Welcome to the Webpage of Mrs.DeStefano's Second Grade Class of 2009-2010.

This webpage is to give you information of what we will be learning in the month to come. The current webpage is giving you information for November.

We just finished our second month of school. Can you beleive we have been in school nearly 35 days. That is just about 1/5 the school year behind us. Time goes way too fast. I look forward to meeting with each of you either on November 10th or 17th for our 1/2 hour conference.

Thank you to our Party Moms who helped coordinate a perfect Halloween Party. All the activities were thoroughly enjoyed by the children. It was a great event. I loved it! Thanks to all the volunteers who brought in the supplies for the party and who came in to help host the activities. It was a wonderful team effort.

Please make sure your child reads 15 minutes each day. Record their reading on the weekly form and return it on Mondays.

Reading: We are currently learning the comprehension skill of understanding the parts of the story and how these parts influence the quality of the literature we read. We can identify the main characters and supporting characters along with clues from the story that supply the information about their personalities. We also know how settings can be time, place and events and we can talk about how the setting enhances the story or has little affect on the events that take place. We have had some debates on this topic and its fun to hear the children talk like readers! Please continue asking your child about the setting & main character as well as what they think about these parts of the story they are reading for their reading log. Having a conversation about a book enhances their understanding of what they read. If they know you will ask them they will think harder when they are reading. Before they go to read tell them that you will ask how the setting helped the story or what traits they liked/didn't like about a character in the book. Right now we are learning about identifying the problem and solution in the story and discussing the value of each in a "good" book.

Writing: Our entire class of learners love writing workshop. They love being able to explore their ideas through writing. We are all learning how to organize our thoughts into coherent format. We are also applying some of our reading lessons into our writing as we discover how settings are woven into the story through sound, use of the setting to create problem and events that occur only in the setting described. I use our classroom author's work for good examples as well as published writers. I emphasize that our writing is equally as important as those who are getting paid. I am rather impressed with our classroom of authors. They are talented! You can support this process by having your child make up a story with you as you drive in the car or wait at the doctors office. You can have a family story night at dinner in which you each add a part to a story but making sure part of the setting is added into the story. We did this in class as well and it inspired a few new "books".

Spelling: We now are studying the various long vowel sound spelling patterns. We have learned the two most common which are two vowels side by side and the silent e. We will list the various patterns for each vowel's long sound and refer to these lists all year. Please continue to practice the "missed" words from their spelling folder.

Math: Thank you for practicing the tens facts and doubles facts with your children. They will be using this information the whole year. We learned to add 9 to single digits by making the 9 a ten and lessening the other addend by 1. This is a fast way to respond to a math fact such as 9+4=13. The faster a fact can be answered correctly the more time the mind can think about the next step. This will be to your child's benefit as math becomes more complicated in the weeks to come.
Our next chapter will cover a variety of number concepts such as odd/even, skip counting, patterns in numbers and more. Keep up with the nightly math homework and let me know if your child struggles with any concept so I can give them added time during the day to help them.

Science: Our new science unit is to learn all about the human skeleton. Soon your child will be coming home to measure your cranium, clavical and maybe your femur. Second graders really love learning the doctor names for bones. The emphasis will be on how our bones are needed for healthy living and how healthy living is necessary for strong bones. Let your child remind you of some high school biology you have long forgotten.

Social Studies: Thank you for taking your child to the community locations around Tewksbury. We created a slide show that I put on a disc and hope to share with new comers to town. I did not include anyones name so no one can trace a child to anyplace in tewksbury. Our new unit is mapping and the world. We will learn the 7 continent and 4 ocean names. Each child will be expected to label a blank map with these names. But don't worry we will be doing alot of this kind of work in the classroom. Understanding a map will also be included in this unit. At the end of November two Flat Stanleys will be coming to your home for their mailing out to some place in the world. More info about that will come home in the near future.

REMINDERS:
Every child needs a water bottle each day AND a nutrious, peanut/nut free snack.