MATH
Our major focus for the month of April was fractions. Figuring out a fraction of a region came easily enough (1/6 of a pizza cut in 6 slices), but fractions of collections (1/4 of 12 pennies) and equivalent fractions were more challenging! That’s OK, because second graders are being introduced to these concepts, they are not necessarily expected to master them! We also spent time exploring measurement in terms of capacity (“Gallon Man”), and more experiences with probability, too. We wrapped up 3-D shapes with rectangular and triangular prisms. We’ve also been working recently on more challenging Brain Teasers, where there are a lot of clues, and you have to work through step by step to get the solutions.
WRITING/LANGUAGE ARTS
April saw some major writing projects! In connection with our weather unit, each child wrote a “first person” account of life as a rain drop and will use personification again to write about “My Life as a Frog“ to wrap up our amphibian unit. In connection with National Poetry Month, we spent many workshop sessions as poets, creating a few different types of poems.
Our next “big” writing project will be an autobiography, based on the information you will help your child gather for his/her personal timeline. The challenge will be to expand upon those basic facts with more details. All month we will be learning about the special skills involved in writing non-fiction pieces.
Our spelling units continue to focus on vowel teams. As we work on the spelling options these sounds present, we are focusing on strengthening dictionary skills, particularly the use of guide words to speed the process of locating words. Other recent language arts topics have included homophones and similes.
READER'S WORKSHOP
Reader's Workshop for the month of April was devoted to the strategy of Visualizing, otherwise known as Creating Sensory Images. Good readers are constantly forming images in their minds of what is going on in the text they are reading. We called these "Mind Movies" and talked about how they help us understand the text better if we can really picture what's happening. But creating sensory images goes beyond just what we canseein our mind's eye. We learned about how a good writer can awaken our sense of smell, or help us really imagine what something sounds like, feels like, or even tastes like.
Sensory images come to us through a combination of the text and our own schema (background knowledge). As a result, we all form different images in our minds as we read. Sharing your images with someone else can cause yours to change, so when you read with your child, talk about your own "mind movies" and ask your child to share his or hers. Each of you may well say, "I never thought of that!"
We learned about similes and metaphors and how they help us visualize by comparing an object to something else. The children have become quite adept at recognizing similes in our shared texts! We also had opportunities to respond to our visualizations through drawing and even creative movement. Reading and acting out Pretend You're a Cat (and lots of other animals) was lots of fun.
Throughout the month most of our text selections were poetry, since it was National Poetry month and the genre of poetry is perfect for sensory imaging. A special culminating activity was reading Hailstones and Halibut Bones, a book of color poems, and drawing a rainbow of images from the selections.
As we‘ve wrapped up the month, we have explored how even reading non-fiction texts can lead to creating sensory images. It’s a perfect lead-in to next month, when we will focus on the genre of nonfiction, and the skill of determining importance in text. You probably read mostly fiction stories with your child for read-alouds. Try some nonfiction informational books this month. Kids really do love them because instead of just learning to read, they provide a real opportunity to READ TO LEARN!!
HAPPY READING!
SCIENCE & SOCIAL STUDIES
After we wrapped up our weather unit with the creation of a temperature line graph for the month of March (it was a roller coaster!), we also finished up with amphibians. Next comes fish! We also will learn about matter, with a focus on understanding its 3 forms: solid, liquid and gas. We’ll conclude with an exploration of changes in matter. During May we will also be reviewing animal classes in connection with our big field trip to the zoo.
Field Trip Time: Roger Williams Zoo
The second grade here at Davis Hill will be traveling to the Roger Williams Zoo in Rhode Island on Tues., May 22nd. Keep an eye out for the permission slip later this month! Cross your fingers for good weather, ‘cuz it’s rain or shine!
After the trip, all second graders will be asked to do a final project on an African animal. Please be on the look-out for that information as well.
Poetry “Finale”
I was so pleased to see that everyone did such a wonderful job memorizing their poems chosen for last month. This month everyone is expected to learn one more poem “by heart”. I still remember a couple of poems I learned when I was young! It’s another skill to add to our goals of building fluency and public-speaking confidence.