Ms. Arnold’s Classroom News (11/9/14)
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What We've Been Up To:
Happy November!
*Bat Day: On Wednesday we culminated our animal science unit with a day devoted to BATS! Our bat experts were sent off to complete various bat activities in each of the second grade classrooms. For their first mission, they went next door to Mrs. Atherton's room to use unifex cubes to measure and compare macrobats and microbats. Following this math activity, 2AA headed to Mrs. Caporello's room to learn more facts about bats while completing a bat puzzle. After a quick snack break, they headed to the Dragon classroom with Mrs. Leonardto play a game comparing macro and micro bats. Next, they traveled to Ms. Riley's room to complete a beautiful art project of bats in the night. Students chose to illustrate their bats either at dawn, dusk, or in the black of night (all times when bats are active!) and were taught a crayon-resist art technique. Check out their beautiful art!
Finally, it was time to head back to our classroom. In our class, we explored the way in which bats navigate: using echolocation! Working in teams of three, each student took the role of the bat, the insect, and the spotter. With their eyes closed, and under careful watch of the spotter, the bat began making their echo call and waited to hear their prey echo back. Then the hunt was on!
We ended our activity with a fun song courtesy of "Batney Ears"!
With bat day complete, our next unit will launch us into science inquiry as we explore "What Scientists Do!
*Parent Conferences: A big thank you to all those who made it out to parent conferences over the past two weeks. The home-school connection is such a vital piece of a child’s education. I am committed to keeping you involved as we work together for the remainder of the school year.
*Book Orders: November Scholastic Book Orders were sent home last week and are due Wednesday, Nov. 12th. If you’re interested in buying any books as holiday gifts, you can order online and send me an email letting me know to keep the books until we can work out a time for you to pick them up—just let me know! You can also send a paper order and check in an envelope if you prefer ordering that way. I will send home one more book order before the holiday (Scholastic is pretty good about getting books delivered quickly!).
*Math: As we make our way through Unit 3, we continue to practice our addition and subtraction facts. We have been working hard on the relationship between addition and subtraction and building fact families (when you know one math fact, you really know four!). We have learned some fun games, such as Addition Top-It, Subtraction Top-It, and the class favorite: Salute!
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| Fun times playing Salute! |
-E.13: Complete the addition sentence: 1 digit
-F.1: Review - subtract one-digit numbers - up to 10
-L.1: Add and subtract numbers up to 20
-K.3: Fact Families
*Literacy: In writer's workshop, our class has been working extremely hard to finish up their Keven Henkes-inspired stories as we complete our "Authors as Mentors" unit. First, their written pieces were sent off to the publisher to be typed, then they carefully added their illustrations, and finally they water-colored their covers (just like our mentor author!). We will celebrate these amazing pieces next week and jump right into our realistic fiction unit. During reader's workshop, we were lucky enough to have Mrs. Fitzgerald (SMS Reading Specialist) join as we begin looking carefully at how we can talk about books. She got us started by setting norms for "Accountable Talk". More to come on this next week!
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Coming Up:
- No School (Teacher In-Service Day): Monday, Nov. 10th
- No School (Veteran's Day): Tuesday, Nov. 11th
-Scholastic Book Orders Due: Wednesday, Nov. 12th
-PTO Spaghetti Dinner and BINGO: Friday, Nov. 14th, 6:00pm
November Related Arts Schedule:
Sun
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Mon
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Tues
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Wed
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Thurs
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Fri
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Sat
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2
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3
Music
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4
PE
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5
Art
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6
PE
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7
Early Release
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8
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9
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10
NO SCHOOL
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11
NO SCHOOL
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12
Library
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13
Music
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14
PE
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15
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16
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17
Art
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18
PE
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19
STEM
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20
Library
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21
Music
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22
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23
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24
PE
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25
Art
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26
NO SCHOOL |
27
NO SCHOOL
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28
NO SCHOOL
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29
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