Welcome to B-11’s website!
This website will change periodically and give you calendar and curriculum information, as well as links to websites that might be useful for your child to investigate. Newsletters will also be sent home giving you news and more information from the classroom. Check out our Upcoming Events for dates to put on your calendar.
**PHOTO QUIZ! Can you identify the three animals who visited the estuary while we were there? Two left their tracks for the photographer, and the third is a raptor that one group was lucky enough to see on the way back to the building. What kind of bird could it be? Send Ms. Roman an email with your guesses. The first student to send me the correct three animals wins a prize!
Also, can you identify all the grandparents who came to our tea? Where did each come from? Test your memory, and send your response to Ms. Roman’s email (below).
January 2010
It’s wintertime, and we have completed our first trimester of second grade. Our biggest focus for science this year, the Alviso estuary field trip, is over and we have many great memories of the birds and their habitat to talk about for the next few months. On a separate page on the website, go to Bird Reports and find the partner research project on which your child worked very hard and presented to the class before vacation. I was very proud of all the speeches given as the expert on their estuary bird. Next up for public speaking is the First-Person Biography project, beginning soon. Students will choose a famous person to become, writing about their life and dressing as them to present to the first grade classes. The Science Fair is also only a few months away, so it’s not too early to start thinking about a project to do.
Our Grandparents’ Tea was a huge success, with nine grandparents from China to India to Vietnam and Texas and Ireland. We heard some wonderful stories about how life was just a few decades ago. The students loved sharing their own and other classmates’ grandparents and treating them to tea in November. Thank you to all the parents and grandparents and children who made our tea so meaningful. We continue with our Life Long Ago theme in Social Studies, and will conclude with our performance on January 14th.
In Language Arts, students are learning about fables and starting their new anthology theme, Amazing Animals. We are writing detailed descriptions this month, of stuffed animals, characters in books, and people we love. Our final District Writing Assessment will be coming up in May, so writing every day is now being added to the reading every day requirement for second grade. Encourage your child to write notes, letters, lists, and in a diary or journal. You will see the same progress in writing as you do in reading when it becomes a daily habit.
In Math we are working on addition and subtraction problems with larger numbers and using regrouping. We are continuing to explore geometry with solid shapes and measurement. Story problems are part of every unit, and creative thinking is encouraged to find the best way for each student to find answers that make sense. Facts are VITAL to know now, and we will practice adding and subtracting in fast drills several times a week. I encourage the purchase of flash cards if your child has not memorized yet the facts to 20. We will continue our 5-a-Day review routine daily and practice getting faster and more accurate with basic addition and subtraction facts.
Readalouds at the moment include Winnie the Pooh and The Lighthouse Family series by Cynthia Rylant.
Links: Click on the site to view
Be sure to check out other teachers’ websites as well for more links to good curriculum review!
Scholastic site for kids - reading games and more!
Houghton Mifflin Education Place
My email address is hroman@eesd.org if you would like to contact me.
Thanks for visiting us here!
