November

News From Room 14

Important Dates:
November 4th:  Field Trip to Lindsay Wildlife Museum
November 5th:  Field Trip to Whole Foods
November 11th:  Veteran’s Day – No School
November 23rd – November 27th:  Thanksgiving Holiday Recess


Math:  We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction facts and second graders are learning to add two digit numbers.  We are focusing on mental math strategies including doubles, doubles plus one, counting on by one and two, and skip counting.  Geometry is our next unit and we will learn all about faces, vertices, edges and 3-D shapes.  Thanks to our math center parent volunteers for helping us build the Tangram Zoo!   

Art:  November’s artist of the month is American artist Grandma Moses.  We will study her famous painting, Thanksgiving Turkey, and talk about balance, repetition and mood.  Did you know that this remarkable artist didn’t begin painting until she was 76 years old?  When she died at the age of 101, she was honored and admired throughout the world.

Parent Volunteers:  This is the season to be thankful and we want to let our parent volunteers know how much we appreciate them.  Thank you so much for your help with Monday folders, field trips, library, math centers, cooking, science, classroom parties, help at home and art.  Our program is richer because of you!

Writer’s Workshop:  We finished our Writer’s Workshop unit on Small Moments and published our stories this week.  Our next topic will be exploring nonfiction writing with “How To” books.  The students will write about a topic, which they have experience, in order to teach to others.  We look forward to the presentations at the end of the month.

Cooking:
What’s cooking in Room 14?  Smoothies and pizzas!  Sue Hall presented two cooking lessons to the class that involved measuring, reading and nutrition.  Thanks to all the parents that helped out.  We loved it!

Field Trips:
Our first two field trips of the year are this week.  Wednesday, November 4th, is the trip to Lindsay Wildlife museum to learn about life cycles and animal habitats.  Thursday, November 5th, we are going to Whole Foods to talk about nutrition and food.  Please make sure your child comes to school on time those days since we will be leaving right at 8:40.  Thanks!