December News
This is always such busy time for
students, teachers and families! The advent of various holidays, winter holiday
concerts, and the anticipation of winter vacation, all contribute to student
excitement this month. Santa Claus is coming, and there are letters to be
written to this “jolly ol’ elf”, for example. This alone keeps a second grader in a nearly perpetual state
of heightened vigilance, enthusiasm, and occasionally fatigue! Still important learning must and does
go on in the classroom.
Work on the art projects, research, and
writing in our World Cultures and Traditions continues in earnest. We’re
planning on a book share with our families in February.
We did research on penguins and
students wrote science reports on selected penguins.
In-class word work (Fountas and
Pinnell) on our whiteboards includes consonant work such as double consonants
in the middle of words and blends in the beginning and ends of words. Review of
“muscle words” on whiteboards is a regular part of practice in class.
Building stamina in reading, and
retelling stories with attention to including important details from the
beginning, middle, and end of the story are a focus this month.
In math, sharing ways to add
numbers using double tens frames, adding and subtracting with double numbers
without regrouping, adding and subtracting 10 to numbers, telling time to five
minutes on an analogue clock, are some of the skills students are working on,
as well as learning strategies when solving story problems.
Second grade students
participated in a memorable holiday concert on December 10 at Traip
Academy. Ms. Moon the Mitchell
School music teacher led K-3 students through a joyous chorus of winter-themed
songs with third graders performing on ukuleles, and various students using
percussive instruments to accompany selected songs.
The day before vacation, students were
invited to wear pajamas to school, and second graders had some special seasonal
foods for morning snack, and settled in for a day of grabbing a pillow and a
book for sustained reading.
