This was a short, but busy week! Students finished up their reading unit with main idea and took their reading assessment on this comprehension skill. Next week we will begin our character analysis unit where we focus on how a character's actions, thoughts, and feelings tell us more about what kind of person they are.

Students have also been doing a great job with their narrative writing. This week we focused on adding "fancy words" in our writing, and coming up with interesting ways to start our stories-such as with a descriptive setting or action, We also finished up our unit on proper nouns, which students should now be capitalizing in their writing. Next week we will learn about collective nouns (a flock of geese, a team of players, a bouquet of flowers, etc.)

We started the making 10 strategy in math this week. Students are learning how to decompose numbers into ways that can make a 10 with the other addend. It is easy to add a number to 10 which is why this strategy can be helpful to students. Here is the anchor chart of how this strategy works:

The next few weeks in math will involve students working on memorizing addition and subtraction facts. We have done a lot of facts that make 10, but they need to know all their facts with numbers 0-20 by the end of the year. If you know your child does not have their addition and subtraction facts memorized, please consider practicing these facts at home with flash cards or with computer/i-pad games- there are a ton out there! See my links if you need a practice website for math facts. We will also be solving 1 step word problems daily using numbers, pictures, and words. Students will continue practicing the making 10 strategy within the word problems.

Next week we finish learning about Georgia's regions and begin to focus on Georgia's 7 rivers and the resources they provide to us.

Reminder: The Foundation drive ends this Friday  (9/16).  Please consider donating something to the science lab if you have not done so already. The top 2 classes in 2nd grade with the highest percentage of students donating will get an additional I-PAD for the classroom, and that would be great to have. Any donation is better than nothing-every little bit counts!