Dear second graders,

We are nearing the end of the school year! About 4 weeks left. Lots of events and learning are taking place. Keep up the good work!

Congratulation on finishing your MAP tests! These test required a lot of focus and determination, well done.

Next week we will be heading to Iraq El-Amir for our final field trip. 2LB is going on Tuesday, 2R is going on Wednesday, and 2F is going on Thursday.

Here are a few things you should bring in your backpack: a hat, water bottle, money for the handicraft center, and a healthy snack. It will be very hot and sunny so might consider putting sunscreen on before you come to school! Be prepared for a lot of exploring. Safety is extremely important on this field trip. Discuss with your parents a few ways that you can be safe. *** In addition to money that you might want to spend at the hanicraft center, you will need to bring 1.50 JD for an entrance fee. Thanks for remembering to bring it! 

In math, we are continuing to use and practice strategies to solve addition and subtraction facts to 1,000. We have looked at some word problems that require us to think and solve multistep problems. It is extremely important to be flexible in our mathematical thinking which is why we have practiced many different ways to solve these problems.

In writing, we are finishing our timeline books. It has been a fun way to share our life events while teaching us that events happen in order. It’s important to put dates in order to tell our history. We look forward to sharing our books with each other. In the next month, we will continue to review the 6 + 1 writing traits that help us write detailed and interesting stories.

In reading, we continue to respond to reading by asking and answering questions. We also identify the characters, setting, problem and solution. We are also able to identify the author’s purpose for writing the story. We do all of this to understand the story better. Reading is thinking!

We are looking forward to the last month of school with you all! Keep working hard.

Kailey Ripley

Michelle LeBlanc

Nina Frazier

Susanne El Hadeed

May

Dear second graders,

There are only seven more weeks left of school and there is much left to learn and do.

In Social Studies and Science, we will be a looking at the history of our community and the history of our Planet Earth.  We are very excited to be going on another field trip to Iraq Al Amir!  More details will come shortly.  This field trip is our favourite in second grade because we get to explore an ancient site in Jordan and we get to see cool rocks and land formations.

In Math, we are going to be problem solving and reviewing all the different strategies we have learned this year.  We will be using these strategies to help us solve addition and subtraction facts to 1000.  By now, you will have a strategy that works for you, but in order for you to be a 'fluent' mathematician, you will need a variety of strategies to use.  You will also need to show your teachers how you solved the problem and how you know you are correct.  Having multiple strategies is very important for this reason.

In reading, you will learn how you can respond to reading.  There are many ways that you can do this.  Your second grade teachers will show you a few.

In writing, we are going review the 6 traits of writing that help us create exciting stories.

On May 3rd, 4th and 5th, second graders will complete their MAP reading test.  On May 11th, 12th and 13th, they will complete their language test and on May 19th, 20th and 21st, they will complete their math test.  Please note that if you do not complete the test in the 45 minutes that is allotted, you will need to complete it on that day.  You may have to leave the classroom in order to finish.

Please make sure that you get a good night sleep the night before your test and have a healthy breakfast in the morning.

We look forward to sharing these last 7 months with you.  This year has gone so quickly and you have all grown so much.  We are proud to be your teachers!

Mrs LeBlanc
Ms Frazier
Mrs Malha (nee Ripley)
Mrs El-Hadeed

Springtime in Second Grade

2F Exploring Properties of Matter

Springtime in second grade has been quite busy!  We have had a blast writing and voicing our opinions, supporting our opinions with three valid reasons, and then closing our statements with strong conclusions.  Please come by the hallway to read some of our opinion pieces.  We even wrote letters to Mr. Gaylord with opinions about how we could make ACS a better school.  Mr. Gaylord is reading through them and might even take some of our suggestions into consideration!

Reading excellent literature to support our writing unit has been wonderful!  There are many great books where various characters have strong opinions!  We have looked closely at those characters’ points of view and their opinions.  After reading the hilarious ‘Pigeon’ series (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, and The Pigeon Needs a Bath) we are writing our own versions!  A reader must infer throughout these books to understand how the audience is responding to the Pigeon’s request! 

Math has been a ball!  We have been studying geometry focusing specifically on attributes of shapes.  We know how to identifying edges, vertices, and faces of 3D shapes.  We also know how to partition rectangles into even parts dividing them up in to halves, thirds, and fourths.  Studying arrays has been fascinating.  We now can identify arrays in our environment and quickly organize the repeated addition to count how many squares cover the given area. 

Matter, Matters!  We have learned that everything is made up of matter!  Our science unit began making observations about properties of various states of matter.  We also have learned there are different states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas).  The main focus of this unit it to identify the properties of matter and how these properties impact the function of the various object.  We also will be able to identify how heat and cooling can sometimes change the state of matter (from liquid to solid or vice versa).  Sometimes these changes are reversible and sometimes they are not. 

 The end of the year is a busy time!  Please keep reading the elementary blog, school website, emails, and posters around the school!  We look forward to these last couple of months together. 

Farewell February. March into March!

Dear Second Grade Parents,

We are almost at the end of our units of study on poetry, measurement and economics.  It has been an incredibly learning experience for us all!

We learned about different types of poems; cinquains, diamantes, free verse, limericks, rhyming, and bio poems.  Illustrating and publishing these poems was a lot of fun.  We also got to share all our poems at our Poetry Cafe Day.  Each student got to share their poems with someone from another class.  Students then received 'feedback' from their peers.  The feedback is called, 'Three Stars and a Wish'.  What were three things you liked and one thing you wish the author could have done?  Peer feedback is a wonderful way that students can express the quality of each others work in their own language.  "One of the reasons peer assessment is so valuable is because children often give and receive criticisms of their work more freely than in the traditional teacher/child interchange.  Another advantage is the the language used by children to each other is the language they would naturally use, rather than "school language."  (Black et al, 2003)  It is important that students at ACS are skilled and effective communicators.  Giving and receiving feedback is a useful skill and one that we will keep practising in second grade.

Also on our Poetry Cafe Day, we ended our very enjoyable economics unit by creating a market place.  Students designed, created and marketed a product to sell.  Students used their salary (or as they are called in Ms Frazier's room 'Fun Time Frazier's) to purchase goods.  It was amazing to see how creative and innovative our students are.

Now March is here and we are excited to say that we are going to be learning more Science!  We will kick start our topic on 'Structure and Property of Matter' with a review of what Scientists do and on Thursday, March 5th, we will have a 'Discovery Time' in the MPR.  We will be exploring lots of different materials and tapping into children's natural curiosity and wonder.  We are going to have a fun few months discovering what different materials can do and what materials are appropriate for certain jobs.  We will 'analyze data obtained from testing different materials to determine which materials have the properties that are best suited for an intended purpose.' (NGSS 2nd Grade Science Standard)

In Math, we are finishing up our study on Measurement and Data.  We are about to begin our studies in Geometry.  The students will be learning to:

• Recognize and draw shapes having specified attributes, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces.  Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes.
• Partition (divide) a rectangle into rows and columns of same-size squares and count to find the total number of them.
• Partition (divide) circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, thirds, half of, a third of, etc., and describe the whole as two halves, three thirds, four fourths. Recognize that equal shares of identical wholes need not have the same shape.

The character trait for March is tolerance/acceptance.  Please be sure to talk about this trait at home as much as possible.

Thank you always for your valued and constant support.

Your partners in education,

The Second Grade Team 

Teamwork

Mrs. El-Hadeed's son, Mr. Rami, came to visit all of second grade to share about the local business where he works.  Mr. Rami is a director for Roya TV here in Amman.  We learned a lot about the 'behind the scenes' of working with a TV station.  Thanks to Mrs. El-Hadeed and Mr. Rami for taking the time visit our grade!

This month's character trait has been 'Teamwork'.  Check out this amazing bulletin board created by 4th graders.  They worked as a team in Art to form this colourful board.  I think it looks amazing!

A Blizzard of Books!

Check out our snowflakes of books we have read.  I'm sure there are more that haven't been stuck on!

Second Grade Art

Dear parents, here are a few pictures from second grade art.  It is currently on display, but I thought I'd take pictures for those parents who can not come to school to see such wonderful art work.  Enjoy!

We have started a new Social Studies Unit focusing on Work in our Community.  We were so excited to have two local business owners come and talk to second grade.  We met Miss Dalia who owns the business Lollipop Events and Miss Hala who owns Hala's Treats.  We asked these questions:

1. Do you provide goods or services or both? What are they?

2. Do you make your products or are they manufactured somewhere else?

3. If manufactured somewhere else, how do products get to your business?

4. How does your business affect the local community?

5. How do you decide what products and services to provide in our community?

It's snow fun! We have the day off school!

That's right!  It's no fun.  But here are a few activities that will make the day go faster.

Little Bird Tales tutorial:

Mrs LeBlanc's tutorial

Another example from last year:

Aaron's Tale

Welcome 2015!

Second Grade News

Happy 2015!  We wrapped up 2014 with holiday festivities, decorating parties, visiting the holiday bazaar with our senior buddies, and performing in a wonderful holiday concert.  We were busy trying to fit everything in up to the very last day!  Thank you so much for everyone who helped make these holiday events possible.  This is what students enjoy so much about their school experience and adds a 'fun' detour from our daily routines.  

Our science unit is coming to an end.  We will complete the unit with a project where we are going to create a model of an animal dispersing seeds.  This will be a cumulative final project assessing the students' understanding of how seeds are moved across planet earth.  Soon we will begin a new social studies unit digging deeper into our understanding of communities.  

Our Readers Workshop and Writing Workshop took a holiday twist right before break.  We were writing holiday stories and brought in our favorite holiday books to share.  These were great fun to explore all of the different genres of literature and the students were very motivated sharing books they love to read.  The story/poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' was quite a hit.  This will be a nice lead into our next unit of study on poetry.  We will begin 2015 studying this genre.    

In math, we are learning so many new strategies to help us add and subtract.  This takes lots of practice!  Story problems are a difficult aspect of mathematics.  They require thorough comprehension and the ability to select important information to solve these types of problems.  We continue to practice these as a whole group, with partners, and individually.  We are learning how to show our work and explain our thinking.     

We have met with our senior buddies twice (sharing our Gratitude Granola in November and shopping at the bazaar in December).  We hope to meet once a month with our new friends.  This has been a positive activity so far and we look forward to our next activity with our buddies. 

We hope you all had a restful and relaxing time with family and friends.  All the second grade teachers a refreshed, relaxed and ready to begin 2015.  It will be another fun packed year of learning and fun!