February 11, 2010 Update...

Hi Parents and Students,

We've had an awesome week! Please take a minute to update your calendars with the important dates to the right. I've listed the next book club. Attendance was down this week! I do have to say, our points and comprehension averages are quite impressive so far. I'm seeing some very motivated readers. Remember the key to reading is understanding. Pay special attention to any comprehension stories that come home. There are many different types of comprehension concepts that we learn about in 2nd grade; sequencing, inferencing, literal details, predicting, and identifying main ideas. You can easily see what your child is struggling with by looking at the types of questions that he/she is missing. Your child may have excellent word recognition, but we also want your child to be able to answer these higher level questions about the stories.

Check out what else we've done this week below...

Phonics: We learned about the 7 rules for making words plural (see Sammy's Eight Days of Camping) and applied these rules to words in a book. We also learned about the -r controlled sounds of -er, -ear, and -eer, as well as rule breaker words that contain this spelling.

Writing: This week, we used an sequential organizer to take notes on the story, Blueberries For Sal. We then wrote summaries. The children also worked on a Valentine's Book for a very special person in his/her life.

Reading: We worked on taking notes to help identify keep points in a narrative. We also compared and contrasted characters in a story through the use of a Venn diagram. We continue our study of character traits to help us find deeper understanding in a story. We are enjoying our new chapter book, Stuart Little.

Math: We completed our unit on Metric Measurement and took the unit assessment. We also practiced the skill of solving multi-step word problems. We began our 3rd nine pre-assessment. I'll be scoring these to determine what concepts the children will need additional support in for the next three weeks.

Science: We have been learning all about the phases of the moon in the science lab with Mrs. Belmonte.

Have a super weekend!