Events

Second graders celebrated Two's Day on February 2nd.   We did lots of fun two-centric activities such as reading the book Tuesday and completing a sequencing activity along with Tuesday Jeopardy, practicing two-syllable words by playing connect 4, math activities like skip counting by twos and multiplying by 2, and also learning about homophones.  Some students even chose to dress up wearing their hair in pigtails, dressing in clothes with the number 2 on it, dressing with a twin and even making shirts!  Although it was TWO's day, it wasn't TOO much fun!

On February 12, we welcomed Kit's Interactive Theatre to TJS! This program is a theatrical presentation where audience members (teachers too) portray the key characters of a story.  We had so much fun being part of Cinderella's Fairy Godmother Storyland as the audience joined Cinderella, her fairy Godmother, the pixies, and other fairy-tale characters as they frolicked through Storyland solving riddles, acting in the House that Jack Built skit, dancing with Belle, and singing with Little Red Riding Hood.  The show greatly enhanced our unit on Fairy Tales and offered a wonderful opportunity for student engagement. 

Reading

Our class is wrapping up the Fables, Fairy Tales, and Folktale unit!  In this unit, students learned to identify the distinguishing features of each type of traditional literature.  Additionally, students learned why there are several versions of the same tale. We enjoyed reading through some of these stories, for example there are many different versions of Cinderella, such as Mufaro’s Daughters and Adelita.  There are also many different versions of Little Red Riding Hood such as The Wolf’s Story, LIttle Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale and Little Bad Riding Hood! After we read these versions, we learned to compare and contrast them. One way to do this work is to focus on the main character and noting how the character looks and acts and thinking about what he/she says. The class used a Venn Diagram to organize and record their notes. Lastly, students worked on a project that resembled the mirror from Snow White! On the mirror, students had to record a trait with supporting evidence to describe a character from one of the stories he/she read during the unit. Finally, they drew a picture of the character.  These mirrors reflect our great work!

Writing

Students just finished their persuasive writing unit.  We followed the writing process by brainstorming ideas and people at home and school to persuade.  Next, students were guided through the process by using a graphic organizer to develop 3 convincing reasons and 3 examples to match each reason.  Students even learned persuasive closings such as “Your responsible daughter,” or “Your hard-working student.”  After, students finished the writing process by editing, revising and publishing their letters.  Students wrote 4 persuasive letters… and if you ask me, they are pretty convincing! 

Math

Students finished learning the foundations of multiplication.  Some of the strategies learned were drawing a picture, skip counting, repeated addition, using dot paper or simply writing a multiplication fact.   Since this unit was understanding the foundations of multiplication, the students learned the first number in a multiplication sentence is the number of groups and the second number is how many are in each group.  Once this was understood, students learned related facts, such as 3x5 and 5x3 will result in the same product.  Lastly, we spent a lot of time practicing multiplication word problems.  

Recently, we started our time and money unit.  Students reviewed  from first grade digital and analog clocks and reading time to the nearest hour and half hour.  Our new second grade skill is reading time quarter to the next hour and quarter past the hour, as well as reading to the nearest 5 minutes.  The mathematicians really enjoyed playing a game of time “scoot”!  

Science

This month, students learned about the ways Earth's surface is always changing. Some events happen very quickly; others occur very slowly, over a time period much longer than one can observe. Some of these changes are caused by earthquakes and volcanoes.  They can quickly change the land. Students then read about different ways wind and water changed the land quickly or slowly. More recently, we read about the problems wind and water cause people. After that, we learned about different solutions to these problems. Students got to act as engineers to design a way to protect a road from a landslide. Working in engineering teams, students built a model of a solution! Later, students compared the strengths and weaknesses of all the solutions in performance tests. Finally, each team used the data to improve its design. We have some bright careers as engineers ahead!