Greetings from Mrs. Leagan
Wow, what a beautiful fall weekend. Yesterday was busy with my friends at Wood Acres as we all updated our CPR and First Aid training. Last night, my entire family celebrated my mother’s birthday, and it was wonderful to be with my cousins, aunts, and uncles for this festive occasion. Today was spent grading papers, book reports, and getting ready for our upcoming Thanksgiving play and feast. Phew, it was a busy couple of days yet quite productive. Yeah!
Speaking of the Flip Book book report projects, I was quite impressed with the quality of time and talent that my 2nd graders used towards their sentences and pictures. They will be on display in the commons area this week, so please come in and flip through the flaps and see these fabulous projects.
For this week’s cute story, we will be learning:
Reading: This week we will be reading Ah, Music, an informational text. Our essential question for the week will be ‘what are different ways to enjoy music?’
Grammar: Our grammar skill this week focuses on expanding and rearranging compound sentences to give them more detail and fluency.
Phonics: Our phonics skill this week will be vowel digraphs -ai and -ay
Vocabulary Strategies: Figurative language and idioms. For example, the idiom “shake a leg” means to hurry up!
Comprehension Skills and Strategies: We will be continuing to work on fact vs. opinion
Math: We are working on Chapter 3 and should be taking all of the assessments before our Thanksgiving break.
History: Everybody has started our unit on Japan. We’ve learned that Japan actually means “land of the rising sun” as it is the first country in Asia to see the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean. Be sure to ask them if they remember what Japan means as this will be a question on their test! We’ve also learned that Japan is an island, with four major islands and over 3,000 small islands. Next week, we will learn about rice paddies and how they are grown, as well as learn about haikus.
Science: We will begin Investigations 1 & 2 – Exploration of the Earth’s Surface begins with an investigation of two rock samples: white marble rock and black obsidian rock. Students learn that rocks are comprised of minerals, but that depending on their composition, rocks can differ in such physical properties as color, texture, size and luster. Students continue to examine the properties in Investigation Two, when rock samples are compared to other solid objects: a wood block, an acrylic cylinder, and a metal cube. Students learn that rocks may or may not weigh more than another object.
Thanksgiving Play and Feast info: I hope you saw the poem all of my 2nd graders will be reciting for a portion of our Thanksgiving performance. Tomorrow, each student will be given two lines to recite and share a little picture for each rhyme. This part of the school year is one of my favorites because we get show off how far we have come since the first day of school.
Our Thanksgiving play will be on THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, AT 9:00am. Our performance should last about an hour and the FEAST will begin at 11:00am. I do apologize for the gap between the two parts, but I’ve had to accommodate many different schedules and these times were the best I could do. We sure hope you can join us for one or both parts of this great Thanksgiving celebration.
These next two weeks will be busy but oh so fun. We will begin making table decorations for our Thanksgiving feast. Thanks to Jamie Wolfe for preparing all of the kits for our 2nd graders. I think you will LOVE what your student will make for your own Thanksgiving table.
Take care, and I can’t thank you enough for letting me spend my days with your awesome student. I am the luckiest teacher in the world.
2nd grade teacher
The Wood Acres School