This week we started to wrap up a few of our units we have been studying this year. We will take our place value post assessment on Tuesday and then start a new math strategy for addition: making tens. In order for this strategy to be successful, students must know all the ways to make 10 by memory. We will practice this next week before learning about the strategy. Students enjoyed spending their last week with place value completing different centers and review activities.

Our matter unit is also complete, but we do still get to have a fun science experiment about matter on Monday in the science lab AND in the classroom! For our first social studies unit we will be learning about the compass rose and the cardinal directions, then move into the Georgia regions and rivers. Next week will focus on the compass rose and learning about the region we live in, Piedmont.

Students had their first week of reading groups and I enjoyed getting to read with students in a small group setting. We are continuing to focus on main idea and details in reading. We will continue improving our narrative writing by adding interesting words and details, and start some proper noun activities next week.

Upcoming dates:
September 5- Labor Day/ No School
September 9- Grandparent breakfast at school 7:15-7:45


Please read the following note from Foundation:

The Foundation Funding Drive is running through September 9.  This is the Foundation's largest fundraiser for the year to help continue to keep our Science Lab going as well as provide other enrichment for the students and resources for Addison. The new digital marquee out front is a gift from Foundation, as well as $15,000 worth of new iPads this year for the classrooms!  The top two classes participating in the Drive in each grade level will receive an additional iPad, too!!  A percentage of the funds raised also comes directly into our classroom.

And...

When we hit $20,000, Mrs. Hallmark and Mr. Cohen will spend some time up on the roof for all to see!!!

When we hit $25,000, they will KISS A PIG!!

When we hit $30,000, the kids will get to tape Mrs. Hallmark and Mr. Cohen to the WALL. 

Please support us in this effort! Visit www.foundation4addison.org for details on Foundation and the Funding Drive.  

We had another fun week in 2nd grade! Our Monday started out very busy with our first science lab. We learned how to be safe in science lab and got to use some cool science tools. We explored the garden to see what bloomed over the summer. Thanks to all the parent volunteers that helped out during science lab!

We also had a parent surprise us after lunch on Monday with 2 geckos and a baby gecko! The students enjoyed seeing these animals up close and even saw the baby gecko eat a meal worm. Very exciting!

The rest of the week consisted of sharing our matter museum, practicing all Daily 5 centers to prepare us for reading groups next week, and focusing on all the ways we can make numbers with place value.

Next week, we will finish up matter and place value. We will specifically focus on comparing numbers and skip counting by 5, 10, and 100 from any given number.  We will also begin Unit 1 of our reading program which focuses on main idea and details. For writing, we are focusing on writing narrative stories.

Quick homework reminder: Students have some comprehension questions on the back of their reading fluency passage that need to be answered in addition to the 1 minute timed reading. The reading log for August is on page 5 in the agenda and must have parent initials AND the number of minutes read every weekday in order to receive the monthly reading prize. We are teaming up with Pizza Hut who will be giving pizza coupons to students that have their reading log completed for the month. Please let me know if you have any questions about this.

We are staying busy in 2nd grade! This week we dove further into place value by completing a few lessons in our math book (Chapter 5 if you would like to check it out on the My Math login), and ended the week creating animals made out of base ten blocks! Students had to figure out what number their animal made when they put the base ten blocks together. They had a fun time and the animals turned out really cute!

We also started our matter unit and learned all about solids and liquids. Students then sorted through magazines and ads to find different solids and liquids. We will study gas next week as well as present our "matter museum" so don't forget to bring back the baggies on Monday.

Today we met our 4th grade buddies and read some books with them. We will hopefully see them next month to complete a fun activity together.

On Monday, we will start our spelling and homework. Please make sure this is turned in on Friday, Don't forget to complete the reading log in the agenda with a goal of reading at least 20 minutes a night.

Next week we have our very first science lab lesson! We are all very excited. We will continue to study matter, place value, and build our reading and writing stamina.

What a great first week we had in 2nd grade! We read some wonderful back to school books, got to learn more out about our classmates, and learned a lot of new routines and procedures. Everyone now has a leadership role in the classroom to go along with our school's Leader in Me program. We finished our class mission statement and signed it to ensure we try our best everyday at school. The students came up with this on their own and I think it sounds great. See the picture below to read our mission statement.

I want to thank everyone for making sure your child had his or her supplies by the first day of school. It really made our Monday a lot easier since everyone was prepared and had what they needed.

Next week we will start more academic activities, like place value and matter. We introduced a little bit of place value on Friday and let students play with the base ten blocks so they won't be tempted to play with them next week when it is time to learn! We will also be talking about what good readers and writers do.  We have our first light bulb lab, media center visit, and guidance lesson all next week as well!

Don't forget we have Open House on Thursday at 6:00 pm. This is where I will go into further detail about academic expectations for the year, homework, and our behavior plan. Hopefully I  can also answer any questions you may have. See you then!