Reading Workshop
Second Grade is focusing on making mental images with poetry and fiction. In our mini-lessons, teachers model how we do this by talking through our thinking. We demonstrate this by focusing on key words that elicit a mental image for us and use descriptive words to relay our image to our students. The students demonstrate their ability to make mental images by sharing them with their Reading Partners. The children incorporate the use of adjectives to describe how they think, feel, hear, see or even smell when they are reading certain passages! They sometimes demonstrate their knowledge by drawing what they see in their mind. Mental images can be fluid. We discuss how our mental images can change throughout a story. We may start off by seeing a character one way, for example, and that character’s image in our mind may change due to various factors such as time, circumstance or additional information about the character.
Mathematics
Second graders learned to tell time to 5 minute intervals and discovered that there is often more than one way to say the time on a clock. The children learned to use words like a quarter to 3, 15 minutes til 7, and 45 minutes after 6. They estimated the time events would last and solved elapsed time problems. After our unit on time, we moved on to fractions. As in all lessons, the children used manipulatives and Envision math interactive computer lessons to practice the concepts. The children learned to identify and show fractions of a set and used objects to solve problems finding fractions of a group. The next unit we will work on is multiplication and division. The children continue to enjoy using the Marcy Cook enrichment materials and they’re becoming better problem solvers.
Jewish Learning
The second grade tzedakah project was a huge success. The children raised money to make bears at Build-A-Bear to give to the Houston Fire Department. The bears will provide comfort to children who are transported by ambulance to area hospitals. The children said prayers for the injured and sick children and placed a heart in their bears. The second graders raised $4,171. 70, read 686 books, and donated 178 adorable bears. The Houston Fire Department brought the ladder truck and ambulance to school to thank the children and collect the bears. While it was difficult for the children to give their bears away, the mitzvah and lesson from life that was learned will leave a lasting impression with the children forever.
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