Many Seconds in Second

Give Thanks!

We are making a list of things we are thankful for each day.  Your child’s list is becoming quite long! I am noticing how thoughtful your child is in reflecting on what he/she is thankful for.  Look for this list in your child’s folder closer to Thanksgiving break. 

Click on the link to see and hear our class recite Psalm 100.  This Psalm of Thanksgiving is a treasure to keep close to our hearts!

This week, in writing, we started look at things with a poet’s eye.  We put on our ‘make believe’ glasses to view images and objects with the poet’s eyes. With this background, we will slowly begin to write our poems.  This week as a class we wrote a poem about a stapler.  With our poet’s eye we see the stapler as an alligator.  This is what we came up with:         

                        Alligator

                        It moves up and down, up and down

                        It chomps…paper

                        With it’s sharp teeth

           

Your child also learned to see that line breaks help the poem sound like music to the ear.   Line breaks make our poems come to life!  We are off to a great first week of creative writing.  We are looking forward to sharing these poems with you soon!

A Few Reminders:

-Math homework is due each Friday

-Reading Minutes are due each Monday

-Library books are due each Tuesday

-BOOTS! HATS! MITTENS! SNOW PANTS!  AND, inside shoes! (It's easy to forget these when the kids are wearing boots to school).  I'll suggest keeping an extra pair at school for these winter months.

-Gym shoes are required for gym: Monday and Thursday

-There's a Rose Park Skating Party on Monday evening.  Join in! 6pm at HOME Roller Rink.

This Coming Week...

“Praise and Thanksgiving, let everyone bring.

Unto our Father for every good thing.

All together, joyfully sing.”

During this month I am reminded to count my blessings and to know from whom my blessings come.  Our Heavenly Father, in all His infinite power looks upon us with unending grace and mercy.  THIS is pure joy!  May you find time during your busy days and schedules to focus on your blessings with a heart of THANKSGIVING!  In our second grade classroom, we are taking time each day to share some of our blessings.

Now, as I look at the coming week with its lessons and activities, I would like to highlight these things:

 Reading: 

This month in reading your child will pay close attention to the characters they read about.  They will see that these characters have wants/needs and problems to be faced.  As readers, we will practice walking in the characters shoes, taking on the events and challenges the characters face, and using this thinking to make predictions.  Your child’s book boxes will have a variety of ‘good-fit’ books that have a strong character presences.  Your child will then share these books with his/her reading partner and continue great ‘book talk’.

Writing: 

We will begin a month long study on writing poetry.  The first steps in writing poetry is to immerse ourselves in reading poetry. Each lesson will begin with reading/sharing poems. This week we will focus on looking at objects with a poet’s eye and start making our poems sound like music-using line breaks.

Math:

We began learning how to do two-digit addition.  This week we will learn two methods/strategies: New groups below and show all totals.  Your child will be coming home with a paper on Monday explaining these two methods.  This will help you have a better understanding of the strategies taught.  Math homework continues to be due each Friday.

Social Studies:

This week we will begin Social Studies.  In second grade, all our units of study will focus on our local community.  This week we will talk about our families.  Please have your child bring in a picture of his/her family.  We will be using this picture in our Social Studies lesson this week.  Feel free to email me a picture-if this is easier.  I can make a copy at school.

Bible:

The Bible has many names for Jesus:  King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Messiah, Savior, Alpha and Omega etc.  Each of these names describes who Jesus was.  As we listen to Bible stories this week, we will hear many new names for Jesus.  This week’s Bible stories will focus on the miracles of Jesus. 

As you can see, we have a full week of learning.  Continue to pray daily for the work your child is doing.  Pray that your child will glorify God in all things-work and play!

In Him,

Stacia Vogelzang

Many Seconds in Second

What a great week we had.  On Wednesday we did everything PUMPKIN!!! It was a great day to explore and learn a little bit more about pumpkins.  During science, we predicted if pumpkins float or sink.  The kids were shocked to learn huge, heavy pumpkins do float!  We also measured and weighed our pumpkins.  Later in the day we opened the pumpkins and counted all the seeds!  Most groups reached up to 400 seeds!  All these seeds will grow new pumpkin plants.  We reflected on how God has a plan even for little things like pumpkins!

Finding out if pumpkins sink or float.

 Brynn, Marinna, and Anika finding the diameter of their pumpkin.

Measuring their pumpkin. 

Counting seeds. 

Reading:

We’ve been learning new ways to tackle ‘trouble spots’ in our reading for the past few weeks.  We have many strategies ready to use when we are reading and suddenly come to a ‘bump’ in the road (words we don’t know).  These strategies include: Looking at the pictures, context clues, flipping the vowel sounds, and finding small words inside the larger unknown word. 

We’ve also begun working on learning how to pick out the most important parts of the books we read.  Not every word/ sentence holds the same value in our reading.  “Determining what’s important” is a great comprehension strategy.  We reflected that in our daily lives we too, need to determine what’s important to us.  Out of all the daily activities we do ,what activities are most important and what matters most. One student said they love to play outside, especially soccer, but the MOST important thing is that I love Jesus.”  Teaching your child above all else, loving and following Jesus is the most important.  This is a true blessing.

Math: 

We have begun studying and understanding place value.  We show our work through making ‘quick hundreds, tens, and ones’.  This is a great visual for your child to see and use in explaining the math work they do.  Understanding place value of numbers will be very helpful in launching into two-digit addition and subtraction.

Writing:

This week we are learning how to write gripping personal narratives.  This week your child has planned out his/her ‘small moment’ and sketched it, along with writing a lead sentence that hooks the reader into wanting to read more of the story. 

Bible:

We have been learning about Jesus’ famous sermon; The Sermon on the Mount.  In this sermon Jesus tells his people how important the law of love is.   Our prayer, praise, and acts of love should spring from the love for God, not from desire for other people’s approval. 

As you can see, our week is full of lots of lessons and activities.  It is truly my pleasure to do this second grade experience with your child.  Continue to pray daily that all our work might bring glory to HIS name.

Building His Kingdom,

Stacia Vogelzang