November Notes
This month we began work on our
handmade books on world cultures and traditions. This project will encompass
science, social studies, art, reading, and writing. We have completed the
cover. To support and enrich this study we took a field trip to Strawbery Banke
in Portsmouth, NH on November 5. Students learned not only about the harvest
festival of Thanksgiving in early America, but learned about harvest festivals
that are celebrated in selected countries around the world.
Later, to inform a writing project, on
a large chart we constructed a collaborative class web naming the old houses we
had visited, along with the historical facts we had learned about the lives of
the people who lived there long ago. We learned the characteristics of a good
lead when writing, and students shared and critiqued leads from their Strawbery
Banke writing. When learning about this type of non fiction writing, students
were taught the importance of including the who, what, where, when, why, and
how in their reports.
A springboard for a creative writing
homework assignment was to color and decorate a drawing of a turkey, and then write
an imaginative story and description about “Tom Turkey”. This collection of
writings and artful turkeys turned into a very entertaining “turkey trot”
indeed!
Reading continues to focus on
matching appropriate books to readers, comprehension, and practicing strategies
for making predictions and practicing summarizing stories orally and in writing.
Students are learning how to use number
lines, number grids, doubles facts, to help with adding and subtracting
numbers. They have also been working with double tens frames from the Everyday
Math program. During morning meeting, students have daily practice with telling
time and counting money.
This month each second grade teacher
represented a country (ms. J.-R.:China, Mrs. Staulcup: Ireland, Mrs. Howe:
Kenya, Mrs. DeLuca: Brazil, Mrs. Hartley: Australia). All the second grade students visited each classroom for a
couple of days and learned about the country that teacher was
representing. In their own
classrooms, they learned about the cultural traditions of the U.S.A., and visited
Antarctica. In the end, all the students had “traveled around the world”,
And recorded their
adventures in their World Cultures and Traditions Books.
With the arrival of Thanksgiving, it is
a reminder that fall is winding down, winter is on its way, and winter
holidays, celebrations are approaching fast with Christmas vacation only
several weeks away!
