What's Happening in 2A?: Finally Friday!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Finally Friday!

Wow! We made it through 2 whole weeks of school!! I feel like we are finally settling into a routine and the students and I are getting out of summer mode. It sure is hard to get back into the swing of things again! Here is an update of some things that have been going on in 2A:

Literacy -- Students have learned about 2 parts of the Daily 5: Read to Self and Read to Someone. During Read to Self students have built their stamina up to 13 1/2 minutes. Way to go:) It is amazing how quiet it is in room during this time. And, what makes me the happiest is when I tell them it's time to practice building stamina, everyone says "yes!!!" Oh happy days! I have also introduced 3 ways to Read to Someone. Hopefully your child has told you about them. They are Check for Understanding; I Read, You Read; and Choral Reading. They are doing a super job with this as well. If I remember correctly they read for 9 1/2 minutes yesterday. Next week they will be able to choose which of those 2 they want to do. I will be doing DIBELS with students during this time.

Writing -- I introduced the writing trait Ideas. Hopefully they came home and sang a song with you the other night. I don't' think they expected to sing during writing time! We will continue to work on this trait for several weeks and I will also be teaching them the Writing Process.

Math -- Students have been reviewing lots of skills in our first math chapter: time, money, addition facts, etc. They are also getting into a routine for math. It's honestly been a bit difficult since we start math right after our lunch recess. It takes a while for them to unwind. We're working on it!!

Science -- All I can say is experiments. We have dug in fruit for seeds, planted fruit seeds, planted grass seeds, and put students celery in red water to learn about the function of the stem. We will continue with experiments, which the students LOVE. I will continue to clean up the messes, which I DON'T love!!

We ended the week with a little fun and games. At the end of the day on Friday we went outside and played Duck, Duck, Goose for a few rounds, They sure chose me to be the Goose a lot!!!

Keep up the good work 2A!!

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Comprehension Skills and Strategies

Distinguish Fact and Opinion: Your child learned that facts are statements that can be proved. Opinions are what someone believes. The words I believe, I think, and in my view are clues that someone is expressing an opinion. Most students are able to state a fact; however, opinions are more challenging. Please practice this at home.

Sequence Events: Sequence is the order in which event take place. Clue words such as first, next, then, and last help readers know when events occur. When your child is summarizing have them sequence the events using the clue words.

Make Inferences: This is a strategy that readers use to understand what they are reading. When making an inference, readers need to fill in information that the author did not include. Readers must combine what they know with details from the text.
Pictures and words (text clues) + background knowledge (what we know) = an inference

Summarize: A summary is a paragraph or a statement in your own words that gives the most important ideas from the text that was read. Step 1: find the main ideas from the selection. Step 2: shorten and combine those ideas.

Categorize and Classify: We can categorize and classify objects, evens, ideas, and characters by how they are alike and how they fit into groups. When students are reading they can find types of things that are similar and group them into the same category.

Monitor Comprehension: Students must ALWAYS monitor their comprehension while they are reading. If they don't understand what was read they need to reread it. When readers are confused they can use "fix-up" strategies. Here is a list of those strategies:
*reread more slowly
*look up words
*read on
*use picture clues
*summarize
*ask for help