Happy February!

Happy February!  This is the shortest month of the year - and I know it is going to fly by!!

I have been hearing all about your party plans this weekend!  Enjoy the Superbowl with family and friends...Go PATS!

A few quick notes:

Dino Research

As a culminating project to our fossils unit, each child will become an “expert” about one kind of dinosaur!  Students will need to research their dinosaur at school AND at home…and will give a brief (5 minute) presentation to family, friends, and classmates on Thursday, February 16 from 8:45-9:45am.  (Parents/Families are invited!!) A detailed parent letter, along with a research outline, went home with students on Tuesday.  Please read and review all materials you’re your child.  If you have any questions, please let me know! 

Valentine’s Day

We will have a very small, brief Valentine’s Day celebration on February 14.  Students are welcome to bring in valentines (no candy) for their classmates, as long as they bring one in for everyone.  A class list will be sent home with students next week so children can start making valentines over the weekend (if they so wish).  I am asking each student to bring in a (decorated?) bag or box to collect valentines in.  (Tissue boxes work GREAT for this!)

Science Fair
Information about the Second Grade Science Fair went home on Friday.  This is a special/fun project that ALL second graders participate in.  Please take some time to look through/read the packet and talk with your child about what experiment s/he wants to do.   Please note that there is a Proposal page in the packet that needs to be completed and returned to me. (That is going to be Monday night's homework.)  If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to send me an email! 

Acton Discovery Museum

A scientist from the Acton Discovery Museum came to do a special workshop with students in Room 13 today!  Miss Stella reinforced and extended students' understanding of Matter and how matter changes.  Ask your child about the AMAZING experiments they observed and participated in today!  (See the pictures below:)

Our Week in Review:
READING

MOOOOO!!!  If you didn’t know, we read Doreen Cronin’s award-winning story, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type this week.  If you have never read this story, I recommend that you do!  It’s a fantastic story about some very clever farm animals!

We reviewed some important reading skills and strategies this week.  Specifically, students have been working to create good visual images as they read and to identify cause-and-effect incidents.  Please encourage your child to practice these skills/strategies while reading at home! 

SPELLING

In spelling this week, we have been working with very tricky triple-consonant blends.  We focused on these blends:

spr:  sprinkle, spray, sprout

scr:  scratch, scrape, scribble

str:  street, string, strange

These blends are tricky because students often forget one letter when spelling them!!  Encourage your child to ssssllllooooowww down when spelling out these words and listen for ALL the sounds in the blend!

WRITING
Students have been working hard to write persuasively this week!!  They must be getting really good, because they persuaded Ms. Basile (the P.E. teacher) to let them play a real, full-court basketball game next Tuesday in P.E.!  Somehow, I ended up agreeing to referee the game... See what happens when you use your words!?!?!




MATH

This week, we continued on through Unit 6 in the Everyday Math Program, Whole-Number Operations and Number Stories.  We focused a lot on comparison number stories and students were introduced to different diagrams as strategies to solve these word problems.  Number stories/word problems can be tricky!  Keep supporting your child at home.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Njiarian (the computer/IT teacher) came in to help students with a special program that they will use to "share" the results from their Geometry Photo Hunt last week.  I will let you know when the final projects are ready to be unveiled!  

On Thursday, students worked with Base-10 Blocks to solve 2-digit subtraction problems.  We started off with fairly easy problems (ones that did not require regrouping) and then moved on to the more challenging problems.  Next week, we will phase-out the blocks and work to solve these problems using the paper-and-pencil algorithm.  We call this new procedure the “Trade First” algorithm.

From the paper-and-pencil results, this method looks very similar to what you and I know as “borrowing.”  The theory behind it, however, is different and it is important that students understand that what is happening is not “borrowing” (you don’t return anything when you are done with it) but actually “trading.”

When I was in school, the rule was to “cross out the number in the tens place and put a 1 in front of the number in the ones place.” No one ever told me WHY I was supposed to do it this way, just that if I did…I would get the right answer.  The ultimate goal for students, however, is not to get the right answer (although, that would be nice) but to understand WHAT is happening and WHY this method will work.  More information about Trading First will go home next week!

SCIENCE

This week, students learned more about fossils and why they are important.  Basically, fossils give us information about plants and animals that are no longer alive - as well as information about what the Earth used to be like.  Ask your child about Pangea!

Later in the week, we discussed the difference between fact and theory.  After this differentiation was made clear, we talked about the different theories that scientists have explaining why the dinosaurs might have become extinct.  The two most popular theories are:

  a)   Asteroid Theory: 

This theory states that a large asteroid or comet crashed into Earth and caused a huge amount of dust/dirt to rise into the atmosphere, blocking the sun’s rays.  The lack of sun prevented plants from growing, resulting in the eventual deaths of the dinosaurs (from lack of food and clean water).

b)      Ice Age:

This theory states that there was a “big freeze” on Earth, during which the majority of land and water froze.  Scientists think that many dinosaurs died from the cold, whereas many others died from lack of food and water.  

Dino Research Project:

Please read over the Dinosaur Research materials carefully with your child.  In an effort to help break down the project into manageable pieces, I am asking that different sections of the outline be completed and passed in for review on specific days. (The due dates are printed at the top of the outline.) This work will replace regular “homework” until the presentations.  Please let me know if you have any questions!  

MYSTERY READER

We didn't have a "typical" Mystery Reader this week...but instead, Li's parents came in and taught the class all about Chinese New Year!  After reading a story about it, they then talked to the students about the Chinese Zodiac, discussed some important and long-living traditions (such as red money envelopes, good-luck oranges), and they even sang a song in Mandarin!  We are SO lucky to have such knowledgeable experts in our company!!  I hope your child shares some of what s/he learned with you today!