Earth Week Fun!

 A gold star for us! Our class chalk mural was the 1st runner up at the Chalk-a-thon! We had fun reading about and practicing ways we can take care of our earth. It was a review week and our kiddos did a good job there too. Next week we will have our final oral reading assessment on Thursday. I am confident our students will do a great job!

Second Grade Weekly Study Skills

Unit 6, Week 1 (Just Like Josh Gibson)

Below are the skills and vocabulary we will be working on for the next 5 days.  (*Please note: our literacy lessons are based on 5-day plans that may or may not align with a M-F schedule. In an effort to teach the entire grade level core, we will send home the “weekly study skills” on the day that we begin a new 5-day instructional sequence.)  You can support your child’s literacy skills by reviewing, discussing, and practicing the skills and concepts below:

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Traditions:  Are traditions and celebrations important in our lives?	Why are sports traditions important in our country?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
Inflected Endings	Inflected Endings: heavier   heaviest   lighter   lightest   liked   liking   planned   planning   skipped   skipping   tried   trying
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
guess   pretty   science   shoe   village   watch	bases   cheers   field   plate   sailed   threw
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
athlete   challenge   champion   dainty   disguise   effort   professional   shortstop	Cursive Letters U, V, W, Y Letter and Word Spacing

UCET-Wow!

It was a great experience for the second grade teachers to go to the UCET conference last week. On Thursday and Friday we took as many classes as we could to learn how to enhance our teaching with technology. I was so excited-I went home and made a great QR code center on contractions. I can't wait for my students to try it our this week! We also will be starting our pet reports on Monday and I love to hear these!
   Our new week in Reading Street:

Second Grade Weekly Study Skills

Unit 5, Week 5 (The Signmaker’s Assistant)

Below are the skills and vocabulary we will be working on for the next 5 days.  (*Please note: our literacy lessons are based on 5-day plans that may or may not align with a M-F schedule. In an effort to teach the entire grade level core, we will send home the “weekly study skills” on the day that we begin a new 5-day instructional sequence.)  You can support your child’s literacy skills by reviewing, discussing, and practicing the skills and concepts below:

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Responsibility:  What does it mean to be responsible?	How can we be responsible when we make a mistake?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
Vowels  aw, au, augh, al	Vowels  aw, au, augh, al: August   auto   because   caught   chalk   draw   fault   launch   talk   taught   thaw   walk
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
behind   brought   door   everybody   minute   promise   sorry	afternoon   blame   idea   important   signmaker   townspeople
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
apologize   citizen   hoard   interrupt   judgment   protest   scold   troublemaker	Cursive Letters H, K, N, M Letter Slant

A Little Bit of Spring!

      It looks like things are warming up!! We had fun this last week learning about what it takes to be a good pet owner, I am looking forward to the reports our students are working on to tell about their ideal pet! We will have 6-7 students present each day, beginning on April 7th.
Here is our new unit of study for this week…

Second Grade Weekly Study Skills

Unit 5, Week 4 (Horace and Morris But Mostly Dolores)

Below are the skills and vocabulary we will be working on for the next 5 days.  (*Please note: our literacy lessons are based on 5-day plans that may or may not align with a M-F schedule. In an effort to teach the entire grade level core, we will send home the “weekly study skills” on the day that we begin a new 5-day instructional sequence.)  You can support your child’s literacy skills by reviewing, discussing, and practicing the skills and concepts below:

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Responsibility:  What does it mean to be responsible?	How can we be responsible friends and neighbors?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
The sounds of /f/ph, gh, ck, ng	The sounds of /f/ph, gh, ck, ng: backtrack   clang   cough   duckling   enough   graph   laugh   phone   photo   rough   ticket   tough
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
bought   people   pleasant   probably   scared   shall   sign	adventure   climbed   clubhouse   exploring   greatest   truest   wondered
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
advantage   appreciate   communicate   defiant   demand   ferocious   firmly   respect	None listed

See You at Art-a-palooza!

This week is a fun time for us to celebrate the arts! I hope you can come by and see the lovely Kandinsky-inspired work our students have done. They are awesome! (Thursday)

Second Grade Weekly Study Skills

Unit 5, Week 3 (Bad Dog, Dodger!)

Below are the skills and vocabulary we will be working on for the next 5 days.  (*Please note: our literacy lessons are based on 5-day plans that may or may not align with a M-F schedule. In an effort to teach the entire grade level core, we will send home the “weekly study skills” on the day that we begin a new 5-day instructional sequence.)  You can support your child’s literacy skills by reviewing, discussing, and practicing the skills and concepts below:

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Responsibility:  What does it mean to be responsible?	How can we be responsible animal owners?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
Silent Consonants:  kn, wr, gn, mb	Silent Consonants: climb   comb   gnat   knee   knob   knock   lamb   sign   wrap   wren   write   wrong
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
above   enough   toward   whole   word	Chased   chewing   dripping   grabbed    practice    treat   wagged
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
behavior   companion   confident   consider   cooperate   obedient   properly   reprimand	Cursive Letters z, s, r, f Letter Smoothness