You just can't beat a loop year! It was great to see all those familiar faces come walking back in on Wednesday - as well as a handful of new ones. Everyone was excited to share summer stories with one another and reconnect with friends. Our three new students - Joshua, Isaiah, and Tyler - have wasted no time making space for themselves in the classroom. They are very sweet guys and a wonderful addition to our classroom.
This week has found us sorting and labeling supplies, talking about expectations for ourselves and others, brainstorming classroom jobs, considering topics for songs we might write together, beginning our first read aloud, singing, browsing books in the classroom, free writing, solving logic problems, remembering math games from last year, exploring maps, and playing in the shade at recess. We've also begun talking about the news. There's a lot going on in the world and in our country right now. Today we talked about the upcoming governor's race between Governor Nikki Haley and Democratic contender Vincent Sheheen. The article I shared this morning predicted that Governor Haley would win by about ten percentage points. This gave us an opportunity to talk about predictions, political parties, and elections. As we draw closer to November we will talk about each of these in much greater detail - even learning some of the ideological differences between each party in regards to social and economic issues. The kids will, of course, access you as one of their many sources of information.
Next week we will begin to launch many of our first units of study. In reading we will be listening to the last handful of Summer Reading Project presentations and then dive into news articles to remind ourselves of the work we did last year to identify important information, respond to the text, and summarize for others what we read and thought. This will pave the way for the work we do as historians in social studies as well as our current news shares in Morning Meeting.
In writing workshop we will begin learning to write in cursive. This will take us three or four weeks to complete at which time the kids will be asked to write everything in cursive until Winter Break. This will give them plenty of time to feel comfortable and confident with cursive. After Winter Break they will again have a choice between manuscript and cursive, though there will be certain times I'll ask them all to write in cursive to make sure they don't forget all they've learned. As always, our writing workshop will begin with a twenty minute mini-lesson before sending the kids off to write for about half an hour. During our study of cursive they will self-select the types of writing they do each day. After writing independently and in small groups we will come back together to share what they worked on during our workshop time. By the end of our cursive study they will be asked to revise, edit, and publish one piece they have been working on in their writer's notebook.
In math we will begin with review of major second grade concepts. We'll particularly focus on place value and computation. I anticipate this will take us no more than a couple of weeks before moving on to bigger and better things.
Our first unit of study in social studies will be an exploration of maps. Thanks so much for helping the kids bring in a map today. We have all sorts of maps represented: state maps, zoo maps, home maps, amusement park maps, country maps, atlases, etc. We'll be looking at how these are constructed, what elements they contain, and the ways they are used for various purposes. The kids will create maps of their own as well as begin learning about geographic and political divisions such as hemispheres, continents, countries, states/provinces, and cities.We may even have a special guest come in and share her experiences creating and working with maps.
Finally...I can now access the blog but I still cannot access the many photos I've been taking with my phone. I'm working to figure out what's going on with Google + and remedy the problem. Hopefully I can get this ironed out over the weekend so you can see all your kiddos in action!
Take care,
Chris
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