What amazing simple machine projects! We enjoyed each presentation, and I was
impressed by the number of excellent questions.
Here is a look at our upcoming week of second grade.
Literature: Now that we know Mr. Zuckerman’s plan for Wilbur in
the winter, Charlotte is working hard to formulate a plan. This week the
students will read chapters ten, eleven, and twelve of Charlotte’s Web.
They will practice multiple skills as we read the chapters, such as drawing
cartoon strips to point out the main events in a chapter, selecting adjectives
to describe Wilbur, and writing a newspaper article about the miraculous events
on Mr. Zuckerman’s farm. It will be an exciting week in literature!
Grammar: This week we will focus on run on sentences. This
is a common writing error that we see in the students’ writing, and we are
excited to help them see how to edit their sentences using conjunctions. We did not introduce new Riggs words last
Thursday (April 17) because of our simple machine projects. We will skip that set of words and continue
introducing new words on Tuesday.
History: Students have now learned that after the Civil War, huge
waves of immigrants began to come into the United States of America looking for
land, food, freedom, and opportunity. On Monday, an assignment will be
sent home in which each student will need to answer some family history
questions. This week we will focus more closely on what that journey
looked like (and compare/contrast it with the westward journey of the
pioneers), the significance of the Statue of Liberty, and the process that
immigrants went through once they set foot on Ellis Island. At the end of
the week we will make a map of the countries that are represented in our class
and discuss our nation’s seal and the phrase written on it, “E Pluribus
Unum.” This is a Latin phrase that means, “out of many, one.”
Science: We will begin this week by studying friction. We
will experiment with various textures and see which of them help a car go down
a ramp faster and which of them slow it down. Students will also be
reading about Elijah McCoy and how he invented the lubricator cup to
automatically drip oil and reduce friction in trains, mines, and
factories. On Thursday we will begin our unit on magnetism.
Students will be experimenting with various objects to see which objects are
attracted to magnets. We will also do some activities to see if magnets
can exert force on objects when blocked by various materials.
Important Notes:
-Fine Arts Night is on Monday, May 5 at 5:00pm.
