ONE DOWN, THREE TO GO

It is hard to believe we are already a quarter of the way through the school year!  I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun.  While there has been plenty of fun in 2J, that has been integrated with a healthy dose of learning. We have been very busy this quarter, and we will continue this trend throughout the rest of the year.

In Reading, we have continued to practice our “Good Reader Strategies.”  Those include identifying narrative elements, creating mental images, making predictions, solving word problems, and summarizing. We will move into a number of different strategies throughout the year, but it is always important to keep these ones in mind as we read.  “Good Readers” use ALL the strategies, not just one or two at a time.  On another note, please make sure the students are reading a minimum of 100 minutes a week while at home. There is a lot of research out there that suggests the more independent reading a student does, the more successful they will be in all subject areas. Reading is a major focus in 2J, and it will continue to be throughout the year.

We have also started to make the connection between Reading and Writing.  In order to teach a number of “Good Writer Strategies,” I use a number of high-interest trade books that highlight the strategy we are working on.  This helps to make a connection between what strategies these authors used while writing their books, and what we should be doing as we write.  All of this instruction on strategies is culminating in our final opinion writing piece.  We have been working through the entire writing process from “pre-writing” to “publishing,” and I am very happy types of pieces I am seeing so far.  The students really are incorporating the things we have learned in Writing so far this year as they create their opinion pieces.  We will even be meeting with the Cool Cat Press to help us “make our writing pieces even better!”

Math has also been running like a well-oiled machine!  As I mentioned at the Curriculum Night, I use a “Guided Math” model in order to best meet the students’ needs, and deliver them with instruction that is MOST appropriate for them.  While it is a very effective instruction method, it does require some creativity in terms of management.  Well, I am proud to say that the class has really embraced the Math Workshop time, and we have accomplished A LOT so far this year.  We are currently moving into Unit 3: “Place Value, Time, and Money.” We will also continue to discuss various addition and subtraction strategies, and working on discussing the HOW & WHY we do math (“Intelligent Mathematical Conversations”).

In Social Studies and Science, we have wrapped up a number of units.  The kids have shown a real interest in the Discovery Education and Wiki sites, and I encourage you to use those at home as well.  We are almost done with our unit on Sink or Float in Science, and then we will move back into Social Studies.  While we have already started talking about the election process, government, and the branches of government, we will also move into U.S. History.  We will get to watch one of my favorite programs, The Liberty’s Kids Series, to begin learning about the American Revolution, and the kids are going to LOVE this!  We will also start learning about life cycles and the “MEAL WORM” unit, and the kids will LOVE this even more!

Time really has flown by so far this year, and we really have had a lot of fun!  Then again, we have been EXTREMELY busy working through a wide variety of content, and we will continue to do so throughout the year.  I look forward to talking to you more about this at conferences, and feel free to contact me at any time if you ever need anything at all!