Tomorrow is our WCS International Festival from 3:00 - 7:00 pm. Hope you can come by and check one of our signature events out! Many thanks to the Cajigas family and all our Westlake families who have dedicated hours of planning and preparing for this fun event!
Homework: Our copier is down, thus no homework packet until it is up and running! Please continue to read and work from our resources page. Funny that the 2nd graders did not think this was bad news! (:
Curriculum Highlights:
Social Studies: We have been studying the presidential election process, applying persuasive writing, data/graphs, and technological researching of our delegate states' nicknames! Congratulations to President Tiffany, Vice-President Ella, and Secretary of State Roxanne! Kudos also to our legislators: Callie, Ahmed, Saifaan, and Gigi! Happy to see such strong executive and legislative class leadership. [The judicial branch is yours truly.]
Science and Reading: We've begun our unit on Animals and Plants! In the next weeks, we will be learning about Endangered Animals--and being advocates/stewards for them. We also will be designing and conducting experiments around seeds and plants. We will explore the animal-plant relationship and the ecosystem of which they are a part!
We were honored to have Amy's mom, a biologist, as a guest teacher to speak about her area of expertise (bats) and define the difference between an ecosystem, biome, and niche. Ask your explorer if they remember!
Writing: We wrote a persuasive letter to President Obama, expressing our concerns for the endangered animals of the world. Once all the letters are complete, I will be sending them to the White House!
Math: We will continue to review time (please support your 2nd grader on this concept by asking him/her to tell you the time on an analog clock periodically throughout the day!) but have moved on to measurement. We talked about the American standard/customary units vs. the global metric system. We practiced measuring and estimating and have worked with centimeters, inches, feet, and yards.
Friday, 4/29 Field Trip to Explorit in Davis:
Details: Bring a sack lunch and wear your spirit shirt. We start loading buses at 8:15 am, so don’t be late!
Chaperones: More than a dozen of you have expressed interest to chaperone or be an extra set of eyes. Unfortunately, due to the size of each rotating group (our 110 second graders will be divided into 3 large groups) and the limited physical space of the museum and its learning classroom, I can only take 4 chaperones. These chaperones will be: Roxanne's dad, Riley's mom, Aidan H.'s grandma, and Taylor's mom. I will place the rest of you on a waiting list and if spots open in our class or the other 2nd grade classes, I will let you know ASAP. Thanks for your understanding and support!
Wish List:
*different types of seeds
*soil
*rubber bands
*paper plates
2nd Grade Quote of the Week: We can't find Asaiah's math book and I peer into his desk to help him. Ahmed remarks, "It looks like a blizzard in there!" Asaiah responds calmly, "Hey, I know where everything is! And I know my math book is not in there!" [He was right...I had it in my teaching area!!]
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. A