Growing Learners

This week we completed our All About Me September sharing theme.  During the month of September, we are beginning to build friendships, work partners and a safe, fun place to learn.  During October we will have daily topics for sharing that will help teach conversation skills.  

We are spellers!  Word study began this week.  We set up our routines for a successful year of word study instruction and learning.  We will practice with words as a whole class for one more week to build confidence and independence.  

We are mathematicians! During number corner this week we practiced counting by 10's on our number line, advanced our computation skills with adding strategies of 0,1, doubles, neighbors (+/-) as well as understanding and identifying odd and even numbers.  During math class, we practiced strategies with addition and subtraction while playing Battling Bugs & What's the Difference.  We created bead strings and introduced number lines to model our solutions during problem-solving.  

We are writers!  We created maps of our hearts filled with people, places and things that are meaningful to us.  We read A Chair for my Mother and Stella Tells a Story to help us with strategies to come up with writing topics and how to organize our thinking like writers. We spend time writing every day.  Math Menu includes problem-solving, math practice, responding to a written math prompt as well as generalizing these skills into math situations.  

We are mindful!  This week we colored mandalas, we used the senses of sight and touch to make observations of our "ishis", we participated in mindful movement with go noodle and we practiced breathing, to help us feel our lungs fill while holding our rib cage.

We are readers!  This week we read There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly with different voices, depending on how we felt. We can control our voice as we read a book.  We discovered and uncovered our classroom library.  We labeled bins together and continued to build our reading stamina.   

Our second grades are running the whole school assembly next Friday, October 5th.  It will run from 8:20-8:40 (ish).  Our theme will be to celebrate our Peter Reynolds author study.  I also look forward to seeing you on Thursday night, 6:30-7:30 at Open House.  

The first of our scholastic book order arrived.  I'm anticipating a steady flow of arrivals. When your order arrives I will send it home with your child.

I hope you enjoy the weekend,

Jen Belisle