Escape Room 17!

Hello Families-

It has been a wonderful week of learning in room 17! This week in math, we have worked toward completing our unit on double digit subtraction. On Thursday, we were all excited to complete the subtraction challenges to “Escape the Room!”. Students worked in groups to complete move through challenges like mazes, sentence building and word decoding. When students finished, they decoded the location of the hidden prize, a badge! Take a look at their hard work!

This week, we also got two opportunities to learn about differences in the world. On Thursday, some students from SBHS came in to talk to our school about Martin Luther King, Jr. and all of his powerful humanitarian work. On Friday, we had Mr. Sam Drazin join us from Changing Perspectives to teach us about visible and invisible differences, as well as empathy. Here is a short blurb about this fabulous program:

Our school has chosen the theme of “Changing Perspectives” to help our students gain better understanding of differences and disabilities. We are collaborating with Sam Drazin, Executive Director of Changing Perspectives { www.cpne.org} and former teacher. He will be presenting to all our students in grade level meetings on Friday 1/18. Each week, Mrs. Wheeler and her intern Ms. Bedell will be incorporating their curriculum into their weekly class time with us. They will read a book with our class and discuss the importance of the uniqueness and value of each member of our school community. While we will be learning about various disabilities, our focus will be on recognizing each person’s strengths. To celebrate our learning, we will be organizing a disability awareness hands-on workshop. We will set up stations to simulate various disabilities and invite students to experience daily actives without being able to see, walk, hear, or use their fingers. In first and second grades, each student will create a booklet to demonstrate their learning.

Here's a peek at our Changing Perspectives assembly:

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:

- "Peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold."

- Completing our nonfiction writing books

- Finding clues to make our voices match our characters

- Looking at exactly half, more than half, and fewer than half

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kelly

Getting To Know Our Characters, Even When It's Hard!

Hi Families-

We have had a wonderful week of learning here in room 17!  This week in reading, we've been continuing our work on getting to know our characters, even when it is hard! This week, we learned that another way to become an expert on our characters is to envision the story as we read, creating a mental movie that shows the setting, characters and their interactions. We know that as we read on in our stories, our movie will need to change, too. We also learned that readers need to track characters' motivations and troubles as a way to get to know them well. We pay attention to communication works such as yelled or whispered to give us hints about how our movie should look and sound.

This week, we got back to our word study routines! All second graders took a developmental spelling assessment, and then our second grade team has split them into 5 "just right" groups that each are studying words appropriate for your child. Ask your child what your child's sort was this week!

Here are a few pictures from our winter STEM engineering challenge of making an igloo out of just 50 marshmallows and 25 Popsicle sticks. Take a peek at these scientists:

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
- PE Olympics
- Moongobble and Me and the Weeping Werewolf
- Dreambox
- Finishing up our Nonfiction writing
- Habitats

Dreambox:
Our school has is excited to have purchased the math tool Dreambox. Your child got to pilot a few lessons with Mrs. Jensvold this week. This is an interactive math app that allows children to practice just right math while having fun. At this time, our Director of Learning has announced that this is an at school only game. We will let students know when this changes to be an at school AND home tool. Yay!

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kelly

Welcome Back!

Hi Families-

We have had a short but sweet week here in second grade! Our class has decided to make this year one of a KIND by participating in some intentional acts of kindness. Our sharing topic for this month is kindness, and each morning, we start our days by reflecting on the previous day's acts of kindness and get ourselves excited for the kindness to come that day. The students have really taken ownership over this activity, and have been chomping at the bit to do or say something kind. Thank you for continuing to encourage this at home! Here is us making some homemade gifts for friends and family :)

This week in writing, we have diversified our nonfiction knowledge by writing in new text structures including how to or question and answer books. Students are molding their information that they gathered in their nonfiction chapter books and thinking about how this new structure will change their text. They certainly are experts!

Next week starts our winter schedule!  We will have our cross-country skiing block on Fridays (think snow!), so please be sure to pack your child with their snow gear that day! It might also be helpful to pack an extra pair of socks, just in case they get wet while skiing.

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
- The Teacher Baby Picture Guessing Game
- What do readers do when they get to the end of a chapter book?
- Compare problems vs. take away problems
- Calendar Collection of the month

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kelly