Phew...it has been a busy few weeks. My husband's regular season for basketball has come to an end and things have been busy with that and school. Since it's been crazy, blogging has taken a backseat, but I had to link up for Five for Friday. Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching here...
Yay! Cursive has finally begun! You should have heard the squeals of excitement when I told them Tuesday that it was finally our first day of cursive letters. I've never seen a class so excited to do handwriting before in my life. Normally I get groans. But, not on the first day of cursive! Definitely a rite of passage!
This week we started talking more about being efficient in math. We've learned a lot of strategies during second grade and the kids are proficient in most of them. However, some of them have gravitated back to the older way of solving them. While there is nothing wrong with that and it does often lead them to the correct answer (as long as they follow the steps correctly), this week I showed them that the old way isn't always efficient. On the 800-427 problem I timed myself using the two different strategies. I wanted to point out that when you have zeroes in the top number subtraction can take longer the old way and it's also easy to make mistakes since you're doing so much work. They were surprised to see how quick empty number line was. Same thing with the top problem. So, we talked about looking at the problem and deciding what strategy would be quickest and most efficient before they start solving. Sometimes the old way is more work...
Our school celebrated Reading Week this week. We've had many fun activities. On Wednesday students dressed up as their favorite book character. We had two Gregs in the class from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We've also had a lot of special readers and activities. Above is our Findlay TA Skylar reading to the kiddos during morning meeting. Today we have PJ and pancake day and a read-a-thon in the afternoon. I love Reading Week!
OMG! House of Cards! This has been the best season yet! Andy and I started it when it came out and finished it last night! Can't believe we have to wait probably another year for new episodes! Crazy show, but man is it good! Does anyone else watch it?
Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday and weekend! One week to go for us until spring break!
We have started cursive too! When I demonstrate the strokes, the kids always ask me how come mine looks so pretty. Needless to say, since they are just starting out they have jumbo letters. Practice makes perfect - right!
ReplyDeleteJamie
Teaching Tidbits and More with Jamie
It definitely does! We have some jumbo letters going on in my class too! They'll get there though!
DeleteJordan
Team J's Second Grade Fun