11/7/09  This week in review...
      We  read a lot of books this week to focus on making connections (text to text, text to self, text to world).  We also connected these books to our current writing topic, a personal narrative.  Students are writing about an important event that has happened in their life.  A personal narrative is a great time for students to reflect on their lives and focus on a special memory and write about it using the five senses and emotions to help tell the story. 
      Money, money, money.  The world seems to run on this concept alone.  This week, many of my students have had the opportunity to be taught by another 2nd grade teacher.  We will continue switching classes next week to wrap up our money skills. 
      When talking about our world, we can break it down into the categories of being natural and man-made and systems and non-systems.  That is our current topic in science and social studies this week.  We have are looking at different things and analyzing them to see that many things are constructed of parts and without these parts, the whole of an item wouldn't function.  We will continue to examine this concept next week as well. 
      With the help of a WatchDog this week,  the students learned how to communicate to each other on our classroom Blog.  Speaking of computers,  I have updated the FBE mathbook with the current topic- money.  Students can now access the money videos and activities to get a little extra practice on a somewhat difficult concept for most 2nd graders.

10/30/09  This week in review...
    In language arts, we worked a lot on story sequencing.  We practiced this skill by listening to a story and then retelling it in order, focusing on the main important plot details.  In writing, as some students were putting their final touches to their monster story, others where creating an original scary story piece.  We also worked with sentence structure with a focus on subjects and predicates.
    In math, we continued to work with rounding and estimating numbers and practiced previous math skills in the computer lab.    
    We worked with sound in science.  We saw some cool videos and even got to make some homemade instruments with plastic eggs and straws. 
     We finished our week with a story time share, where students had the opportunity to tell a "scary story" to the class in the dark.  Over all, this was a successful week.
Have a Happy Halloween!!!


10/23/09  This week in review....
     In language arts, we started focusing on some grammar (sentence structure, beginning caps, ending punctuation) that we practiced in our writing.
    We continued to work with graphs (bar, picture, and pictographs) in math.  We also pretested on money and will begin switching classes next Wednesday for about 2 weeks to focus and practice working with money.  We will work on rounding numbers at the beginning of next week.
    With our current focus study on Where the Wild Things Are, we worked on our map making skills by creating a map of the island that the story is based on. We also continued to review the continents and oceans of the world.
    Homework returns today.  I will be assigning short review assignments of what we have been working on in class.  These assignments should not take long.   Check the homework page for more info.

10/16/09  The word of the day is exhausted.  When you have 20 super hyped-up second graders, you definitely need super powers to keep up with them. As for the rest of the week, we worked hard. 

     In language arts, we focused on making predictions before and during reading.  We also made predictions after we read a chapter in Trumpet of the Swan, our current Class Read Aloud.  In writing, we continued to revise and edit our creature feature stories and made a trip to the computer lab to type an acrostic poem in Word. 

     In math, we started working with graphs (bar, picture, and pictographs). We will continue working with them next week as well.  We also were lucky enough to squeeze in one more computer lab trip on Friday after lunch, when we got to play a quiz show with the math concepts we have worked with so far this year.

     We started our first official social studies unit this week looking at the Earth and working with globe vs. maps and continents and oceans.  We had a special treat this week with Mrs. Perch's husband visited us to demonstrate force and motion with some aerospace engineering.  We got to observe a remote controlled airplane fly and do some awesome tricks and a helicopter hover around.  It was hot outside that day but well worth it. 

     I did not assign any homework for this week due to it being a crazy day with field day.  I will be starting to assign a little bit more homework than you have seen in the past.  In the future, along with the reading and reading response, students will most likely be getting some math, language arts (grammar), and/or a fun "thinking" assignment.  Most of these additional homework assignments will not be lengthy and could be completed within 10-20 minutes each (Second graders should spend 20 minutes a day working on homework).

 

10/9/09  This week we studied author Kevin Henkes and compared several of his books to see similarities such as repetition of dialog, characters, and themes.  October is here and Halloween is already on many of our minds.  With that and the upcoming release of "Where the Wild Things Are",  we started our first in depth writing piece... our Creature Feature.  Students are using the writing process and 6+1 traits to create and original fiction story involving their own "wild thing" or monster.  We have read several books with monsters as characters and compared the monster in relation to the plot.  We will continue to work on this writing piece for another week or so, in order to model that writing is not a quick and easy process.  That good writers take time to perfect their craft.  

10/2/09  Nonfiction text has been our focus this week in language arts.  Studying the differences between fiction and nonfiction and noticing that some authors will use real things in a fiction story to help make it interesting and still somewhat believable.  We used our nonfiction study to introduce poetry in class.  This year we are going to do our best to maintain a poetry folder.  Our goal is to update our Poetry folder often and keep it in our "Tasty Treat Reading Boxes".  Poetry is a wonderful resource for emerging readers.  It helps students with reading accuracy (the repetition of words) and fluency (the onset of rhyming words).  It also aids in comprehension improvement because poems are short but very descriptive at times.  Speaking of being descriptive, we have been working with adjectives this week to improve our Word Choice in our daily writing but also our poetry.  

    Next week we will start spelling.  We will be working on it Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.  Tuesday and Thursdays we will be focusing on handwriting.  Students will have spelling homework that will be located in their Red Communication Folders that come home daily.  They will have 5 class words on Monday and then 5 individual words on Wednesday. On Fridays, they will be quizzed by a partner student.  Any word they miss on the quiz will be on the next week's list.  This gives them another week to work with the more challenging words.  Students will complete their Monday homework on Monday night or Tuesday night and Wed.'s words on Wednesday night or Thursday night.   

 

9/25/09  This week we worked on dictionary skills (parts of a dictionary, how to use one, ABC order, etc.) and Word Choice in writing.  We worked on replacing overused boring words with fancier catchy words like pretty to marvelous.  We also started looking at adjectives, specifically colors, and how to be more descriptive when describing a color (arctic white, midnight black, ruby red, etc.).  On Friday, we started our Kinder Reading Buddy Program with Mrs. Moloo's class.  It went quite smoothly.  We plan on continuing this every Friday for 20 minutes.  This will benefit both my students (opportunity to read aloud to someone, thus practicing their fluency and speaking skills) and the kindergarteners (hearing other students and seeing their love for reading).  
      In math, we worked on "fast 9's", which is making it easier to add a number plus 9 by moving things around to make it a number plus 10.  Some students will catch on quickly to this skill, while others may take awhile. We also focused on place values, and the ability to recognize each place value's location.  This is a skill that can easily be reinforce at home by simply writing a few 3 digit numbers and asking your child to tell you what number is in each place value.  Some students can do this better with a visual aid so let them draw it out. 
      Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to cover science this week, due to having to meet as a group and talking about behavior and the choices some students are making.  Because of this, starting Monday, students will be bring home their Communication Folder (red folder) home daily to show you what color level they ended their day on.  This will be an opportunity for you to help me by sitting down with your child and talking with them about the good or poor choices they make.  Hopefully next week, when we move into studying force and motion, I will be able to use some of the matter experiments to help demonstrate the concepts.

 

 

9/18/09 Another successful week completed.  With all the beginning of the year reading assessments finished, we can start on working on specific needs in reading (fluency, accuracy, and comprehension) within small reading groups. This week in Language Arts, we did several activities to learn more about verbs.  We also practiced writing informal text with postcards.  In math, we focused on fact families, double and near double facts, and also made it back to the computer lab to learn how to log on to the FBE math book.   In science, we continued to study matter and its properties.  Learning about reversible, irreversible changes and mixtures.  We even had a few minutes left one day to make it down to the science lab to watch Mr. Tidwell do a science experiment.  This week's library trip came along with an agenda.  Our class will be reading buddies with  Mrs. Moloo's kindergarten class.  Each student was asked to pick out one Just Right Book -Kinder level to practice reading this week before next Friday, and one chapter book for themselves to read either in class or at home. That's our week.  Have a great weekend.  I will be enjoying watching the UT vs. Tx Tech game!! Go Horns!!

 

9/11/09  A lot when on during this short week. We learned about 5 different reading strategies that we can use to read words we don't know. This is a very helpful skill to learn and know since choosing a Just Right Book means we have to find at least 2-3 words on each page that we don't know.  This is helpful because we will be expanding our reading and writing vocabulary, allowing us to become stronger readers and writers.   Speaking of reading and writing, Mr. Tidwell read us one of his favorite "taste bud" books, Freckle Juice by Judy Blume; and we got to create our own secret recipe for freckle remover.  In math, we worked with even and odd numbers, fact families, and cgi word problems, where we have to solve a single problem in several different ways.  In science, we are continually checking our bread experiment for mold growth and began to learn new things about matter.

 

9/4/09   Sorry this is posted late, dealing with some personal things right now.  This week we continued with more beginning of the year assessments that I will be able to show each parent when we have fall conferences in the near future.  The class is starting to settle into the daily routine now, which is great, because that allows us to dive into more academic learning.  Students are beginning to understand their expectations for the class, hallway, bathroom, and cafeteria (with the visual help/reminder of a few Color changes).  We started our first science experiment that we will continue to observe and record data for the next month.  We discussed in reading and writing the make-up of a good reader and writer (which surprising to them, shared a lot in common- trying to start making them connections asap.) I am beginning to sense that my students are becoming more comfortable with me as their teacher as many of them are sharing stories with me about their families, interests, and even surprising me with a hug every now and then.  We start our normal library check out time next week.  Our time is every Friday at 10:25am, so remember to help your child to bring the library books back to school so they can check out new ones for the weekends.  Speaking of weekends,  hope everyone enjoys the 3 day one this weekend.  Hook'em Horns!!

 

8/28/09  We have completed our first week of second grade! Normally the first week we practice a lot on our expectations for the hallway, cafeteria, bathroom, and the classroom.  Practice, practice, practice definitely makes the year run so much smoother.  After the first two days, we decided to start color changes.  This allowed all my students to really take in and think about their choices they make throughout the day.  I have already learned a lot about many of my students simply through observing their interactions with other students, their response time and actions, and just a little bit of academic strengths and weakness with a few activities that we have done in class.  I know many students have heard that I am "a funny teacher" because I do different voices when I read to them, I sometimes sing and dance, and like to have fun.  I have to contain this personality for the first few weeks of school. Instead, my drill sergeant personality is in effect because I have to make sure that each child knows what my expectations are and that I am and can be serious.  I hope I have not scared any of my students yet, but I usually find that most of my students do like it when I am somewhat strict because they're the ones that are following directions and won't get in trouble anyway.  Thanks to all the parents who came to Back to School Night, have donated extra supplies from my wish list, and have kept me informed about their child this week.  I have also updated the HomeWork Page with some important information. Have a great relaxing weekend.

 

Thanks,

 

Mr. Tidwell