Mrs. Bice's Second Grade

Reader’s Workshop

In Reader’s Workshop we looked a little closer at using our word solving muscles to use all we know to solve tricky words. We reviewed digraphs and vowel teams within our read alouds. We practiced looking through a word and quickly deciding next steps in the decoding process. Continue to help your reader to have confidence to quickly decode their tricky words.

Writer’s Workshop

This week we kicked off our poetry unit! Such a fun time of year to start thinking about writing poetry! I have been immersing the students in poetry whether its about nature, Halloween, or even just about writing poetry! This has been a great way for reluctant writers to feel successful in writing. We started by looking at objects through a poet’s eyes! Seeing things in a different way through our five senses. The overlap between writing and science was exciting for them to look at things through a poet’s eyes. We noticed that a pair of scissors looks like a fish with its mouth open or a shark chomping down on paper.

Later in the week we looked at line breaks and how important they are to a poet! They help to make a poem sound more like music and less like a story. We also learned how to turn special moments, details or objects that hold a big feeling into a poem. They can inspire us to write incredible poetry.

We finished the week by writing a poem about a Halloween or spooky character! Poet’s were able to use descriptive words to write a poem and then today we drew and painted a picture to match!

Phonics

We had so much phonics fun this week! We continued to learn about the world of homophones and studied words such as your and you’re, to, too and two, their, they’re and there! Phonics Professors loved learning about what they mean and the difference in spelling them all! We drew pictures to help us remember all of these tricky homophones! Help your reader at home when they come to these homophones to think about the spelling and what it means.

Social Emotional Learning

Growth mindset was in full swing this week! We read several books where characters had an incredible growth mindset. We found a place in our room to display our “quote of the week.” Each week we will have one or two quotes to discuss and live by for the week. This weeks quote is “Believe you can, and you are halfway there.” What an incredible quote to live by for 2nd graders. This really resonated with a lot of them whether it was reading, monkey bars, math or art! These 2nd graders are starting to realize how much their confidence and mindset plays into their process and end result. Please encourage your son/daughter to practice a growth mindset and change their thinking when they feel it faltering. It sure is a game changer :)

Social Studies/Science

We kicked off the week learning more about liquids and then put the rest of our science on pause as we explored the upcoming election! I prefaced our learning by reminding them we would only be talking about facts when it comes to the government and presidential race! The class REALLY enjoyed learning about the job of the American president. They had no idea the requirements to become president, the history of it and the day to day job. The 2nd graders had a bajillion great questions: Can a president be a vice president after? Has anyone every had black skin and been president? Has there been a girl? How do you vote? Do you have to vote? If I was president, could I bring my family AND my grandparents with me to live in the White House?

Each day we are reading a book about a character that hopes to be president! On Election Day the kids will create voter id cards, vote and even get an “I voted” sticker for the character we think would make the best president! Such a fun way to weave in character traits and the election into one.

Husky Hustle

WOW! We had so much fun at the Husky Hustle today! We ran, we laughed and we had the best time together! Thank you so much to all the families who helped to donate to the Hustle. Check out Seesaw to see some of the photos!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Thank you so much to everyone for signing up for a Zoom conference with me. I will email you a Zoom link on Monday that all families can use to join their conference. Please be sure to join the conference at your scheduled time so I can try to stay on schedule!