New Year - New Units

The first full week back to school coincides with three new units for us in second grade.

Math - Unit 4 - Addition and Subtraction within 100.  In this unit we will use strategies based on place value, properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.  We will use tools such as 100s charts, open number lines, and base ten blocks to solve two digit addition and subtraction problems within 100 in both number sentences and word problems.  Look in your child's folder on Tuesday for a hand out from our math specialist explaining this unit in more detail.

Writing - Opinion Writing about Reading.  This is a fun writing unit!! We will begin this unit writing letters.  We will draft letters about the characters we have been reading in our books, formulating opinions and supporting our ideas by providing reasons and using details and examples from the text.  We will learn how to state opinions clearly, retell stories so that the opinions make sense to readers, and revise our work.  Towards the end of the unit we will write to persuade others that our favorite books are worthy of awards.

Reading - Series Reading and Cross-Genre Reading Clubs.  We will take a look at books in a series (Magic Tree House, Frog and Toad, Pinky and Rez, Cam Jansen, Nate the Great, etc.), noticing patterns that stretch across a series to understand how the series goes and to make predictions about the characters, setting, and problem.  We will spend time in small groups comparing and contrasting series books and discussing our findings.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the above new units.  This is always an exciting time of year in which the children really start to grow!  I look forward to working with them and supporting them on the way!