This past Friday was Fall Fun Day in 2nd grade and we started the day off with a Scarecrow parade to show that we are "Scaring Drugs Away"! We had a great turn out for the parade - thanks to all those who were able to come and see our scarecrows - all of the teachers agreed that this was the best looking group of scarecrows we've ever had at Kaufman before AND the most participation we've ever had. Thank you parents for your support and creativity! Here are just a few pictures from Friday....if you have any that you took with your own camera, please email them to us and we'll post them to our blog as well!

Also, last week in science we looked at chemical and physical changes. We used the playdough to show physical changes and we saw chemical changes while making the ice cream in a bag! Ask your student to tell you all about our Ice Cream experiment...it was so much fun!

This week in math we will continue with place value to the hundreds place. We will focus on ordering numbers from least to greatest, greatest to least, and comparing numbers using greater than, less than, and equal to. We will also look at number lines and decide where our number would fit correctly on the line. Remember we are now working with three digit numbers.
***Things you can review at home this week would be: three digit numbers, numbers that come before/after/between, and the value of each digit.

This week in social studies we will learn about what states border Texas and what county borders Texas. We will also learn about the word immigrant. This week we will have a special homework assignment on Tuesday in social studies. Students will be asked to fill out a family tree that we'll we send home. We will discuss ancestors and if they came to America from another country we would like to know. We will use the map to find these different places.
***If you have an ancestor that came to America from another country did they come through Ellis Island or Angel Island in California? We will learn a little about our heritage this week by learning about our families past.

This week in science we will begin to explore light and light energy. We will look at shadows and how they change depending on the position of the sun.

In Reading we will be reading Arthur stories by Marc Brown. We will compare and contrast stories and look at how Arthur has changed over the years. We will learn how to do a story map and we will learn about facts and opinions. In Writing we are learning how writers revise and improve their stories. In Word Study/Spelling we will be working with words that have the long u and long i sounds.

A few reminders for this week - October 24th - 28th

*Monday is the last day for our library fundraiser!

*This week is "Red Ribbon Week" and we will have a special emphasis each day to remind students to say NO to drugs! There is also suggested "dress up" theme each day.....

Monday-Wear camoflauge
Tuesday-Crazy Hair Day
Wednesday-70's theme
Thursday-Class Shirts-Picture Day
Friday-Scarecrows - We're going to "Scare Away Drugs"

*Our scarecrow parade will be at 8:15 a.m. on Friday, October 28, right after announcements. Parents are welcome to come and watch our scarecrows parade through Kaufman!

*We will have our Fall Fun Day in Second Grade that day as well. The teachers have planned fun stations for the students throughout the day and our room mothers have planned special treats!
Monday, October 31, will be the 50th day of school. Your child may dress up 50's style that day if they would like to.

*Last Friday was the end of our first nine weeks. Report cards will go home on Tuesday, November 1st.

*In Language Arts this week, we will be learning interesting facts and information about pumpkins and also reading some fun fiction stories about pumpkins as well. For example, The Biggest Pumpkin Ever". We will also read about some very frightful animals from October issues of National Geographic such as spiders. The students will be writing their own pumpkin patch stories throughout the week and using what they have learned during our Writer's Workshop mini-lessons to help them. We will be studying words this week that have the long o and long a sound. Be sure to check out spelling city for your child to take a practice spelling test and play games throughout the week at home.

We will begin the 2nd 9 weeks in math exploring numbers to 999. This week we will focus on the value of these bigger numbers. We will make the connection to last 9 weeks when we showed numbers in different ways..... now we are going into the one hundreds place!

In science we will learn about systems and structures. A system is a group of parts that work together to perform a function or job. An example of a structure would be stairs or a bridge - these things are used for a purpose, but alone do not do what a system does.

In social studies we are learning about our local culture heritage. We will look at different parts of our culture that makes Texas unique and different from other states. We will look at sports teams, music, dances, and landmarks.

In Reading we will finish reading Stellaluna with a Reader's Theater of the story. We will also be reading a fall favorite story, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. We will do a Reader's Theater of the story and work on sequencing, vocabulary development, and main idea throughout the week.

In Writing we are having some fun writing scary stories. Last week we wrote "Scaredy Cat" stories and they turned out great. They are on display outside our classroom for everyone to see! This week we will begin a different type of "spooky story" using what we have learned during our Writer's Workshop mini-lessons in class.

In Word Study/Spelling we will be working with words that are contractions made with not, are and have.

This week in math we will learn all about pennies and dimes. We will explore that 10 pennies can be traded to make one dime. We will use what we learned last week with two digit addition and counting our coins this week. One strategy we will learn is that a dime is worth 10 cents, therefore it gets two hairs on the top of the coin, and a penny is worth one cent so it would get a dot on the top of the coin. This will help us when we start counting bigger coins and multiple coins. Practice counting with pennies and dimes this week at home!

This week in science we will finish up matter with learning a little about chemical reactions. We will perform a few different experiments where the students can see the reaction happen!

This week in social studies we are learning about different communities. We will learn the difference between urban, suburb, and rural. Ask your student to tell you about the book we read in class, The Little House.

Also, this week we welcome a Sam Houston State University College of Education Student to our classroom. She will be spending the next 4 weeks with us in Math, Science and Social Studies. She will graduate in the spring, and is excited to be a part of our classroom this fall.

In Reading we will be reading non-fiction and fiction stories about bats. We will learn how to use non-fiction text features: such as bold-faced words, captions, headings, and diagrams to help us comprehend non-fiction stories.


In Writing we will continue our daily Writer's Workshop routine and will begin writing "Scardy Cat" stories this week.

In Word Study/Spelling we will be working with words that are contractions made with am, is and will. Contractions can be tricky, so make sure you practice alot this week at home!

This week in math we will begin to explore two digit addition without regrouping. The students think it is very cool when we start adding these larger numbers! We will begin using manipulatives showing the tens and ones and adding a two digit number to that. Then we will learn a few strategies they will use until we get the hang of this new concept. We will learn that we cannot have more than 9 in the ones place. When this happens we will have to regroup. We will practice this and by the end of the week they will be GREAT at two digit addition without regrouping!

This week in science the students will participate in an in-class group project where they will be assigned a form of matter. They will then be asked to create a collage using magazine pictures, skit/advertisement for their type of matter, and then a song. We will present their creations at the end of the week for the class. I can't wait to see how creative they get!

This week in social studies we will use our map and landform skills we have learned the past few weeks and find different places on the globe.
We will locate the following:
*Texas
*Canada
*Mexico
*USA
*Houston
*Austin
*Atlantic Ocean
*Pacific Ocean
*Arctic Ocean
*Southern Ocean
*Indian Ocean
*Gulf of Mexico
*7 continents
*Washington D.C.
*Great Britain
*China
*Germany
We will also discuss the months of the year and seasons. Lastly, we will discuss different types of communities: rural, urban and suburban. Please discuss these vocabulary words/places on the globe this week.

In Math this week we will look at odd and even numbers and fact families. We will learn that whenever we look to see if a number is odd or even, we look at the ones place! Fact families are related math facts and the numbers 4, 9, and 13 are all related numbers. 4+9=13, 9+4+13, 13-4+9 and 13-9+4. Please continue to practice your math facts for the weekly math fact challenges each Friday. I can see growth and the students are really enjoying learning their math facts!

In Science this week we will wrap up matter by talking more about solids, liquids and gasses. We will also look more at reversible and irreversible changes in matter. Your child should be able to tell you a little about each of the three forms of matter we have been studying in class.

In Social Studies this week we will be looking at landforms. We will learn the following landforms: mountain, hill, valley, plain, river, island, peninsula and lake. We will look at examples on the map, and define what makes it that type of landform. Later in the week, see if you student can draw a map of an island and use these eight different landforms correctly.....great discussion idea to get them thinking about what we have learned in class!

In Reading we will be reading another series by Cynthia Rylant: Henry and Mudge.
We will work on retelling and sequencing a story, comparing character traits, and will write our own comic strips about our Henry and Mudge stories.

In Writing we will be focusing on the following this week....

*How to Write for Readers
*Examining Readable/Unreadable writing
*Stretching and Writing Words
*Writing with Sight Words
*Spacing our words correctly when writing

In Word Study/Spelling we will continue working with words that are made plural by adding s and es. Check out SpellingCity.com to see this week's list.