The pictures above show some of the activities students engaged in this week.
Social Studies interactive notebooks - students glued pictures of rural, urban, and suburban communities and wrote down characteristics of those areas around the pictures. Language Arts - students finished up their final copies of their first big writing assignment; a narrative on a favorite place they have visited. Afterwards, they created 3-D versions of the place with construction paper. This week students also worked with groups to understand the main idea and details of a story. The discussed with others and then filled out a graphic organizer together. We learned about subjects of sentences. Students had to identify the subject of 10 sentences and color it red. Then they had to cut them out and match with a proper ending to the sentence. MATH- students worked in their interactive notebooks to practice skip counting. As a chapter 1 ending activity, they each had to write out their names in base ten sticks that they cut out. Then they had to count up the value of their name by counting the tens and ones they glued. They had to write that number in standard, expanded, and word form on the bottom of the construction paper. See you next week Inshallah! -Sr. Amna- ![]() Reading/Language Arts We read the first story in our new Common Core reading series called, "The Twin Club." Students learned about different types of communities - city, suburb, and rural. It was a perfect segue to the first unit in our Social Studies series as well. Students will be identifying elements of all three types of settings in the upcoming week. For grammar, they worked on understanding components of a complete sentence. A complete sentence is a full message which has a capital and proper punctuation. Students practiced the concept through a sticky note activity. They each got a complete or incomplete sentence on a sticky note. Then they had to come up and stick it under the correct chart heading. They needed to identify that if it was a complete sentence, it included capitalization, proper punctuation, and it wasn't a fragment. Out of the 35 notes we had, they only got two wrong! That is great! Plus, it was a good thing that some were wrong because it became a teachable moment as to why the sentence wasn't correct. They started their first writing assignment which was a narrative paragraph. A narrative story is one where they talk about some aspect of their own lives. They wrote about a place they visited that they really enjoyed. We included the steps to the writing process. First, they brainstormed ideas. They used the five senses to outline what they saw, heard, tasted, touched, or smelled at the particular place. Next, they started a rough draft. They converted the notes into complete sentences. We also started getting acquainted with what a topic and closing sentence is for a paragraph, and that we need to indent new paragraphs. After editing, they started their final copies and next week they will finish it up. Math We are almost done with chapter 1, which is all about numeracy - the concept of numbers. They learned about expanded form, where they stretch out the number into tens and ones. For example, 45 is 40 + 5. They learned how to represent a number in a few different ways - expanded, standard, drawing tens and ones, and word form. They completed a few pages in their interactive notebooks, worked in small groups using white boards, and did an apple craftivity to represent the numbers. In the apple craftivity, they each received an apple template that was split into five pieces. They represented a number 5 different ways, cut all the pieces apart, and put them back together on construction paper with the title, "Any Way You Slice It." Putting the puzzle pieces together proved quite a challenge for a few!! :) Science and Social Studies Chapter 1 in science was all about the needs of living things. We finished it up rather quickly. Students learned about the needs of animals and the needs of plants. They completed some interactive science notebook pages to understand concepts. We started the first unit in Social Studies. The first lesson was about being a responsible citizen. Citizens have to follow rules and have to take care of their community. They learned that they each belong to many communities and have different roles they play. Students did an activity where they had to sort out what good citizens do vs. what citizens shouldn't do. ![]() Alhamdullilah for a great week. -Sr. Amna- If you read the weekly newsletter that went in the Friday folder (which I also upload on this website), or if you read the homework section on this site, you would have come across me mentioning an interactive notebook.
An interactive notebook is more than just a notebook full of copied down notes from the board. Students receive different types of foldable templates or cut outs that they glue in their notebook and fill out with information. These foldables teach them the concepts they are learning in an interactive format. They will still be writing notes at times, but we will also heavily focus on doing more hands on learning of new material. -Sr. Amna- Alhamdullilah for a successful first week of school. We were able to fit in many beginning of the year activities and learn new concepts as well. I read students a story called, "First Day Jitters." It is about the character being very nervous for the first day of school, until she actually gets there and sees that it will be just fine. The twist is that the character ends up being the teacher! You don't see the character's face throughout the story, so you just assume it is a child! Afterwards, we all talked about our possible first day of school jitters. Many of them said that they were just fine and weren't nervous at all! How great! But justttt in case, I made a special drink called "JITTER JUICE." Students labeled their cups with the title and then got to drink the juice! Of course, as taste buds differ, not everyone liked it. So we incorporated math and made a bar graph and tally graph to talk about how many did like it and how many didn't. They heard another story called, "Chrysanthemum," by Kevin Henkes. This story reinforced the concept of treating each other with kindness and not bullying anyone. In the story, students were making fun of Chrysanthemum's name. Every time someone made fun of her, students crumpled a tissue paper heart that I had cut out. By the end of the story, the heart was all crumpled. We tried to straighten it out, but even though it was whole again, it was still wrinkled. This helped us understand that when we hurt each other's feelings, it can leave the heart sad for a long time. Throughout the week, students did a few other writing assignments which I will use for beginning of the year writing samples. They did a craft project called, "School is Cool Because..." They made a smily face with sunglasses attached. The smily face had a speaking bubble attached to it, and inside students wrote the reasons they think school is cool. They heard a story called Miss Nelson is Missing. Students in the story were not listening to their nice teacher, so she disappeared and a mean teacher appeared. She was so strict, that the kids learned to not take advantage of their teacher who treated them kindly. Afterwards, they wrote a short story called, "Sr. Amna is Missing." Math During math time, we had a lot of fun this week! First they learned about even and odd numbers. I introduced them to two new members of our class named Odd Todd and Even Steven. Even Steven liked the even numbers (0,2,4,6,8), and Odd Todd liked the odd numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9). Students got together with a partner and received a paper plate with a bunch of Skittles. They had to count out the skittles and tell me if the total number was odd or even. I wrote it on the plate. Then they split the Skittles evenly. If they had an odd number, they had to leave one out when they split it. If they were correct, they got to eat all their candy! (Everyone was correct and). :) Afterwards, we split the paper plates between Odd Todd and Even Steven. If the number on the plate was odd, it went to Todd's team, and vice versa for even numbers. They also worked on understanding place value with tens and ones. They had to draw out tens and ones and also practice expanded form. Expanded form is when we stretch out the number. For example, 34 is actually 3 tens and 4 ones, so it is 30 plus 4. Science Chapter 1 is about the needs of living and non living things. Living things need food, water, oxygen, and shelter to survive. Survive means to stay alive. We created gestures with our body to remember the definitions and information in the lessons we read. At the end of the week, students got together in groups and used old magazines to cut out pictures of living and nonliving and sort them into a collage poster. By the way, if you have old magazines that are classroom appropriate, please send them in!! :) Hope you enjoyed reading about your child's classroom adventures! -Sr. Amna- It does NOT feel like it is only the first week of school! I really feel as though these kids and I have been together for a lot longer. Mashallah, they are doing really well. We started classroom rules and procedures right away. Mashallah, we have SUCH a large class this year - 27 students! In order for everything to run smoothly and for all of us to learn to get a long and work together, going over the rules over and over again is a must.
This year, I am trying to implement some aspects of an educational concept called Whole Brain Teaching. It involves the use of many gestures to learn routine things. It also involves students teaching each other small chunks of concepts learned right after I teach them. They also use gestures. One of the practices they have learned class attention signal, where I say "CLASS," in a certain tone, voice, or pattern, and the students have to repeat, "YES," in the same way. Whenever I say "Hands and Eyes," they drop everything and give me their attention. "Mirror, Mirror," means they copy all my gestures as I am teaching or explaining something. "Mirror with words," means they copy my gestures and repeat what I am saying. When I say, "TEACH," they say, "OKAY," and turn to a group or partner and teach each other what I just taught them. By involving movement, actions, and words, we are utilizing more parts of the brain, which hopefully aid in learning and remembering. Every morning, we have been practicing our five whole brain classroom rules. We use hand movements to explain each rule. They mirror me first, and then teach each other. 1) Follow directions quickly- (snapping with their fingers) 2) Raise your hand for permission to speak- (raise hand and make talking motion with hand) 3) Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat- (raise hand and then make a walking motion with fingers on the other hand) 4) Make smart choices- (point to brain) 5) Keep you dear teacher happy- (point your fingers to a smile on your face and tilt your head back and forth). This is my favorite rule of course.. :) If we keep teachers happy by following the rules, they get to put more positive time and energy into teaching the children. Inshallah, by constantly practicing these expectations, the classroom will be a well oiled machine. -Sr. Amna- Just wanted to write a quick reminder about our usual homework routine. Always remember to check their planner to see what the homework is.
1) A new reading log goes home every Monday. It is collected the following Monday, but I check it every day in their homework folder. Students should read a minimum of 50 minutes, split up during the week. Please refrain from reading only for one or two days, because that is just not enough! They need to write a one to two sentence reflection or summary on what they read. A parent signature with the total minutes read is needed before the log is handed in. I will not have students write "do reading log," in their planner every day, as it is a routine and they know they should do it. 2) There is math homework nearly every day in their math workbooks. Do not rip out the homework page. We go over the homework together as a class. Remember to always do both sides. Help your child, but please do not just give the answer. 3) Starting next week, a spelling list will go home on Monday in their spelling notebooks. The homework is due on Friday. The notebook can be kept home until the day the homework is due. The spelling contract/homework details were sent home in the parent handbook. I will send it out again. Please let me know if you have questions or trouble regarding how to complete the spelling homework. 4) Sr. Mona, Sr. Lamia, and Sr. Zamina may assign their own homework assignments as well. They will usually be written in the blank box in their planners. These homework assignments are just as important as the regular subjects. 7) Starting Monday, a comprehension homework assignment will go out. It is due every Friday. The assignment may be an empty graphic organizer for concepts such as summarizing or sequencing a story. They should use a story they read at home for their reading log to fill in the organizer. All work should be done in complete sentences with effort and neatness. Sometimes I will send home a reading passage and questions instead of an organizer. Again, complete sentences and neatness are required. 6) You should always have your child check their homework planner, in case there is an extra assignment or page assigned. Thank you. -Sr. Amna- |
AuthorSr.Amna is a 2nd grade teacher at MDQ Academy. Here is where you will find information about what is happening in the classroom. It corresponds with the weekly newsletter, "Second Thoughts," that gets sent home each Friday. Archives
March 2014
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