2nd Grade Blog: 4/8

During Writer’s Workshop the second grade authors have begun a fiction unit! We began by reading and immersing ourselves in series books. We dove into Henry and Mudge and as readers we first studied how Cynthia Rylant writes her series books. The students discovered that Cynthia starts writing each book with the main characters and settings, that she keeps the main characters throughout the series and that there is either a problem and solution or an event (similar to a small moment) in each one.

Next we started with prewriting! The students began by brainstorming their main characters and created webs that helped them envision their character as a real person. They came up with special characteristics and traits about that person. Next they used a graphic organizer with the characters, setting, a problem and solution for book 1. It has been amazing to see their writing taking off! Some quotes we captured the students saying were –  “This is the best unit ever because we can make up our own stories!” and “I can’t wait for writing time because it is the best time of day!”  At home, be sure to ask your child about their writing from class.

In math, we are learning about the fundamentals of multiplication and division. As you may have seen from homework, the introduction to this unit, as well as all of the others, is very visual. We are using arrays and pictures so that students can visualize the objects in groups and sets of objects. In class we also use manipulatives to help us further understand multiplication and division. We create equal groups of objects as well as put equal groups of objects together to represent division and multiplication and the relationship between the operations. You may hear your child use words such as, repeated addition and repeated subtraction! If you hear these vocabulary words, ask your child what they mean.