Grade 2K Richards Elementary School 5812 N. Santa Monica Blvd. Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin USA

An Introduction to Our Class Welcome to Ms. Kreul's second grade class at Richards School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. Our curriculum includes language arts (reading, writing, spelling, speaking, listening, and thinking), science, social studies, technology, and math. We also have art, music, phy ed, French, and library. We work on many projects which integrate the second grade curriculum. News from Our Class Reading In reading class, we use Literature Circles - a new way to work on comprehension skills while we read books. It is patterned on the way adults read books with their friends in book clubs. Each of us will have a role to do after we read a book or story, such as the Discussion Director who thinks of interesting questions to discuss and the Artful Artist who draws a picture or sketch to match what was read. After each person fills out their individual role sheet, we get together in small groups to discuss the book or story with everyone getting to lead one part of the discussion using the role sheets. Along with Literature Circles, we also read stories in our Anthology and work on vocabulary and comprehension skills. When working with trade books, we might read the same book or different books as a whole class, in small groups, or independently while we are learning and practicing many important reading skills and strategies. We are learning about how we can use our brains to make connections as we read using the phrases "Text to World", "Text to Self", or "Text to Text" connections. We have SSR nearly every day. It is a time when we can read books of our choice. Some days we read independently, other days we read with partners, and sometimes we have a choice! Our teacher also reads lots of books to us during the day. During snack time she reads a chapter book aloud to us. We also use Reading Counts!, an independent reading program from Scholastic, where we read good books that are just right for us. This program helps us work on our comprehension skills. First we read a book that is at our ability level then use the classroom Mac to take a quiz where we answer 10 comprehension questions about the book. Our goal is to each read 30 books over the school year so we will work on our goal during the year as our reading skills grow and grow! Spelling Spelling begins in second grade with a practice unit where we learn how to do the various spelling activities, such as Flip Folder, Partner Test, and Hunt for Words. Then we begin weekly Spelling Units where everyone studies the list words that are just right for them. Additional activities we use to practice our list words are Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe, Spelling Sentences, Big Idea, Partner Study, and Games. During the second semester, we add two of our own words. The words are recycled from words which we had misspelled on unit tests and need to learn and then chosen from our spelling dictionaries. We work on spelling every time we use writing skills during the day. Writing We use our writing skills every day. We have Journal Time where we can write on topics of our choice. Sometimes we share our Journal writing with a partner or two. We have class writing projects, like writing poetry or reports. We write frequently in math for Math Messages where we explain in words how we solved various math problems. We write in Science Logs as we record our experiments and activities. In Social Studies we write about the many topics we study. We also use Technology to help us write when we are working on integrated projects. We will each publish one or more books in the Imagination Station during the school year. When we write many times during the week, our writing skills become better and better and writing is much easier to do. Math In math we use "Everyday Math" activities. We discuss how we use math in our everyday lives and found out that we use math a lot! We play math games like Top-It, Name That Number, Addition Bingo, Beat the Calculator, and Money Exchange. We also work on counting coins , telling time on different types of clocks, and using calendars. We count in many different ways, practice math facts with Doubles and Turn-Around facts, learn about geometry, and do many other activities to develop and practice math skills. Science During science class we have three FOSS units that we work on throughout the year. The first unit is "Solids and Liquids", the second is "Air and Weather", and the third is "New Plants". We learn science words, do experiments independently, with a partner, or with a team, and keep a Science Log where we record information on the topic we are studying. We observe and record weather information, such as sky conditions, temperature, and precipitation during the Opening activities each morning. We use the Internet each morning to check other local weather conditions. This year we will work on science Internet projects including "Signs of Autumn, Signs of Spring" and "World Weather Watch". Social Studies In social studies we work with maps for many purposes. We learned that maps are models of places on Earth how map can help you to read maps. We looked at the community in which we live and talked about community helpers who make our community safe and clean. We have a unit on rules and laws and why they are important to keep everyone safe and make everthing fair. We study US holidays as well as a Swedish celebration called St. Lucia Day. We learn about goods and services and the careers that go with them. We talk about US government and it's three branches, voting, famous Americans, American symbols, and more - all things that make the US a very special country in which to live. Click the Clipboard for this week's homework assignments Click the School Sign for photos of our classroom Click the Books for the web site of our January Author - Marc Brown

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Updated January 19, 2002

 

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