This week in Language Arts, we continued our review of our three core skills; writing in the form of giving directions (Monday), writing in the form of self reflections (Tuesday), and writing in the form of generating a short story (Wednesday). Our writing this week was so much more focused and fluid! We experienced considerable improvement in our ability to give structured directions, identify our thoughts/emotions, and create exciting stories! We also discussed First Drafts and Final Drafts this week! Anytime we write something, that's our First Draft! And the magic of writing and revision is that we don't know when our Final Draft will be; maybe the second draft, maybe the third, maybe the tenth! In 2nd Grade, we're only going to second draft, but we identified that there are other projects (including ones that some of us are doing independently at home!) which might need a few drafts of tinkering before it reaches what we feel is our best. Our minds are expanding!

This week in Math, we learned one last new skill for the year, and that was rounding! Knowledge of place value has continued to be a handy skill for us, and our developing logic skills also served us for rounding. Our Math focused Willpower Wrap Ups continued as well, as we kept up practicing multiplication (some of us can even do 2 by 2 digit multiplication now!), borrowing across zeroes, breaking down word problems into our 3 steps, and calculating area/perimeter. A popular catchphrase in the 2nd Grade this year is "use your resources." Sometimes we have questions, and if we just take a moment to consider solutions, they are often around us already! From checking the board, to asking a neighbor a quick question, to utilizing scratch paper to help us calculate more clearly, Math has been a time where we practice the spectrum of problem solving skills. We are also finding that reading directions is actually a great resource we have as well and very helpful in curing confusion. 🤓