THREE DOWN, ONE TO GO

It’s amazing how fast the year is flying by! I guess it’s true what they say, “time flies when you’re having fun.”  While we have had a ton of fun so far this year, we have also been very busy, and that will continue for the remainder of the year.

In Reading we have finished our direct instruction on all six “Good Reader Strategies.”  Those include: predictions, connections, inferences, visualization/mental images, solving word problems, and summarizing/synthesizing.  We will continue practicing those strategies, and digging even deeper into what those look like.  Reciprocal Teaching, Guided Reading, and Readers’ Workshop will be the backbone of our instructional strategies for the rest of the year.  While we will spend A LOT of time practicing those strategies during class, it is extremely important the students are doing the same independently.  There is a lot of research that stresses the importance of independent reading for long-term academic success. The more students read on their own, the better they perform in all academic areas, all the way through high school.  I can’t stress enough, the students NEED to be reading a minimum of 100 minutes a week, and practice applying the “Good Reader Strategies” as they read.

In Writing, we are finishing up our unit on book and restaurant reviews.  The students have used what they have learned about reviews and writing opinion pieces to create some amazing reviews of books they have read and Biaggi’s Restaurant.  While the kids may have read some good books, and ate some great food at Biaggi’s, the overall goal of this unit was to give students practice backing up their opinions with specific evidence, while incorporating “Good Writer Strategies.”  The rest of the year will focus on writing nonfiction, expository pieces. We will even take a trip to the zoo, conduct an animal research project, and write an expository essay on an animal of their choice.  The upcoming Writing units will be a lot of fun!

Math is also moving along as planned.  Although we have a new curriculum, and the 2^nd grade team has worked tirelessly aligning the new curriculum with what we have used in the past, the students are developing into true mathematicians.  The new curriculum allows us to spend more time on specific content, and dig deeper into the topics covered.  This has allowed us to transform the students from memorizers of operations and math facts, into true mathematical thinkers.  On a daily basis, 2J engages in high level, intelligent mathematical conversations that allow for a deeper understanding of what is being taught.  We have just finished up our unit on measurement, and we will now be moving into fractions after break.  After that, we will wrap up the year with units on decimals, place value, and whole number operations.  We have been extremely busy in Math this year, and the same will be true for the rest of the year.

Social Studies and Science has also been staying the course.  We just finished our Science units on the plant lifecycle and the water cycle.  We will now transition into our Social Studies unit on the economy. We will then finish up the year with our Science unit on nutrition.  While we have done a number of engaging “experiments,” and incorporated Discovery Education into Social Studies and Science instruction, for the rest of the year, we will be using the SCAN strategy for reading nonfiction texts.  This will help the students gain a better understanding of how to tackle nonfiction texts, and pull out the most important information while reading.  This is an important skill the students will need to have mastered, since there will be more focus on reading nonfiction texts next year. 

It is hard to believe we only have one quarter left, but I will be sure to make the last few months of school months to remember.  While we will be extremely busy wrapping up the remaining units of study, there will be a lot of FUN incorporated into what we do every day.  It has been a great year so far, so let’s finish on a high note!

Halfway There!!!!

Can you believe we are already halfway done!  It seems like just yesterday the kids walked in my door for the first time. Then again, looking back at how far we have come, I am so proud of the 2J family.  It is amazing the growth I have witnessed firsthand, and I have high expectations for the second half of the school year.

In Reading, we have covered nearly all of the “Good Reader Strategies.” We know that good readers make connections as they read. Those connections include text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections.  Good readers make inferences and predictions, while supporting them with clues from the text and background knowledge.  We have practiced creating mental images, and using fix-up strategies to solve word problems.  Finally, good readers are able to summarize what they have read, including only the most important details and narrative elements.  Although this covers the major strategies for the year, there is still more to come.

The first half of the year has been spent providing direct instruction and guided practice on these strategies.  We will now move into a more independent practice model.  Reciprocal Teaching is an effective, research based, and highly engaging method of instruction that allows the students to practice these strategies.  Students will work in a cooperative learning group to read a common text.  Each student will be assigned a role, based on one of the strategies, and participate in a sort of literature book talk.  Much of the remainder of the year will be spent in our Reciprocal Teaching Groups, and I am excited to see how the students grow in their ability to independently apply the major comprehension strategies as they read.

In Writing, we are wrapping up our Slice of Life (Personal Narrative) Unit.  The students have created some real masterpieces, and it is amazing to see how much they have grown from the beginning of the year. This quarter, we will move into both expository and opinion writing.  Although these units are the major umbrella of the curriculum, the real content (“what good writers do”) comes in during Writers’ Workshop, as the students work through the writing process, and with a variety of mini-lessons along the way.  While the students have already come a long way in terms of their use of “good writer strategies,” I have high expectations for the kinds of writers they will be when they leave 2^nd grade.

Math is going GREAT!!!!  We are wrapping up Unit 5 on Geometry this week, and we will be moving into a number of different units that revolve around whole number operations, measurement, decimals, and even fractions!  As I mentioned at Curriculum Night, I use a “Guided Math” method of instruction.  It has definitely proven to be effective this year.  It has allowed me to meet with students at their level.  I can challenge the students who need it, and offer extra support when it is applicable.  This method has also allowed me to make “Math Workshop” an engaging form of independent practice.  Students are playing math games, working with manipulatives, and practicing the content in a variety of fun ways.  Although the changing curriculum has posed a number of challenges for the 2^nd grade team, we are all very happy with how math is going, and I can see the students growing as mathematical thinkers on a daily basis.

Social Studies and Science have been moving along as planned.  We recently finished a Science unit on the lifecycle of mealworms.  We are now moving into the lifecycle of plants and eventually into the water cycle.    In Social Studies, we will be covering units on government, geography, and the economy.  Although we have spent much of the year using Discovery Education, we will probably move more into an integrated curriculum for Social Studies and Science.  Much of the direct instruction and delivery of content will be done during Reading Workshop.  The students will use variety of non-fiction texts directly related to the Social Studies and Science units as they practice the “Good Reader Strategies.”  However, there will still be a number of engaging and content-rich projects the students will be working on that will cover the Social Studies and Science content.   

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 Open House on February 5^th, and feel free to contact me at any time if you ever need anything at all!