Week of May 20, 2013

Math / This week, we worked really hard on solving addition story problems. We continued to think about quick and efficient strategies. We had lots of discussions about our strategies and how we can continue to be more effective as we get better and better at solving these types of problems. We discovered that we know how to do a lot of math in our head that we were unable to do when we started second grade. For example, we don’t need to draw strips and singles anymore to know how many tens and ones are in a number.
Reading / We continued making inferences while reading The Butterfly. We’ve inferred:
  • a butterfly dries its wings when it emerges before it can fly,
  • people should grow and protect the special plants where butterflies lay their eggs so they do not become endangered or extinct, and
  • the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing butterfly was named that because it’s the biggest female butterfly.
We have also worked really hard to independently make our own inferences during our reading time.
Science / All of our class caterpillars (except one), have emerged from their chrysalides (the plural form of chrysalis)! All of our individual caterpillars (except 2) formed their J-shape and turned into the chrysalis! We let the butterflies out in the courtyard on Thursday. Then we were able to get all of our chrysalides into the butterfly net. We have looked closely at the parts of a butterfly and compared how those parts changed from when it was a caterpillar.
Writing / We have begun our new writing unit on letter writing. We have been reading special books to learn the parts of both informal and formal letters, as well as explore the reasons people write letters. We read I Wanna New Room to see how the main character wrote informal letters to his dad to convince him to get his own room. We also began reading Around the World: Who’s Been Here? and saw a teacher that was using letters to inform her students about her trip.
Special News /
  • Sam will be next week’s student of the week!
  • Maya and Samearned Helpful Hawks this week!
  • Elizabeth earned a reading certificate for handing in 8 at-home reading sheets, with a total of 2,250 minutes so far!
  • We were on green 4 out of 5 days this week during lunch.
  • Thanks to the parent online ordering this year through Scholastic, I was able to purchase one book for each child, in addition to the many free books our classroom has already received from these coupons.