Getting in the Swing of Things

We've completed our first three weeks of second grade and we are adapting quickly to the procedures of a new school year and a new classroom. Last week we read a great story called "Mr. Putter and Tabby Make Tea". It's a great story about friendship and became the impetus for many great discussions about friends and friendships.

The students worked hard creating friendship cards and developing lists about what it takes to be a real friend. We ended our week with a great trip to "Greene County Days" and were able to learn some interesting civil war facts from General Grant.

We also had a day of AimsWeb testing on Wednesday. This short three story test assesses our students fluency rates and gives us a great starting point to create language arts lessons that are differentiated for each student's needs. It's a great assessment tool that we will repeat later in the winter and again in the spring. These three short probes will allow us to chart the growth of each student as their reading skills progress.

Next week, we'll start a unit on public servants and focus on firefighters specifically. We'll also be discussing animals and their habitats in science. Our math will focus on number sense as we develop some base 10 skills and dig deeper into greater than/less than problems. We'll also tackle the thermometer as we introduce that skill later in the week.