Weekly Update 1/9/17 - 1/13/17

Happy New Year! 2017! We hope your families enjoyed the holiday break and were able to squeeze in as much as possible. It certainly flew by, but we treasure the time spent with family and friends and are excited to be back in the routine of school. It was so wonderful to be in the classroom last Wednesday morning as your children came through the doors -- full of stories from the break and eager to catch up with us and their friends. We've heard many stories about your family traditions and travels and hope to hear more stories as we settle back in.

Storypath has raised great excitement in our classroom! Last week, our class "took a trip" to the Great Barrier Reef to kick start our study of coral reefs and its inhabitants. Storypath will blend with Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop as students begin research on a specific animal alongside a classmate from the Austin/Gardner class. By learning how to read a non fiction text carefully, students will collect information on their given animal and work with their partner to record this information on a graphic organizer. Students will learn important skills like paraphrasing, note taking, and how to use nonfiction text features such as captions, labels, and diagrams. All of this work will transform into a research book that students will share with you during our Coral Reef Museum in March.

In Math, we continue working through Unit 3 of Investigations. Lately we have been focusing on the number 100 -- in particular, how to make it using multiples of five as well as with coins. Story Problems now include both addition and subtraction, and we are encouraging students to use number lines as a problem solving strategy. Please encourage your children at home to always, always show their work as it helps us understand their thought process! This is a life long skill that will serve all students well as math concepts grow more complex.

In Word Study, we will be focusing on the use of adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs during the next few weeks. This will be an all-class sort and we will have an assessment following MLK weekend after several weeks of practice identifying, using, and naming these important parts of speech. This work will also work to strengthen students writing skills within Writer's Workshop.

Aside from academics, 2nd graders are hard at work for their production of The Jungle Book later this month. Over the next two weeks we will have several additional practices as a grade level to make sure we're in tip top shape for our performance!

And finally, we will hopefully be making a trip to ImaginOn this Thursday, January 12th, so please be sure you do not have any fines so that your children can check out some new books! Our partnership with InReach will pick back up later in the month, so please stay tuned for volunteer driving opportunities. Thank you in advance for your willingness to help!

Reminders for the Upcoming Month:

• Monday/Tuesday, January 16-17th -- MLK Holiday, school closed. 
• Wednesday/Thursday, January 18/19th -- All Trinity Builds. Materials are being collected at the front desk should you have any to donate. 
• Wednesday, January 25th at 2:30 -- The Jungle Book! Students will perform and we'll have a celebration afterwards. We hope you'll join us to celebrate their hard work! 

Stay warm out there -- and we hope to see you soon!