Mrs. Yutakis' Class

I would like to take some time to brag about the wonderful boys and girls I am so fortunate to teach this year. We are such kind, helpful, hard working students. We are able to accomplish so much during the day. Our daily routines are established and everyone helps each other stay on track. Reading groups started this week and I am witnessing and increasing level of independence. We are able to have fun together, and really buckle down and work hard. It is a joy to come to school everyday. I know we are going to do amazing things this year. Thank you so much for all of your support!

Reading Groups and Centers

While I am working with small groups the rest of the class is working independently on a variety of activities. These activities change daily and include word work (spelling and vocabulary), reading with a partner (fluency practice), listening to reading (online books), reading comprehension and writing.

Here are some pictures of us working on our center activities.

Reading with a Partner

Word Work

Meeting with Mrs. Yutakis

Listening to Reading

Working on Writing

Reading Comprehension

Listening to Reading

Working on Writing

Reading Comprehension

Working on Writing

Listening to Reading

We have many opportunities during the day to work with partners or in small groups. On Tuesday we worked with a partner to create a flow chart describing the steps required to manufacture a good. The class was required to read a book together twice. The first time, the goal was to become familiar with the information included in the book. The second time they stopped during the reading to discuss the important steps that would be included on the flowchart. The steps were recorded on sentence strips. These strips will be used to create a flowchart using wixie next week.

This week we had a lot of fun during science!

On Wednesday we showed how air trapped in a vial will keep a kleenex dry when put underwater.

Yesterday we used syringes to experiment with air compression and pressure.

Here is a quick video of some of the action!

In writing we have been learning how to write a non-fiction paragraph.

This week we spent our time learning what a paragraph is, how to read and analyze a prompt, how to brainstorm, and how to plan for our writing.

The class learned that a paragraph is a group of sentences that are all about the same thing. A paragraph has 3 parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

We also discussed that planning our writing makes it easier to write, it helps organize our thoughts, and it makes our writing better. Next week we will focus our writing discussions on different types of topic sentences.

Another great week in 2nd grade!

I am looking forward to having a full 5 day week next week!

Enjoy the weekend!

I hope all of the students had a nice day off today. I spent the day at Stevenson learning more about literacy and different types of technology available to use in the classroom.
I have a vocabulary project ready for the class to work on next week. We will also be experimenting with Voki. I have included a link of my sample work that I completed tonight. I already have a few ideas for using Voki with science and social studies.

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=6777824&height=267&width=200

We used this week to wrap up our targets from the first half of the trimester. Next week we will begin focusing on non-fiction writing and reading. I am very proud of our hard work!

We continued working math facts this week and we will finish unit 2 next week. We will move on to our final math targets of the trimester: place value, counting money ( dollars and coins), and telling time to the half hour.

We worked with partners this week to work on math facts. We had to find the missing addend to find our path on a map, we played Doubles or Nothing to try to make the largest sum (10 point bonus for doubles facts!), and we learned how to play Name that Number. Name that number allows us to combine the operations of addition and subtraction to arrive at a specified number. We put 5 cards face up to use for adding and subtracting. Then we turn the next top card over. That becomes the number we want to name.

Playing Name that Number

Playing Doubles or Nothing

The class made fact family houses which were magically turned into a neighborhood late this afternoon! Fact families help us understand the relationship between addition and subtraction facts.

Here we are working on our houses: