This week...

This week our Reading Street story is Just Like Josh Gibson. It is a realistic fiction story about a little girl that wants to play baseball in the 1940s, and we will be learning how baseball players like Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Josh Gibson were an inspiration to many people. The skill we will practice is Comparing and Contrasting and we will use Venn Diagrams to help us with this. The grammar skill we will focus on is making sure we are using capital letters appropriately.

Our Spelling words this week have inflected endings like -ed -ing -es -er and -est. Some words, like cry, need to have the y changed to an i before adding -ed or -es. Some words, like plan, need to have the last consonant doubled before adding the -er -ing -ed. Other words, such as like, need to drop the silent e before adding -ing. The words this week are: tried, trying, planned, planning, liked, liking, skipped, skipping, heavier, heaviest, lighter, lightest, challenge, champion, and effort.

Last week, we took our Measurement test over Inches and Feet. This week, we will practice measuring using Centimeters and Meters. We will use Base-Ten unit cubes to help us estimate the length of a centimeter.

We have also been working hard on writing an Animal Fantasy story. We developed a character, a setting, a problem, and a solution and we wrote our rough draft last week. This week, we will work on revising, editing, and publishing a final copy.

Earth Day

Last Monday, on April 22, we celebrated Earth Day. Well, April 22 was Earth Day, but we celebrated all week! We read a poem about the Earth and a Curious George book that taught us about Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling. In writing, we wrote a paragraph using a topic sentence and details about ways we can take care of the Earth, and we also wrote a poem using nouns and verbs about things in the environment that we love. We even had some students make posters of information they learned, and they shared these with the class. 





There is a dumpster at CVS that is only for recycling, and we learned we can take glass, steel cans (like for soup, veggies, fruit, etc), cardboard, plastic two liter bottles, and aluminum pop cans there. We can also recycle our old paper from home in the paper recycling dumpster here at school! 

Recycling Dumpster at CVS

So far, we are having a great week in 2nd grade! Today, we went to the bookfair. If you forgot your money, it's not too late. Bring it in tomorrow or Friday and you can still shop. This afternoon we read a nonfiction book together on the smartboard about how a mouse grows. We learned that when mice are born they cannot see or hear and do not have any fur! We wanted to learn a little more about mice because our Reading Street story for the week is an Animal Fantasy story about 3 friends that are mice. Today we created characters for an Animal Fantasy story that we are going to write!

This week and last week we have been learning about measurement. Last week, we learned about inches, practiced measuring objects using 1 inch color tiles, and made our own inch rulers. This week we have been learning how to measure using feet. Today we practiced estimating the length of objects in inches and feet. Tomorrow, we will learn about yardsticks. Our test over Measurement will be Wednesday, April 24.

 Last week our Star Student brought in one of his lego toys to show the class and two boys brought in small globes to go along with a poem we learned about globes.

We also had a student do her own research project! She made a poster of information about penguins, polar bears, dolphins, and sea lions and brought it in to share with the class. We really enjoyed reading her facts!

Last week we were lucky enough to have a PTA sponsored art class with retired art teacher Deb Kern. Mrs. Kern taught us about Pablo Picasso and Cubism, and then we created our own cubism art!  Here are some photos:

Happy Spring Break!

First, I'd like to say hello to all of my new students and their families. I am so excited to be joining your class and am looking forward to the learning that we are going to be doing over the next couple of months.

For those of you that don't know me, I have been a substitute teacher in the building all year and previously taught second grade for two years at a different school. I very much enjoy being a part of Amelia Elementary's school family. I hope to make this transition as smooth as possible, but I do ask for your patience as I familiarize myself with the students, the procedures they are used to, and where things are in the room.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring Break! Report cards were sent home on Thursday, so be sure to check for them if you haven't already. Also on Thursday, we took our reading test over Carl the Complainer and our spelling test over words with prefixes. Our morning was a little more fun becuase we had 2nd grade switch day! Be sure to ask your child about this! Each 2nd grade class rotated to visit the other 2nd grade rooms and completed an activity with that teacher. It was a fun way to end before spring break!

If at any time you have questions for me, please don't hesitate to contact me at nicodemus.angela@gmail or at 513-943-3853.

Thank you!
Angela Nicodemus