Week of September 20th

What a special week ahead with Tuesday being International Peace Day and Friday being Spirit Day. On Tuesday, the students will write about what peace is to them and decorate their own peace symbol. We will also talk about what this day is about. The day will begin with a special celebration at our Town Meeting. On Friday, the students can wear their spirit clothing or green and gold.

As you already know, the students are learning about North America and this week the students will be given a research assignment to complete. It relates to famous landmarks in North America and requires the students to read about their landmark and answer some questions relating to it. Next week they will share what they found out. We will then make a classbook of all these landmarks that will be kept in our class library for all to enjoy.

Library day is on Tuesday and books are due on this same day. This week Mrs. Smay will teach a lesson and Jay Espstein will help walk the students to and from the library.

Second Grade's gardening project kicked off to a great start last Wednesday. The soil has been prepared for planting and we will begin planting vegetables soon.

Here is the rest of our week at a glance.

Mystery Reader (Friday at 8:15) - Mrs. Counsman
Current Events - Tuesday: Jonathan, Lauren W; Wednesday: McIntosh, Brenna; Thursday: Samuel, Julia; Friday: Kendall, Abby

Language Arts
*Phonics - long e/ee/ea
* Spelling - teapot, peanut, beehive, seaweed, mealtime, please, beach, screech, beneath, feast, between, you're, teach, enough, right
* Vocabulary - disability, position, attached, assistance, depend, responsibility, frisky, affinity
* Reading - Dogs by Jennifer Gillis (nonfiction)
* Fluency - Reading Rate: Good readers vary their reading rate depending on the material they are reading. I am reminding the students to slow down to decode words or grasp the meaning of new ideas and to speed up when the text is easy and immediately understandable.
* Comprehension - Main Idea and details
* Grammar - Parts of Sentences. A sentences has two parts - a naming part and a telling part.
* Writing Workshop - Personal Narrative: Small Moments (Stretching one small moment).

Mathematics - Unit 2

* Students will make up, represent, and solve addition number stories

* Review +0 and +1 addition facts and practice addition facts in which one of the addends is 0, 1, 2 or 3

* Review and practice double facts

* Review the turn-around shortcut for addition and to discover and practice a shortcut for addition facts that have 9 as an addend

Social Studies

* North America

* Landmarks of North America research project

Science - Theme: Changes (Lesson 3 - Mixing and Separating Solids)

Students will create a mixture using two solids - salt and gravel. After describing each solid, students will mix them together in a cup. As they observe, the mixture, they will recognize that the small grains of salt have dispersed in the spaces between the pieces of gravel. Students will then separate the components of their mixtures using a sieve.