March 9, 2018

It is time to measure around the classroom and the shared space. What does a foot look like? Is it your foot or my foot?

The children took off their shoes and compared them side by side, but realized there shoes were all different shapes and lengths. We settled on everyone using a teacher foot and the groups collaborated in measuring the length of our class carpet, the window ledge, the length of the stairwell, the path to the office door and the length of the 1st/2nd shared space.

Measuring with those teacher feet sure does take a long time! What about measuring with a gigantic foot?

Ask your child: "What did you notice about measuring around the room and the hall with the teacher foot?  With the gigantic foot? How many gigantic feet do you think it would take to go around the track?"

There is nothing quite like a good book! Whenever the children have an opportunity to read a book of their own choosing, they are fully absorbed. Ask your child: "What book have you been reading at school? Tell me what it is about. What do you think is going to happen next?"

As you learned during the conferences, one way for the children to learn new words for reading and writing is through our Words Their Way program. The children are learning spelling rules and practicing organizing words by their common pattern or rule.
Ask your child: "What were some of the words you learned this week in your sort? What rules were you sorting by?"

In Social Studies, with a writing emphasis on opinion writing, we watched some movie trailers and gave opinions about which movie we each would prefer watching. The children chose "Peter Rabbit" over "Wrinkle in Time" (a close second) and Mary Poppins Returns. We have discussed the different ways that people share their opinions such as RottenTomatoes movie reviews and YELP restaurant reviews. This week the children also wrote character traits and evidence of that trait to 3 of their classmates. Ask your child: "What character traits did your friends identify for you? What examples of evidence did they write about?"

Arty Aardvark could not be more proud of the loving hands that worked on our class auction project. Thank you Andrea and Lotte for leading us through the making of this wonderful piñata!

Homework

Homework for the week of 3/5, due 3/12

• Read for at least 20 minutes each night Monday through Friday (weekends are bonus) and fill in the reading log nightly
• Math Journal: pages 89-90

Homework for the week of 3/12, due 3/19

• Read for at least 20 minutes each night Monday through Friday (weekends are bonus) and fill in the reading log nightly
• Math Journal: pages 91-92

**Homework Reminder:

2nd grade homework is to help initiate routines:

• responsibly getting homework from school to home and back again 
• setting up a quiet place to focus and complete the work
• the work supports and extends what the children are learning at school
• time for your child to begin being aware of schedules and learn to navigate through planning and discussion with the family what nights are dedicated to outside activities and commitments

**Children who do not have time to complete the homework will have 30 minutes on Mondays (Choice Time) that is set aside for "catching up." This is a buffer set up to help those children who are still learning to find that balance between school and home activities.