Mrs. Bice's Second Grade

Thanks in advance for your understanding this week! Since I am a new teacher to the district, I have to attend a ton of valuable professional development! Which does pull me away from the classroom, but in the long run it really helps me to better my practice and provide the best instruction possible to the 2nd graders!

Readers Workshop

This week readers started to fill their book boxes with non fiction texts! Kids helped sort our classroom library into fiction or non fiction so it was easier for us to find books! We learned that readers pay attention to details, put the parts of the text together in our minds, and ask questions. We examined pennies, articles, pamphlets and maps closely to see what we could learn from other types of print, not just books. Nonfiction readers also ask, “What is this book teaching me?“Whenever we reading a nonfiction book its important we think about what this author is teaching us! All of these strategies really can help us understand nonfiction text at a deeper level.

Writer’s Workshop

On Monday, writers completed an on demand writing sample. This is a piece of writing that we do prior to the start of a new unit. I told the students to write about a topic they know a lot about. They have 45 minutes to write about whatever they know a lot about! Then I take that writing and analyze it so I can see strengths and areas to grow among the writers. We kicked off our first lesson by thinking about topics we know a lot about and getting started right away. Some of the writers are adding chapters in while others are working on completing a book that lasts a few pages and teaches others. I can’t wait to see where this unit of writing takes them!

Math Workshop

This week we took a pretest for chapter 4. From that information I have created groups for the students to work in during chapter 4. Each chapter the groups change based on the information they already know during the unit. Much of the unit is spent on telling time and place value. If students have already mastered this skill, they will be working on mastering other skills during their workshop time! The idea behind math workshop is that the students work with me in a small group for one rotation (with students who have similar abilities) and then during the other 3 stations they are working by themselves or with partners to complete other tasks (fact fluency, games, pages from the workbook, etc). Today will be the first day to work in our new groups!

While I was out of the building this week, students worked on coins and fact fluency. Please work with your child on counting different amounts of coins! Quarters are especially tricky for the students and they need plenty of practice!

Social Studies

Google Maps was in full effect when we visited the computer lab this week! Second graders were amazed that they had these incredible maps at their fingertips. Students were shown how to navigate on the site, type in an address and then view it from the street view or satellite. We also learned a little bit more about the compass and directions.