Mrs. Bice's Second Grade

Nonfiction Readers & Writers

This week we wrapped up our nonfiction units in reading and writing. In reading, students collaborated in a group to pick a topic to research and become an expert on! The worked hard to read across different books and synthesize the information. Then groups planned and created a poster to teach others everything they had learned. Today they presented their poster and answered questions by their peers. They loved learning how to collaborate and work together!

Writers finished the unit off by editing, revising and publishing one piece out of their nonfiction collection. At this point in the year, writers should be writing 5 page teaching books where they have different parts to their book! Today (or next week) your child will bring home all of their writing from the unit and their published piece of writing along with a rubric! We celebrated yesterday sharing our writing, having an apple juice toast and cookies!

Black History Month

Last week we began learning about Black History Month. We have been reading picture books with main characters who are black as well as written by black authors and illustrators. We have had incredible discussions about main characters who face incredible inequality due to the way they look or the obstacles they face.

We have also been learning and celebrating about some important African Americans (and some from other countries) who have contributed to our history. After we learn about each person we have been writing in our journals and thinking about how they impacted the world. So far we have learned about Raven Wilkinson, Michael Jordan, and Nelson Mandela to name a few!

Math

This week we wrapped up unit 5. Unit 5 focused on money/making change, different strategies to add bigger numbers, and mentally adding and subtracting ¹⁰⁄₁₀₀. Today we will take the test on unit 5 and I will be sure to send these home next week! Thank you for having your child complete the math homework each week! It really does help so much!

Valentines Day

Today we will have a ton of fun celebrating kindness and love for Valentine’s Day. We created an art project to share what fills our hearts, played some minute to win it games, danced, ate treats and passed out Valentines! What a fun, fun day we have in store! Thanks to all the families who were able to contribute supplies to our class party!

Cold Weather

Winter is officially in full swing and we will go out to recess every day that the wind chill is at 0 degrees or above. Students must have snow pants to play in the snow. Please be sure your child has a hat/headband, gloves, snow pants and boots each day. I will have them bring snow pants home each Friday!

MAP Test

Today your child will bring home their MAP test results from their winter testing. On the document you will notice their scores from as early as kindergarten. Just a reminder that in the fall of 2nd grade students begin to take the 2-5 MAP test which is a major jump from the k-1 test. The 2-5 MAP test is a ton of text and students must read it at independently. This can occasionally cause some dips in scores. It is also important to know that we took a shorter version in the fall due to COVID and during the winter cycle we took the full MAP test.