Blog & Newsletters

Gratitude This week we continued to talk about gratitude and what it means at our homes, schools and our community. The students kept a gratitude journal and each day started with them thinking about what they are grateful for. This is such a valuable practice and I challenge you to talk with your child daily about what they are thankful for each day! One day it might be Lego and the next it might be their food but helping kids to verbalize their gratitude creates more grateful humans!

Reader’s Workshop We kicked off our new unit of study titled “2nd grade Reading Growth Spurt!” This week we learned that we are growing , not only as people, but as readers too! As readers grow, they make choices when they read; they not only choose what they read, but also HOW they read. Fluency is such a big part of being a 2nd grade reader. Readers took sneak peeks, set goals for themselves, scooped up words in bigger phrases and kept tabs on our comprehension!

Reader’s Workshop We had a great week in reader’s workshop! We finished our unit titled “2nd Grade Readers Can Grow Word Solving Muscles!” this week. The unit ended with us using our snap words to read fluently and finding ways to have our reading sound powerful. I including the chart below to show you how we can sound like a reading star! Towards the end of the week, we have focused on fluency!

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!

Writer’s Workshop This week we had a fabulous time celebrating our narrative writing pieces! On Monday students were able to “fancy and fix up” once piece of writing. They were able to revise, edit, create a cover, and color their piece! Writers loved making their piece so special. Finally… the time had come! We were ready for our celebration on Tuesday. Writers came in their fanciest attire ready to PARTY and celebrate all their hard work.

Readers Workshop This week we kicked off a new unit: Growing Word Solving Muscles. Click here (u/n: bice248 pw: family) to view the parent video on what we will focus on during this unit. We began the unit learning how important it is for readers to make movies in our mind. Making a movie in our mind helps us to visualize where and when the story takes place, who the characters are, etc.

Reader’s Workshop Reading Celebration!!!! Today marks the end of of our first unit of reading! I try to have a different celebration for the students for each unit of reading and writing! Today we will be making suitcases to celebrate “Readers Go On Adventures!” Inside their suitcases, they will put in a few of their favorite things: favorite character, book, reading spot, and more! We are so proud of all the hard work over the past few weeks!

Reader’s Workshop This week was a big week for the readers of rm. 248! It was a big change for all of the students in building reading stamina having our entire class there each day! There are a lot more distractions when the whole class is there! We began the week by talking about norms and expectations during Reader’s Workshop. I also shared the “Book Shopping Schedule” with the class and assigned each of them a day of the week to change out the books in their book box.

Reader’s Workshop This week readers worked on synthesizing their text by rereading to better understand how stories fit together. They looked out for patterns, noticing when the same kinds of things happen again and again. Readers studied patterns they saw, hidden clues in the pictures or words, and if there’s a problem in the story, the pages show how that problem starts and ends. Readers then learned how to look closely at our characters.

Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop This week reader’s and writer’s continued to increase their stamina and get back into the routine of good habits! As readers they practiced predicting what will come next based on evidence in their book. They also learned that to remember a book forever and ever, it helps to tell someone else about it. Readers can mark important parts in their book to retell what happened. They can use post its to mark pages that are important to the story.