What we will be learning during the week of January 31st - February 4th

Language Arts: This week will be learning about dinosaurs by reading various non-fiction articles such as National Geographic for Kids. We will also enjoy reading some fun fiction books about dinosaurs as well. If your child has any books or info. on dinosaurs they would like to share with the class, they are welcome to bring it! We will also complete our second TAKS practice test on Wednesday together as a class. We are also working on developing reading strategies on these practice stories that will help prepare us for next year in 3rd grade!

Math: This week we will continue working on two-digit subtraction with regrouping. I am very proud of their hard work last week as we learned the steps and why we need to regroup on these types of math problems! This week we will keep practicing those strategies and play some math games to review our skills with regrouping. Please continue to work with this concept over the next few weeks at home as we work in class. www.funbrain.com (math baseball) is a great fun website to practice those facts!

Science: This week in science we will continue learning about the water cycle! Look forward to hearing all about the water cycle this week with a catchy song!

Social Studies: This week we will continue our unit with Economics by looking at "consumer" and "producers." Last week our "Power to the Flower" pen factory produced 585 pens - Wow!!!! Friendly reminder: Your child's Flower Pen orders and money are due no later than this coming Thursday morning so that we can make sure our supplies are ready for our last Friday Factory. Please let me know if you would like to come help in our "Power to the Flower Factory" on Friday.....we would love to have you!

Here are a few photos of last week's factory - enjoy!

Government Projects

What we will be learning during the week of January 24th - 28th

Math: This week we will finish our word problem unit and begin working with two digit subtraction with regrouping! This is a fun and challenging concept, but with practice we will become two digit subtraction Kings and Queens! You may want to work on this concept over the next few weeks at home as we work on it in class.

Science: This week in science we will continue learning about our Earth's natural resources by focusing on water. We will discuss fresh water and salt water.

Social Studies: This week we will continue our unit with Economics by looking at "needs" and "wants."

Friendly reminder: Your child's Flower Pen orders and money are due no later than Thursday morning so that we can make sure our supplies are ready for our first Friday Factory. Please let me know if you would like to come help in our "Power to the Flower Factory" on Friday!

What we will be learning for the week of January 18th - 21st

Language Arts: This week the students will be completing their middle of year writing benchmark on Wednesday. They will be given a prompt which is selected by our district, write their stories, and then I will score them based on the 6 traits of writing. We will also be reading the diary series by Doreen Cronin: Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly. We have some fun lessons planned to go along with our study of these books including creating diaries of our own.

Math: This week we will be working with word problems. Once we find the key words in the story problem we will practice different ways to solve it. We will focus on different strategies the students can use to help them solve the problems successfully. A few of the different strategies we will discuss are: drawing a picture, using objects, making a table, using logical reasoning, and looking for a pattern.

Science: This week in science we will learn about our Earth's natural resources which include the following......water, air, rocks, soil, and plants. Ask your child if they can tell you different uses for each natural resource!

Social Studies: This week we will begin a very fun unit in 2nd grade Social Studies! ECONOMICS! Look for a baggie with Flower Pen information to come home on Thursday. Ask your student about our Flower Pen Factory. This week we will set up our factory in class and send the order forms/information home.

New Year's Hats and Pet Rocks too!

This week the student's brought in their New Year's hat projects. We enjoyed hearing everyone share what they loved about 2010, and what their goals and resolutions are for 2011. We also enjoyed seeing the creativity and variety of all the different hats....we had some really TALL hats this year! We had the students pose with their hat and also their pet rock from their "Pet Rock" project in science. They were very cute and creative as well - enjoy the pictures! :)