Fall is here!

Good Afternoon 2A!

I hope you're all enjoying this cooler weekend as much as I am! Molly and I have had a blast baking some fall treats and enjoying all the wonderful fall smells in the air. :)

Literature: Our reading of Charlotte's Web is coming to an end! We will read the last chapter on Monday and work on completing some work in our literature folders as a good review, including a Eulogy for Charlotte. Ask your child to retell you the end of the story...Chapter 21 was very sad for us all. We've grown to love the friendship between Charlotte and Wilbur. One of my favorite quotes from the story...

"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you." "You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that." "Well," said Wilbur. "I'm no good at making speeches. I haven't got your gift for words. But you have saved me, Charlotte, and I would gladly give my life for you - I really would." 

Spalding: We will have 20 words next week since there is no school next Friday.
Monday: grant, soap, news, new, small, smaller, smallest, war, summer, above
Tuesday: express, turn, lesson, half, father, anything, table, high, June
Wednesday: Review grant-June
Please continue to reinforce handwriting and proper pencil grip at home. Please also review 15 phonograms a night. This link has all of the phonograms said and written.

Poetry: We will assess your child's recitation of Something Told the Wild Geese. See if they can recite it for you on the way to or from school to get some good practice in the car ride!

Grammar: Adjectives, Adverbs, and Article Adjectives will be reviewed next week. Ask your child if they know the jingles for these 3 parts of speech :-).
Adjective Jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFJHOrTvXjQ
Adverb Jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzv2BH-xdao
Article Adjective Jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJbqt-LImEE

Writing: Our story excerpt next week comes from the The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. We are really working on answering in complete sentences!

Science: Can you believe that so far we have been lepidopterists (through studying butterflies), herpetologists (through learning frogs), and even ornithologists (when we learned about the life cycle of a chicken). We are continuing with our study on life cycles and growing into our next topic: the life cycle of a plant! We will be doing an experiment with a lima bean. Time to add botanist to our list!

Math: We will continue subtracting within 1000 where renaming occurs in both the tens and hundreds. We are also getting into more challenging word problems that require renaming. Keep a sharp eye out for a study guide on Wednesday night to review with your child for a test over subtraction on Thursday!

Just a note about math today (FRIDAY 9/22): We started RENAMING in Subtraction! Something to keep in minds is that this is ALWAYS the topic in math that is the HARDEST concept for a 2nd grader to grasp! It helps that we have been using our number discs and physically building the problem - renaming 1 ten for 10 ones. If your child is having trouble with the homework this weekend please let me know. I'd love to do some review with them in a smaller group setting if they are struggling with this concept. It also helps to brush up on those math facts as it makes the actual subtraction go faster.
We learned these rhymes/phrases to help us:

More on the floor? Go Next Door, Get Ten More! Cross it out, count one down, bring the ten over, it's big enough now SUBTRACT!
More on the top? No need to stop!
Numbers the same? Zero is their name!

History: This week we will begin our studies of ancient cultures with Ancient India. Your child will be able to locate India on a map and explain why the Indus River was important for the civilization to form. We will also learn about Hinduism as a world religion by discussing the three most important Hindu gods and the caste system.

Have a great afternoon!

Warmest, 

Mr. High