Our third week of school just flew by! The children are getting into the rhythm and flow of our days, really understanding the routines and procedures, and showing so much excitement and enthusiasm for learning each day. Below you can see Sam, so kindly finishing reading "Mr. Nosey" aloud to the class, because I was starting to lose my voice that afternoon! 
Word Work, sorting by pattern:
One part of our literacy approach that is sometimes overlooked is the importance of Read Alouds. Second graders are not too old to be read to! They benefit from it in many ways, and at school it is a shared class experience that all the children enjoy. It is a great time to focus on story comprehension, including themes, predictions, characters, and setting. Below you can see James and the Giant Peach, written by the wonderful Roald Dahl. This is the chapter book I am currently reading to the class. We listen to a chapter or two each day. The other book pictured is "Once There Was a Tree", which we read this week as a connection to our science unit on Life Cycles. It tells the beautiful story of one single tree, which is cut down, and then left as a stump, becoming a home to several different creatures and animals who all seem to claim it as their own. It teaches a beautiful lesson about nature and respect for our surroundings.
Ask your child to tell you how this crazy, fire-breathing dragon reminds us how to
use the greater than and less than symbols: < > =
p.s. I am told it likes to eat children and metal garbage cans.
Other topics covered in Math this week included calculator practice,
temperature/thermometers, and number grid practice including the Number Grid Game.
The highlight of our week was creating our own communities on paper, modeled after the three major types we are learning about in Social Studies: Rural, Urban and Suburban. It was amazing to watch the children work together to share ideas, help one another, and get along so well. You can see in the photos how the Urban community grew from one hotel and one sky scraper, to a busy bustling city. I heard "That's okay that it's crowded, it's DOWNTOWN!" and "Let's make more restaurants! Hot Dogs!" The Suburban community team included a gorgeous golf course, the winding roads you would typically see in subdivisions, and lots of sidewalks in the neighborhoods. The Rural community team informed me that I didn't give them enough paper: "We need more land! We need to draw crops!", so we taped on more butcher paper. The children went above and beyond and didn't even complain when I told them we were going to work through recess because they were on such a roll adding buildings, detail, and more. One of the neatest things was seeing the kids finish up at their assigned community, and move to another group to see if they needed help, unprompted to do so. I told the children how impressed I was that they worked so well together and that their first group project was such a success!
Healthy snacks & happy friends!
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