to identify common and proper nouns. They know that proper nouns, or names, must be capitalized. Next week, they will continue working on this skill and learn to underline book titles.

The students are also learning how to write with “voice” by putting a lot of feeling into their work. They are currently brainstorming new writing ideas to fill with their writers’ voices!

Math

Unit six is full of totally new skills like subtracting with regrouping, multiplying by adding groups, and division! Our math curriculum, Everyday Math, does an excellent job of giving the students many opportunities to practice these skills. We have been impressed with the students’ ability to try something new and challenging!

Technology

Mrs. Gamlin is leading the class through lessons about what is appropriate to share on the internet and what is personal. Some examples of personal topics are your address and phone number, a picture with your license plate in the background, and of course, your usernames and passwords! The students are using Word documents to show what they’ve learned. They are learning how to create new documents, edit, and save their work to their own folders on our student drive. These are skills they will use repeatedly in the future!