Diving Into Non-Fiction Text!

With another week of cold weather upon us it has been difficult to get outside for recess.  We have been making the best of this time with indoor activities in our kiva space.  All of my friends have been doing a terrific job making this a fun and safe time.  We are hopeful that we will be able to get outside again sometime next week and do some running around!
Miss Blair has continued teaching us about non-fiction text this week.  We will continue this learning during Reader's Workshop and will also move into this during Writer's Workshop with the completion of our Opinion Writing unit this week.  Next week we will spend this time creating e-books about a topic we are an expert on using Ipads.  We hope to have those finished and ready to share with our families in a couple weeks.
A huge thank you to Melissa Makay for her work with Junior Great Books in our classroom.  Melissa is currently spending two weeks with one of our guided reading groups reading and doing activities through this program.  Our plan is for her to return sometime in March and help bring this wonderful program to all readers in our classroom. Melissa is a former classroom teacher and we feel very lucky to have her volunteering her time in our classroom.
Almost all of our Flat Stanleys have now returned from their adventures in the United States and abroad.  This week we had one return from Ireland and another from Sweden.  What a wonderful opportunity this has been for us to learn about other areas of the world!
Our new math unit focused on place value to one thousand is going well.  We will continue to work with manipulatives to gain a strong understanding of thousands over the next few weeks. 
Please make sure you sign up for a parent/teacher conference soon.  February is just around the corner.  These will be the last "official" conference I will be having with you before your child goes to third grade.  Because of this, I am requesting that you not bring your child with you.  I would like to have an opportunity to talk more openly about your child's progress with you and give you some good indicators of progress, strengths and areas for continued growth.  We will be having a portfolio sharing time the Friday (2/7) before this conference.  This is planned for 1:30 pm and will be an opportunity for your children to share their portfolios and the work they are proud of in second grade. 
Have a great weekend!

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