This week in math we will continue learning about multiplication. We will explore how t-charts can help with skip counting which is also like multiplication. If you want to play some fun games on the computer with multiplication this week take a look at the following website - http://www.multiplication.com/games/ ***This Friday is Math Fact Challenge Day! ***

This week in social studies we will finish up our study of government. We will take a close look at President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday. Later in the week we will discuss the election process and review all we have learned over the past few weeks with government.
***Be watching on Tuesday in your child's red homework folder for an at-home government project! Students will get to choose which branch of government they want to learn more about. We will give them a set of guidelines and questions they need to answer. These projects will be due in class on Monday, March 5th.
*Please let Mrs. Mathewson know if you have any questions over the next couple of weeks with this project.

This week in science we will finish up weather and move on to space! We will begin learning about the sun and the stars. One clear night this week take a look at the night sky and see if you can find any constellations!

In Language Arts this week, our focus will be on reading and writing our own tall tales. We will learn what exactly a tall tale is and read many examples such as: Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, etc. We will do lots of tall tale character comparisons throughout the week as well.

Check out some pictures from last week's AMAZING performance of "Circus! Circus!"

Here are a few pictures from the students hard at work in our M.P.S. Flower Pen Factory!

This week in math we will finish up 2 digit subtraction with regrouping. Please continue to practice with your child on their subtraction facts. We will then begin working with coins up to $1.00. We will now be working with pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. It is always great practice to let your child count different amounts of coins at home. They should be able to tell you the value of a set of coins and then also make a set of coins for a specific amount.

This week in science we will finish up the water cycle, and then move onto weather! We will track our weather during the week and look at different tools that are used to help tell us about weather.

This week in social studies we will continue our talk about government. We will move from local government to state government. Discuss vocabulary words with your child this week. A few of them that we have and will talk about are: Mayor, City Council, Citizens, Government, Judge, Governor, and Austin, Texas. These are difficult things for students to understand, so the more we discuss these words and how they all go together the more they will be familiar with the topics.

In Language Arts this week we will be reading books from the Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parish. We will also learn about what idioms are and how the author uses them frequently in the Amelia Bedelia books. We will be learning how to correctly set up a letter with 5 parts: date, greeting, body, closing and signature. We will learn how to write short friendly letters that are written in logical sequence as well. The students will even get to write a letter to Amelia Bedelia herself!

M.P.S. Flower Pen Factory Final Update!!!!

*1,306 Flower Pens Sold
*We adopted the Malayan Tiger from the Houston Zoo.
*We donated $240.00 to Make A Wish Foundation Houston Chapter
*We donated $240.00 to American Heart Association
*We donated $240.00 to Texas Children's Hospital that will be used for toys and or books
*I huge thank you to all parents and families. This project was a huge success and I believe the students learned a little about economics through this hands on approach of learning. Thank you also to those parents that came in the last two Fridays and were apart of our factory. We thank you very much!

This week in math we will be working on two digit subtraction with regrouping. Please encourage your child to teach you the steps and strategies we are learning in class. We want to see their work on their papers! If you have not been practicing subtraction facts at home, now would be a great time to start!

The following website is a fun way to practice on the computer at home......
www.funbrain.com (math baseball)

Math flash cards are another good way to drill those facts! We can see that the practice is paying off!!! THANK YOU!

This week in social studies we are going to begin talking about local government and we will learn some key vocabulary words: mayor, citizen, government, judge, local, leader, and city council. Discuss these words with your student over the next week as we learn them.

**M.P.S. Flower Pen Factory Update**
We have sold 895 flower pens! WOW....that is amazing!! We will have our grand total this Friday. Please return any orders by this Thursday, Feb. 2nd. Thank you very much for making our pen factory a huge success!

In science and reading this week we will be learning all about the water cycle. Some key words we will be learning are: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Have your child tell you a story about the water cycle!

In Language Arts we will be focusing on retelling important events from a story in logical sequence. We will also be writing stories from an animal's point of view. Our word study pattern this week are words with hard and soft c.

This week in math we will be working with measurement. We will use the ruler to measure in inches and centimeters. We will also begin discussing area in the amount of space a 2-dimensional shapes takes up. This week at home practice measuring things around the house in inches and centimeters!

This week in social studies we will begin talking about our 2nd grade economics project....The Flower Pen Factory!!!! We will come up with our very own factory name, sign, and make our sample pen. Please be on the look out this Thursday for a note to come home discussing our flower pen factory. This is one of the most memorable times for our second graders this year.

In science this week we will be learning about rocks. We will do a few different experiments this week using rocks. Students may either bring a rock from home or a rock they find here at school on our playground. ***The only thing we ask is that it is smaller than their fist. We will also read in our National Geographic about different "Tall Towers," that are found around the world and how they might have been formed.

In Reading we will be reading books by the author Doreen Cronin, such as Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly. We will work on comprehension skills and how to read this special style of writing. We will also write our own diary this week in class.

The New Year's hats were awesome....so creative and fun! We enjoyed listening to everyone share their hats today and now have them on display in the hallway for everyone to see. Watch for pictures coming soon of the students posing with their hat!

Today we welcomed Mr. Psencik to our classroom as our student teacher. He will spend the next 12 weeks with our class as he prepares to graduate in May. We look forward to learning from him and he'll be learning a few fun things from us that he can use in his classroom in the future.



We also wanted to share a picture of some outstanding 2nd grade AR readers that includes two friends from our class.....Landon and Mary! Way to go for having the most AR points and keep up the good reading! Mrs. Williamson asked these students along with others from the different grade levels to have their picture taken last week. These pictures will be included in a special book that will be presented to our CISD school board members. I wonder which picture they chose to use? Heehee!



This week in math we will continue telling time. Our focus this week will be to the 5 minute interval. Please continue to practice with your child at home. Our biggest struggle for some students is getting the minute and hour hands mixed up, so please work with this at home. They should be able to tell time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour and now this week to the five minute interval. This week is also a math fact challenge week--which will be on Thursday since we do not have school on Friday.

This week in social studies we will review economics and will be discussing: goods and services, consumer and producers, and wants and needs. We will discuss factories and start to think about our 2nd grade factory project that will be starting soon. Please look for more information to come home in the next week about our flower pen factory!

This week in science we will be learning about natural and man-made resources. Look around your house for examples of these!



In Language Arts this week we will be learning all about penguins! We will read non-fiction as well as fiction texts about penguins throughout the week. We will also finish writing our "Snowmen at Night" stories that we started last week in Writer's Workshop....these are so creative! Our spelling/word study pattern for this week are words with the -ay pattern.



*Remember this week's test will be on Thursday since there is no school on Friday!

Happy New Year!!!

This week in math we will learn all about telling time! We will work on telling time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour and five minutes. Please practice having your child read clocks around your house this week.

In science this week we will finish up learning about motion. Some of the vocabulary words we have been discussing in science lately are; force, motion, push, pull, friction, location, magnetism, and gravity. Discuss these with your student this week.

This week in social studies we will discuss ways that families celebrate the New Year and the different New Years resolutions they may have for 2012. Later this week we will get back to our discussions in economics. We will review goods, and services and learn more about how our economy works!

In Language Arts we will be reading winter stories and learning about New Year's Day customs around the world. We will be writing some of our own resolutions for the new year and reflecting on what we learned and loved about the year 2011.
In Word Study/Spelling our focus is words with the vowel digraph ai. This week's list includes: rain, pain, brain, train, chain, pail, mail, sail, nail, and rail.
This week's Word Wall Words include: read, didn't, because, looking, always

This week in math we will be learning more about coins. Our focus will be the penny, nickel and dime. Practice using these coins at home this week. Students should be able to count a set of coins and then also be able to show an amount that you ask them to make using those coins. We are working on amounts less than $1.00 at this point in the year---pennies, nickels and dimes!

In science this week we are going to continue our unit on force. We will experiment with push and pull! Some of our vocabulary words this week in science are: friction, gravity, force, push and pull.

This week in social studies we are continuing our unit with economics. We will focus on goods and services and then later in the week the meaning of consumers and producers. Ask your student to tell you what they are learning about these fun topics!

In Reading we will be reading several favorite holiday stories: The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Auntie Claus, and The Polar Express. We will work on sequencing, recognizing character traits, story plot and vocabulary.

In Word Study/Spelling we will be working with words that have the ea pattern.