100 Nights of Reading

Congratulations to 24t for reaching the 100 nights of home reading goal. He has worked hard and it really shows in his reading.

Best Gym Ever!

Our Friday afternoon of crazy carpeting was so much fun! A special moment for me was when three different students told me it was the first time they had ever done that and they were smiling from ear to ear!  I was also terrified when they sent me flying down the hill. I envisioned going over a bump and breaking something! I survived and passed on a second turn.

Since we have a short week this week we will not have a spelling list. We have finished with the long vowel sounds and the various spellings of each long vowel sound.  This week we will review and practice using all of these sounds.

The students have really been enjoying the L.A. unit on folk and fairy tales. So far they love the "fractured" tales and are really aghast at the cruelty and violence in some of the traditional tales (think of Hansel and Gretal.) I love that these tales really got the kids thinking, evaluating, comparing and connecting. We will end this unit with a look at some versions of folk and fairy tales from other lands.

The students have made great improvement in their use of strategies for adding basic facts. This week we will work on subtraction. Our goal is to get the kids "thinking and using strategies" not just counting.  In Grade Two students should know the subtraction facts under 10 without having to count up or count backwards. For those students who are not yet able to apply the strategies, I do practice  counting up and counting backwards.

Just a reminder that we have an outdoor field trip on Feb. 5 that your child will need ski mitts/gloves and long socks for.

Reading and Math

First of all, congratulations to 7m who has reached 100 nights of reading! Yay! Keep up all this great work Grade Twos!

We have been working very hard on our math facts. Wow! We are really able to do a lot of mental math now. The card game shown below is a great way to practice adding. This week we are working on strategies to add up more than 2 numbers. When adding up a list of four numbers we look for teams of 10, doubles, or we add the largest numbers first.  

Spelling this week is focussed on the long u sound.

Math Fact Strategies

We have been working hard learning all sorts of strategies for adding math facts to 20. I would like to explain some of them here so your can see if your child either knows those fact families or at least knows how to use the strategy. This is the stage where I am teaching the children how to figure out addition facts without simply counting. As far as subtraction goes, it is the goal that once the students learn the "fact family" by memory, they will recognize the difference by knowing the fact family. For example, the children now know their addition doubles by memory so in turn are starting to recognize a "doubles fact" when they see the reverse in subtraction. I can say 14-7 and they know the answer is 7 because "I know 7+7=14."



These are the strategies we have been working on.

1. Doubles- I think all the kids know these by memory.

2. Teams of ten- the various combos of numbers that add up to 10. It is expected in grade two that all kids know these by memory.

3. Near doubles- using either double plus one or doubles minus one for a fact.ex 7+8  is 7+7 +1  or 8+8-1

4. Make or use a ten- this involves +9 or even +8.. Any number adding 9 we pretend the 9 is a 10, so       add 10 then take away 1. Or said another way, 9+7    just borrow 1 from the 7 to make a 10 with the     9, then you have 10 + 6=16.

5. Use a known fact- Sometimes certain facts just stand out for kids. If your child has 4+7 memorized        then they use it to solve 5+7.

 

We have other strategies as well but these are the important ones. All this great brain work is called mental math. Thursday I taught the kids a type of solitaire card game which involves adding numbers. See if they can show it to you at home. It is a really great game for practicing number facts.

February Trip

Just a heads up that we do have an outdoor trip planned for February 5 in the afternoon. I like to give parents plenty of time to prepare for proper clothing for this trip. Most of the items your child will already have. Ski-jacket and ski-pants, hat,  neck warmer or scarf, ski gloves or mitts (not fuzzy or woolen mitts or gloves) and longer wool or thermal socks. We always take two pairs of mitts or gloves and two pairs of socks. Your second pair of mitts do not have to be ski gloves or mitts or wool or thermal socks. Believe it or not, many kids get their boots stuck in a snow bank and end up pulling their feet out of their boots and get their socks snowy. Mitts and gloves often get wet and subsequently very cold so we need a spare pair. The key to having fun outdoors and staying warm is proper preparation and clothing. I feel it is very important for children to learn about staying warm and safe in this cold country of ours! Thanks for your cooperation in this. I would like to take two parents on this trip. If you are interested in coming, let me know.

We have been working on a variety of strategies for quickly adding numbers in our head. The strategies we are working on this week are NEAR DOUBLES  and MAKE/USE A TEN. See if your child can explain these strategies to you. Have them explain which strategy they would  use for the following:

8+7=____            6+9=____     6+7= ____              9+5=_____       7+3=_____    4+6=____  2+9=___

100 NIGHTS OF READING!

WOW! This girl is dedicated! She already has 100 nights of reading. She is a super hard worker and we are so proud of her.

Yay for 3t!

Another student with 50 nights of reading! Look at us go!  We also had a great time making our juice the other day. Well most of us liked it. We made three different batches of juice and each was a little different depending on the ingredients put into the vitamix. It was a fun way to look at solids and liquids.

Welcome Back

First of all, we welcome 12m back from her two month visit to India. We missed you!

I was kept very busy today filling out all those reading awards! It was great to see everyone made sure to keep their reading skills sharp over the holidays. I see more and more kids in the class reading for enjoyment now. The key is getting books at the right level that are of interest to the reader. That is sometimes difficult to do until the reader gets to a certain level. Congratulations to 2c and 22r for 50 nights of reading!

Spelling this week-long o- oa, o_e, __ow,