Week of March 19th, 2012

Happy First Weekend of Spring!

(even though it has felt like it much longer!)

Reminder: I am hoping to attend some of the students' extra curricular functions.  Feel free to send me any dates or schedules for anything your student may be participating in before the end of the school year!

Since last week was such a picture heavy post and we had a shorter week this week, this post will be a bit shorter.  I do have some exciting "out of school" pictures to share at the end of the post though!

Literacy:

Reading:  This week we continued with our mystery genre book club books.  Everyone continues to do a good job coming prepared to discuss the book as well as making great predictions and inferences.  Since we are doing book clubs, only Independent Reading Journal logs are due on Wednesdays.  Writing an entry would be considered extra credit.

Writing: We continued our poetry unit this week by learning about metaphors and similes and how to incorporate them into our writing.  We wrote sensory poems that utilized either a metaphor, simile or both within it.  We also learned about onomatopoeia and alliteration and included these in our shape poems and cinquain poems.  Due dates to have poem drafts completed are always in their planners.

Word Study:  This week we did compound words.  We use compound words a lot more than we think we do!

Math: This week we took a break from fractions to complete some state-wide assessments.  We did get a chance to fit in some problem solving involving fraction story problems!  Students have a great grasp on this concept.  We will be moving onto money next week and will continue to do so until after spring break.

Social Studies:  We finished up our U.S. History Timeline posters this week and we are planning our presentations now.  We hope to present them next week.  They did a fantastic job!

Learning Buddies:  This week we made books about spring with our second grade learning buddies.  Our class does so well allowing our buddies to have a lot of say in our projects but also putting their own spin on it as well!

Extra: I had the chance to do two fun things outside of school this weekend!  I was able to attend the school dance AND see Kayla Irish dance on St. Patrick's Day.  It was a fun weekend!

Have a great week!!