Collaborative News Network Update as of 1/5/09:
Welcome to 2009! We hope you enjoyed your time with family and
friends. It was wonderful to see so many of the parents at our winter
concert. The children did a great job and so did Mr. Zion, our new music
teacher. Now that the excitement of the holidays is behind us, the children
are ready to continue doing the wonderful work they are capable of.
Even though December was cut short for our break the children were still
very busy learning (and singing for our holiday concert). Here are the
highlights…
Math
• finding missing addends within a number sentence
• addition strategies for 3 addends
• solving multi-step word problems
Science
• completed our work with area and perimeter
• introduced the concept of weight using balance scales
• began working on experiments with liquid volume
Social Studies
• using non-fiction texts the children worked in small groups to
gather information and facts regarding continents and oceans
• learned about plagiarism and how to put an author’s words into our
own words
• completed simple research reports using facts gathered including a
brief introduction and conclusion
• learned about “wants” and “needs” using literature The Ox-Cart Man
and A New Coat for Anna
• discussed different traditions with regard to the holidays that we
celebrate
Fundations
• learned the rules for dividing words into syllables
• learned the spelling of the sound /k/ as it appears at the end of a
multi-syllabic word as compared to a
one-syllable word (c vs. ck) (panic vs. lick)
• learned the suffixes ful, less, ment, ness, ish, en, able
• learned about compound words
• learned the sounds of “au” and “aw” as in August and saw
• new trick words: water, knew, know
Literacy
Using the big book Asha in the Attic we
• discussed the mood of the story and its characters
• discussed how words and phrases about sights, sounds and feelings
add to our understanding of a story
• distinguished type of genre: realistic fiction
• shared writing: wrote a narrative as a class based on one of our
second grade experiences “pancake and pajama breakfast”
incorporting the transition words first, next, then, last
Stay warm and stay tuned for more collaborative news!!
