Class News November 5, 2009

Room 208 News

 

Dear Families,

We had a great day last Friday by celebrating the pumpkin! All of us arrived at school wearing shades of orange, which brightened the day. We begin by estimating the weight, the circumference and the amount of seeds. After that, weighed and measured the pumpkin and it was 19 pounds and 39 inches around. The students listened to a great book titled, How Many Seeds In A Pumpkin? Then we took a peek and made a new estimate. We charted our guesses and made a pictograph. Students were put into groups and began the messy process of counting seeds. Most groups decided to count by groups of ten. Our pumpkin ended up having 550 seeds! In the afternoon we read more pumpkin books and poems and made pumpkin muffins. Later the students learned about the pumpkin life cycle and created a fun art activity of painted jack-o-lanterns. It was a fun day for everyone and I have included some photos on our class website for all to see!

In math we have been working on unit three, which focuses on telling time and counting money. On the school website there are some great sites under educational resources that reinforce these important math skills.

Also in our science unit of life cycles, we have learning about the life cycles of different plants and animals. We also will focus on what each cycle needs for survival. This unit will be ending soon and we will be moving into our Native American unit soon.

Recently, we finished a great read aloud called, Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry. The students have made great connections to the unique main character, Gooney Bird. She tells amazing, but absolutely true stories. This book has also been great in helping each of the students discover their own stories during writing time. We have begun the next book in the series, Gooney Bird and the Room Mother.

The students are just finishing up their Nonfiction Features books and will be sharing them with each other. We will keep the books a bit longer on the shelves for reading time and then the books will come home for you to enjoy!

See you soon at conferences!

Happily Learning,

Chris Wentworth

 

 

Reminders:

Book Fair (our dates are today and Wednesday): If you would like to send your child with $ to purchase books

Conferences: I am starting to set them up so please return the times/dates slip if you haven’t done so yet.

P.S. A quick request-Mrs. Weir has asked the students to wear clothes that are not their best for this Wednesday’s art class. A messy project will be happening!

 

Pumpkin Day !!! October 30, 2009

What a great day we had today! We started our day with estimating and measuring the weight and the circumference of our pumpkin. Our pumpkin weighed 19 pounds and had a circumference of 39 inches. After we read a fun book called, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Megan McNamara. After our first seed estimate, we took a peek and made a new estimate. After groups decided how to count the seeds (most chose to count by 10’s) and we had fun counting up all those seeds. Our grand total was 550 seeds!!

Later in the day we read more pumpkin books and poems. Then we mixed up ingredients and made our yummy pumpkin muffins. Students brought home the recipe today in their folders.

Later, we learned about the pumpkin life cycle and created an art activity of Jack-o-lanterns! I know the students had just as much fun today as I did. Enjoy!

Class News October 10, 2009

Room 208 News

Dear Families,

We have really jumped right into learning since starting school just over a month ago. We are finishing up our Community Unit this week, but will continue to work and develop our classroom community throughout the year. We enjoyed learning about Yarmouth and it is related to Maine, the U.S., North America, and the World. It was great to see the students making connections about this to their lives. We have been demonstrating our mapping skills and have created maps of the classroom, the garden and part of Main Street from our recent field trip. (pictures on the website)

After going to the apple orchard we were scientists and completed observations and weigh-ins of three different kinds of apples (unpeeled, chopped, and peeled). On the first day the students predicted which kind would lose the most grams of water in a week. They also wrote observations on how the apples looked, smelled and felt. It was great to see the student’s interest and excitement levels rise each day when we weighed the apples. In case you were wondering the chopped apple lost the most water.

Recently in math, we finished our first unit and the students took the unit one assessment. Every time we take an Everday Math assessment I will send home a copy for you to review and check in on your child’s progress and skills. There will always be a letter attached letting you know which problems and secure skills for second grade. If you have any questions, please let me know. In the homework folders you also received a family letter for the next unit, which goes into the more detail about the concepts covered and offers you an answer key for homelinks that I give the students to complete each week.

Spelling was very fun this week because the students became word detectives for a lesson focusing on the consonant digraphs (wh, th, sh, ch). After teaching the lesson I had the students search around the room and locate and record words that contained those digraphs. They were so excited to go letter hunting and asked when we could do that again!

We also played a compound word Pictionary game that the students really enjoyed. Just a quick reminder, please be sure to check your child’s folder on Mondays for our new core words list as well as a list of words to learn from the previous week’s review.

As a way to continue to get to know each other in class, the students will be chosen to have a week “In The Spotlight.” Students will be given a large white poster to use to decorate with pictures, magazine cut-outs, stickers and anything else they want that lets the class know more about each of the students. The poster will be shared with the class Monday of their special week. Then each of the following days, the students will bring in special shares to show the class. If you have any questions, please feel free to send an email or give a call.

Happily Learning,

Chris Wentworth

Our Daily 5: September 30, 2009

• We read The Art Lesson by Tomie de Paola and learned about his life as a little boy.
• In computer, we practiced the program Clicker Paint and created community pictures.
• During math time we played Beat the Calculator and strengthened our fact power skills.
• So far we have learned 10 ways to say good morning in different languages.
• In spelling, we were spelling detectives and found words that had different spelling patterns for the long (e) sound.

Mapping Main Street September 25, 2009

Please view our Main Street field trip photos!

 

Volunteering Opportunities September 18, 2009

At Open House I had posted a chart for various volunteering. If anyone is still interested please leave a comment, email me or send in a note. Every little bit helps us out- Thanks!!!

Putting Together Class Books (home or school project) (@2 a month)

Organizing Book Orders (home, monthly)

Clerical Work (school-as needed)

Portfolio Filing (school-as needed)

Typing Writing Stories (school-M, W, TH 1:00-1:45

Apple Orchard Field Trip! September 17, 2009

Please check out our page to see photos from our field trip!

Open House September 15, 2009

Thank you to all the families that were able to make the Open House tonight. It was great to connect with each of you and I hope you enjoyed seeing your child’s classroom and learning about our second grade year. I look forward to seeing you again soon!

What A Great Looking Class!!! September 14, 2009

Exploring the Y.E.S. Garden September 14, 2009