An Exciting Week Ahead!

We are going to be starting to learn about schema in our reading lessons this week. Schema is just a fancy word for background knowledge. We are going to be focusing on making connections from the text to the knowledge and experiences that we have from our own lives. This is one of the first steps in deepening comprehension. As you read at home with your child find out if what they are reading reminds them of something in their own life.

We are focusing our study of writing this week on: Where do Writers Get Ideas?
This is a fun study where we get to look at published authors and see what they have said about where their ideas come from. We will be looking at book jackets, dedications, blurbs from the author about the idea, and even watching some author interviews. It is unfortunate that we don't have enough time to watch all of the excellent author interviews this week, but I would highly recomend that you go to ReadingRockets.org and check out some of the interviews that are posted there. Just click on the author's name on the left hand side. Some of the author interviews I would recommend are:

• Tomie dePaola
• Mark Teague
• David Shannon

Are you playing Tens Go Fish and Turn Over Ten at home? Students will not be receiving "math homework" in the traditional form during second grade. Instead, please make it a regular activity to be playing these card games and writing down the 'matches' or number sentences that you are making. When it is clean up time ask your child to sort the cards to make sure that there are 4 of each. That way they are learning the responsibility of taking care of their manipulatives and you know if you need to replace a card for future games.
This week we will continue playing the card games as well as take our first look at pattern blocks and geoblocks.

Isiah asked me last week, "When do we get to do science?" How about right now? This week we get to start our exciting unit on Plants! We will be investigating if a plant can grow from a bean. We get to dissect a bean and start growing our very own bean plants.

We have an exciting week planned and I can't wait to find out what I will learn next from such an amazing class!