Welcome to December!
We are into the real meat of the year now.  Your children are continuing to build all the skills necessary to become successful second graders.

Reading:  We completed the nonfiction retell unit on animals and have begun biography work.  Once again, children are encouraged to predict what they expect to learn prior to reading so that they can more easily scaffold and retell the information.  We have completed work on fables and are now working on the characteristics of fairy tales.  We are comparing and contrasting different versions of the same story.

Math:  We are continuing to work on place value, expanded notation, and using a 100s chart.  The biggest difficulty involves questions like "49 is ten more than what number?"

Writing:  We have just started our unit on informational writing.  The children will be learning to write lab reports  using appropriate vocabulary, structure and details.

Social Studies:  We are continuing to work on basic characteristics of communities.  Your child should be able to name the 3 main types (urban, suburban and rural) and name some characteristics.

I released the December book order and it should arrive within 2 weeks.  I will email you when they come.  Homework packets and spelling words will be sent this weekend. 

THANK YOU so much for all the generous donations for our food drive (pasta/macaroni meals), our soap collection (Grassroots Givers) and Toys for Tots.  You are such a generous community.  Thank you for teaching your children the joy of giving.  Have a great weekend!