Language Arts
We began working with our readers this week. We have a new method for the readers this year. We will work with our readers as a whole group, reading through them together, identifying certain grammatical aspects as well as key vocabulary. This week students received their first reader of the year. We went through the reader, identifying all cognados/ cognates (words that look very similar in both English and Spanish). This is a great way for the students to realize they are already familiar with a large portion of the vocabulary in each book. Students will have an assignment to accompany each reader we have. They will write the due date for these assignments in their planners. This week’s assignment was to list cognates from the story, as well as proper and common nouns.
Spelling/ ortografia
Students did a fantastic job on their spelling test! I have explained to them that accents count! Words will be marked wrong if they are missing an accent. (One student asked if words would be marked wrong if they didn’t require an accent but one was written. The answer is YES. Otherwise, students would put an accent on every word…)
This week we introduced the cursive letters i and t. Sometimes students who struggle with printing find they are better able to control their fine motor skills in cursive writing. Why cursive writing? One thought is students won’t be able to read old texts if they are not able to decipher cursive writing.
Math
We worked on expanded form / la forma desarollada and idenitfiying the value of digits within a larger number. One activity we did was to roll dice and write the expanded form of the number. We also took this opportunity to work on identifying the greatest number possible and the lowest number possible.
5,433 > 3,345 would read: cinco mil, cuatro cientos treinta y tres es mayor que tres mil, tres cientos cuarenta y cinco.
We also used our base ten blocks to form large numbers and then compared with our peers.
This week the students were introduced to Quick Tables on ALEKS. This will allow them to practice their addition and subtraction drills as well as their multiplication and division drills (later in the year). Quick Tables is only available for a limited amount of time each day/week. We want to encourage the students to drill but also to work within their ALEKS pie.
Students brought home Math Unit 1 workbook pages. They worked on these in class when they finished other work and in small group instruction. This year our math workbooks are in English so parents are better able to support and reinforce concepts at home. English math homework will also help students to be familiar with math vocabulary in both languages. These workbook pages are homework. Unit 1 is due Monday.
Social Studies
We are finishing up our Geography unit this week. We watched a short video about land forms, wrote definitions, and identified some land forms on a map. The class continued to add features to our living map, we now have a map key. Thank you to those students who offered to add important land forms to the map that we didn’t include the first time around. It makes my heart joyful to see that we have a class filled with students who seek out extra activities to enhance their learning. On Friday we had fun creating topographical maps with clay. These illustrated a variety of the types of land forms that we have learned about thus far.
Science
This week in science we focused on the vertebrate class of fish. We read about their typical 
characteristics and discussed pattern breakers, such as the African Lung fish. The students were thrilled to welcome a new member to class, our baby Beta fish now named Crystal. We will have fun watching her grow and observing her fish characteristics, some of the students have already noted her gills and scales by examining her through a magnifying glass. We also learned a new song this week about taxonomy and we are already thinking this one may have to go into the Spring Program. This week we got to go to the computer lab and library to work on our animal poem research. Students were looking for information that would help them come up with a list of descriptive words about their animal. While in the library I am also encouraging everyone to find a chapter book that they can keep in the class to read when they finish their work early.
English Spelling
Our second week of spelling went well. I think everyone has a pretty good understanding of my expectations for the sort activities. The students continue to sort their words daily while I move around the classroom checking and working with students who are needing extra help. On Thursday we practiced for our spelling test by doing partner quizzing and on Friday we took our first spelling test. Please remember that though I am only testing the students on 10 random words from their list, they are still responsible for knowing how to spell all of their words.
Art
The Second and Third graders completed their Cave Painting project in art this week. The students learned how to mix a variety of brown colors by using red, yellow, and blue. Then they used pieces of bark instead of paint brushes to apply the paint. This was quite challenging, but the students all did a great job. Be sure to check out these wonderful cave paintings on the bulletin board near the water fountain!
Character Education
We continued our discussion of bucket filling, the use of complements to demonstrate kindness, and practiced cooperative activities upon entering the classroom.