Hello Everyone!

February was a busy month of learning!  We finished our LEAD 21 unit 4 theme about weather and seasons.  The main comprehension skills that we worked on was comparing and contrasting, visualizing, and making connections to self and text.    We also worked on compound words, phonics skills including reviewing long and short vowels, and antonyms.   We have now started unit 5.  This theme is about communities now and then.  We will be learning about how people and new ideas can change communities over the years.  So far, we have worked on summarizing, categorizing, and will be working on prefixes and suffixes this week.

In math, we finished unit 7, which was about patterns and rules in math.  We have now started unit 8 on fractions.  This is a harder concept for them to understand, but they are doing pretty well with it.  We will be testing on unit 8, early next week.

Writing is always fun in 2A!  The last few weeks we have been working on how to get ideas and how to organize our writing.  This week we will be learning about putting voice into our writing.

We have started a few letters in cursive and they have all realized that it takes a lot of practice.  It is not as easy as they thought it was going to be!  LOL!

REMINDERS:

Remember to turn in the Reading Rally envelopes by Tuesday!

I am sending home a book order on Monday.  They will be due on TUESDAY, March 10. 

Donations needed:  craft supplies, new glue and glue sticks, duct tape, masking tape, plastic grocery bag, and SNACKS (we are almost out!  )

I am looking forward to a great month of learning!

Mrs. Tuchek

CHECK OUT THE SECOND GRADE WEATHER FORECASTS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8IB9E669bg&feature=youtu.be

Hello Everyone!
We had a great week in 2A!  Last Tuesday, we had the experience of going to the play, "Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse," at Luther College Center for Faith and Life.  The play was wonderful!  We had already done an author study last fall on Kevin Henkes, who is the author of many great stories including Lily.  The students knew all of the stories that they acted out in the play and were perfectly behaved the entire time!  I was very proud of them!

Here's a picture of all of them waiting patiently for the play to begin!

 Here's a picture of the set for the play.  They would not allow pictures after the play began.

Last week we had our Luther student, Mr. Kennedy teaching us about states of matter.  The students enjoyed learning about solids, liquids, and gases through Mr. Kennedy's experiments and smart board activities.  

In literacy, we worked on making connections, antonyms, comparing and contrasting, and vocabulary.  We also took our MAPS reading tests on the ipads.  WOW!!!! I AM SO PROUD OF ALL OF THE SECOND GRADERS!  THEY ALL MADE PROGRESS AND RECEIVED MUCH HIGHER SCORES THAN IN THE FALL!  YEA!!! 

 Give your child a hug and keep ENCOURAGING them to READ!

We spent a lot of time with beginning multiplication in math last week and will do beginning division and a math review this week.  Our unit 6 test will be towards the end of the week!

On Friday, we had to say good-bye to Mr. Kennedy!  The kids had really warmed up to him and are going to really miss having him in our classroom!  They sent him off with many great hugs and well wishes!  2A wishes him the best in his teaching career!

I am looking forward to another great week of learning in 2A!  

Mrs. Tuchek

Hello Everyone!
It has been great to get into a school routine again after Christmas break.  Although I think the kids were getting tired by Friday, since they finally had a full week of school!

Our exciting news since we have been back from break, is that we have a J-term student from Luther College who is learning about second grade in our classroom.  His name is Mitchell Kennedy and he is a senior from Decatur, Michigan.  He has been teaching the kids about states of matter, doing math games and teaching a few guided reading groups with the students.  We are happy to have him learning about education at Crestwood!  The kids will be sad to see him leave on Friday!

Our new literacy theme is about seasons and weather.  January seems like the perfect time for this unit, since we see a lot of different weather in our Iowa winters!  So far... we have been working on vocabulary, antonyms, oo sound, and comparing and contrasting.

In math, we have been working on subtraction with two digit numbers and number comparison problems.  This week we will also begin learning about multiplication arrays.

Last week we finished testing for FAST reading assessments and this week we will be MAPS testing in reading.

We have an exciting event on TUESDAY!  We are excited to travel to Luther College to watch the play of Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes.  We did an author study on Kevin Henkes last fall, so the students know this story very well!  PLEASE REMEMBER TO SEND A COLD LUNCH WITH YOUR STUDENT IF THEY DID NOT SIGN UP FOR A SCHOOL SACK LUNCH!

Please check the Facebook page for the spelling lists if you do not have them.  I will post a picture of them tomorrow!

I am looking forward to another great week of learning!  Mrs. Tuchek
 

Hello Everyone!

We have started new units in both literacy and math!  In literacy, our unit is called Community Life.  We have been working on the following comprehension skills:  asking and answering questions and identifying cause and effect.  We have also been working on r controlled vowels, reviewing the ar sound, and the following digraphs:  sh, th, ch, and tch.  Our Cadet Time last week focused on sentence writing and expanding sentences as well as sentence parts.  We talked a lot about subject and predicate and making sure that our sentences start with a capital letter, make sense, and end with the appropriate punctuation.  This week we will be working on new vocabulary, synonyms, plural verb endings, and identifying realism and fantasy in literature.  We also spend some time identifying the plot in stories.

Here are some pictures of using the questioning strategy:

I LOVE IT WHEN I CATCH STUDENTS ENGROSSED IN A BOOK!  The best present a teacher could ask for!

In math, we have started a unit 5, which is on 3-D and 2-D shapes.  Last week we learned about polygons, parallel lines, points and line segments and attributes of shapes.  Here are some pictures of using geoboards to make shapes.

On Tuesday, Adam Schmidt will be reading the story of the Grinch to all second grade students.  This should be a fun experience since Adam has memorized the book and reads it with great expression.

REMINDERS:

There will be a 3-hour early dismissal on Wednesday!

Our Christmas program is on Thursday at the high school.  Students will need to be taken to room #10 in the high school by 6:30 p.m.  This is where you will also pick your child up after the concert.  The concert begins at 7:00 p.m. and should be wonderful!

I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO A GREAT WEEK OF LEARNING!

Mrs. Tuchek 

Hello 2A Followers!

We had a great week of learning last week and look forward to another one this week.  We are on the second week of unit 2 in literacy.  Our theme question for unit 2 is "How is science a part of our community?"  Within the unit, we have read about how communities are built, how people in the community use tools and technology, how nature is a part of science and our community, and how science helps us get around in our community.   We have been working on determining important information, descriptive language, plural and proper nouns, and long vowels.

In math, we have been working on change to more problems and part, part, total problems.  We have also worked on reading temperatures and reviewing money.

We have been working hard on learning about the writing process.  The chart below shows you the different steps of the writing process.  They begin writing by brainstorming for ideas, then begin their first draft; next they begin editing by deciding what they want to add or change.   The next step is having a teacher or peer conference to help with editing and then they move on to revising.  Their last step is to decide how they want to publish their writing.

2A is THANKFUL with  Grateful Hearts!  

This will be the theme of our doorway, proudly showing off these very creative turkeys!

Our spelling test will be on Friday, November 14.  Your child knows what group they are in.

Group 1 SPELLING LIST:

GROUP 2 SPELLING LIST:

REMINDERS:

There will be a 3-hour early dismissal on WEDNESDAY!

PLEASE SIGN UP FOR CONFERENCES ONLINE OR CALL THE SCHOOL IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO.  The school phone number is 547-2340

The link to the online scheduler is:  http://207.28.11.249/ceptc2006/index.asp

Mrs. Tuchek

Hello Everyone!

We finished our Unit 1 LEAD 21 inquiry projects and finished sharing them yesterday.   The students had to learn how to use the Keynote app on their ipads to create a presentation that included what their roles at home, school, and in the community are, and also what they think their roles might be in the future.  Before creating the presentation, the students had to search for images on the Internet to put in their keynote.  The second graders learned how to use Kidsearch, which is a safe search engine for kids.  After they found the images and saved them to their photo library, they then began working on their keynote, by adding pictures and text.  They all now seem to be experts on the Keynote app!  It's amazing how quickly they learn!  Technology does not scare them!  Here are some pictures of the students sharing their projects with each other.

In math, we will be having a unit 3 test at the end of the week.  This week we have been working on making change, which is a very hard concept for second graders.

REPORT CARDS WILL BE COMING HOME TOMORROW!  Parent/Teacher conferences will be on November 17 & 20.  You will be able to schedule conferences in the near future!

SPELLING TEST IS ON FRIDAY!

Mrs. Tuchek