See you all in 2008!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What a Week! Great Way to end The Year!

Wow! we started the week with diagnostic testing. I'm proud to report that there has been a lot of growth for all the students. Congratulations!

Thursday was Mrs. Lankford's homeroom class performance. Great job students! Congrats to Miss Evanko's homeroom as well! We are so proud of you all!

Friday was our Holiday Lunch. A BIG Thank You to all the parents that helped. We could not have done it without you help!

Weather Days Dec. 17 - 21.
Winter Break Dec. 24 - Jan. 1, 2008.
School Resumes on Wednesday January 2, 2008

Thank you for all the wonderful gifts and goodies! :)

~Be sure to read for 20 minutes a day while on Winter break.
~Practice your doubles facts and combinations of 10.
~Practice solving story problems.
~Practice addition and subtraction strategies. (Using legs, tally marks, open number line, and decomposing.)
~Practice telling time on an analogue clock.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
See you in 2008!

Shhhhh we are testing!

We are busy diagnostic testing this week.

Miss Evanko's class will perform our Holiday Play " I Need a Christmas Vacation" on Thursday, December 6 @ 7:00 pm. We hope to see you there!

Making Butter

In Science last week in honor of Thanksgiving our class made butter. First, we washed our hands then we put heavy whipping cream in a bowl. We added salt and a marble and we sang a song while every student was allowed to shake the bowl. We taped the bowl to make sure that the lid would not come off, then Mrs. Lankford gave us a fresh slice of bread and cinnamon sugar to add after spreading the butter. We also had crackers to enjoy the butter. We were allowed to eat it all. It was delicious! Yummy, yummy, yummy! If you would like to make butter follow these directions:
Get a mixing bowl, add whipping cream, a pinch of salt, and a marble. Put the lid on the bowl, shake for about 15 minutes and enjoy the butter. Be sure to have on hand bread, crackers, and cinnamon sugar. Enjoy your delicious treat!
Love, Mrs. Lankford's 2nd grade class.
PS take out the marble, don't eat and save it for next time. Happy Thanksgiving.

Everyday Counts Calendar Math

For the month of November we have been busy learning new skills in our Everyday Counts Calendar Math.
On the calendar: we are looking for patterns, classifying and describing three-dimensional shapes.
In Computations and Connections: we are working out addition facts for doubles and doubles plus one and writing equations.
In Measurement: We are estimating and measuring lengths in centimeters.
In Coin Counter: we are solving shopping problems, using the dollar sign with decimal point and using the cent symbol.
We are also learning to read the hour and minutes hands on the clock along with reading the minutes before the hour, and count by fives.
We have also been busy with graphs.

We finished our unit Does it Walk Crawl or Swim? We started a new unit called Putting Together and Taking Apart. In this unit we will be working on addition and subtraction. We will be working with 5's, 10's, 20's, and 25's and on ways to make 100. We will also work on solving story problems and deciding what operation to use to solve a problem.

In Science we are having a great time doing lab activities that explore, collect and compare temperature data.

It has been a busy yet fun couple of weeks!

Animals in the Neighborhood

This week the students have been busy at work brainstorming a list of animals that live in their neighborhood. In small groups they categorize the animals according to how they move (fly, swim, walk, hop, and so on).
After sorting their data on how the animals moved the students had to represent their data using a chart, venn diagram, list, pictures, words, or any other way they felt would be good to represent their data. It was great to see the teamwork.
Did you know that ladybugs and cardinals walk and fly?

Tomorrow we will work in groups again to show something different about our neighborhood animals like what kinds of sounds do they make? or which animals are tame? which are wild?
There are many other questions we could ask about these animals. We will generate a list and the students will need to think about new categories based on the new question they are investigating. After they have developed their categories and have sorted the data, each group will make a presentation graph that shows their question, their categories, and how they sorted the animals.
At the end of the lesson each group will have an opportunity to share their representation.

Can you Guess My Rule?

In Math we started a new unit called Does it Walk, Crawl, or Swim? We played a game called Guess My Rule. Guess My Rule is a classification game in which the students try to figure out the common characteristic, or attribute, of a set of objects. To play the game, the rule maker(Mrs. Lankford, and students) decides on a mystery rule for classifying a particular group of things.
The rule maker starts the game by giving some examples of people who fit the rule, for example, by having two students who are wearing blue stand up. The guessers then try to find other individuals who fit the rule. With each guess, the student named is added to one group or the other~ does fit or does not fit the rule. Both groups must be clearly visible to the guessers so they can make use of all the evidence~what does and does not fit~as they try to figure out what the rule is. We all had a great time learning!

After playing the game we discussed how we might use the interlocking cubes to build a model that would represent our data. It was a great visual for the students to see.

Mathematicians have different ways of showing the information they collect so they can see it clearly and share it with other people. Sometimes they make pictures or graphs, and sometimes they build models. We call these representations of the data. This is exactly what the students did. Awesome!
This week we will play Guess My Rule with Yektti cards and learn about Venn Diagrams.

In Science we will start our new unit on The Weather. In this unit we will observe and do activities that will expand our awareness of the weather, its features, and its effects on our daily lives.

The end of our 1st nine weeks!

Last week started with reviewing all the concepts that was taught for the past 9 weeks. We explored the 100's chart, we discussed the patterns that we see on the 100's chart. We skip counted by 5's and 10's. We solved number strings, story problems addition and subtraction. We worked on combinations of tens, doubles, and coin combinations.
We ended the week with our end of the unit test. It's a great feeling when you see that the students understand what you are teaching! Way to go students! Keep up the great work!

Our class will begin a new unit called Does it Walk, Crawl, or Swim? In this unit, your child will collect data and learn about sorting and classifying the data.

Thank you to all for your support and participation in our 2nd grade Math night. We hope that the information/strategies discussed were helpful.

The World we live in! It's a great place!

In honor of Blog Action Day with the topic being our "Environment". At this time we are discussing the Earth in Science.
Today our topic was on keeping Our World Clean.
Some of the things the students can do: is pick up trash on the playground, helping your neighbors, we should plant plants to help make nature look beautiful, stop littering the St. John's river, don't smoke, help people stop hurting other people, stop taking animals habitats and stop using their fur as coats. Please stop cutting down trees.
All these thoughts are from the minds of 2nd graders from Mrs. Lankford's class.
What is your thought?

" We all have a story to tell"

Wow! what a week! The students solved a variety of story problems involving combining (addition) and separating (subtraction) using their own strategies. Their job was to read the story and visualize what was happening in the problem before trying to solve it.

The students are learning that Mathematicians are organized! and our 2nd grade Mathematicians are getting organized as well. After reading the story problems the first thing they are required to do is write an equation/number sentence to go with what they think the story is about. This is a great way to start because how can you solve a problem if you don't have an equation. The students must record their solution so that someone else can understand their strategies. They have a bank of strategies starting with counting up by ones, and tens. Using tally marks, drawing pictures, decomposing, or using the open number line.

The students were allowed to create their own story problems about things they might see outside their window. One student wrote about a 100 dollar bill outside his window. Maybe Mrs. Lankford should make home visits to his house. :)
The students made very good progress with their story problems.

In Calendar Math we are spending time learning about telling time. We will continue discussing graphs, rows, columns, and arrays.
We are looking for patterns on the calendar. Our discussion was about rotation and congruence.

We are also discussing rotation in Science.
How about those Terrariums! Most of the students brought their Terrarium home on Friday. It was so awesome to watch them put their cricket in their Terrarium. One student actually named her cricket Wanda. I took some awesome pictures! Hopefully soon I will be able to post them on my site!
All in all it was another great week in Mrs. Lankford's cottage.

Shop and Save

Today was a day filled with lots of rain and lots of learning going on in Mrs. Lankford's cottage.

Our Class went shopping with coupons. The students had to find combinations of coupons that total a given amount.

They also had to find three coupons for things you might need to buy if you were having a party. I think they were disappointed to find out that I didn't have coupons for a birthday cake :) they had to stretch their imagination with the coupons for brownies. It was so much fun to see them getting excited about coupons.
I ask the students to check out Sunday's paper to see coupons in color. Several students said that they didn't get the paper. No problem neither do I . So parents if you receive anything with coupons in the mail please be sure to show your student :)

In our Everyday Counts Calendar Math, I introduced a new element, we are discussing telling time. We also collected and recorded data about our favorite Resource Class on a graph. PE was the big winner with my afternoon class!

Today was our 31st day of school.

A penny for your thought!

Our class is learning about money. The penny is a US coin worth one cent. One hundred pennies make a dollar. One cent can be written 1¢ or $0.01.

The nickel is a US coin worth five cents. Twenty nickels make a dollar. One nickel can be written 5¢ or $0.05.

The dime is a US coin worth ten cents. Ten dimes make a dollar. One dime can be written 10¢ or $0.10.

The quarter (also called a quarter dollar) is a US coin worth twenty five cents. Four quarters make a dollar. One quarter can be written 25¢ or $0.25.

We discussed all the possible ways to make 25 cents and 50 cents using pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

The students really enjoyed touching and counting with the plastic coins. We will continue to learn about money using coupons. The students will need to find combinations of coupons that total a given amount. Test their skills~encourage your child to count your loose change.

In Calendar Math our focus this week was on rows and columns. We discussed how many rows of tens were on our 100 chart.

We made equations, wrote story problems, and created Fact Families with the "Today's Number."

Week 4

The week started out with the students counting the number of legs in our classroom. We compared the number of people and the number of legs. We looked for patterns in the numbers and realizing that each person had 2 legs we came up with a general rule for finding the number of legs for any group of people.
We made the count more challenging by counting fingers, eyes, and ears.
We made and discussed more riddles that describes the number of people and pets that live in our house. Funny!
We solved more riddles involving groups of 2's, 5's, and 10's.
Looking for patterns on the 100 chart we counted by 5's. We were exploring multiples of 5's and practiced using tally marks.
We ended the week in Math with becoming familiar with coin values and finding all possible combinations of coins to equal 15 cents.

Wednesday was a great day away from Math in the classroom however the students were learning Math on our first field trip. We went to the Jewish Community Center to see the show School House Rock Live! It was awesome!

Did you know that we have been in school 24 days.?
Well our Every Day Counts Calendar Math helps us keep track of our days in school. We are learning and understanding place value using the counting tape and the hundreds chart. The students are seeing new ways to group and count to find a sum or difference.

In Science our discussion continues on the Sun: Our Nearest Star.

Looking forward to seeing you all at Open House on Tuesday September 25th @ 6:30.

Week 3

Dreams are really coming true in Math and Science!

After reading the story Two of Everything, the students imagined if our entire class fell into a "Magic" pot and doubled. We discussed what would happen. They had to create a number sentence/equation, and write about how they would solve the problem. Then, write about what would be one good thing and one hard thing about having a double class. It was hilarious!

We also collected pocket data. We counted all the pockets of the students in our class. It was a huge number sentence that the students had to solve by using combinations of tens and doubles.
Our morning class had 103 pockets and our afternoon class had 96 pockets. The purpose of doing this activity is to provide students with one model for adding large groups of numbers.

During Choice time we reviewed the games Close to 20, Beat the Calculator, Turn over Ten, and Tens go Fish.

Our Everyday Counts Calendar Math is also going well. The students are learning to group and count by tens and ones, understand place value, and discover number patterns and use mental math. I'm so proud of their work!

In Science we are still discussing the Sun. We made S'mores using the heat from the Sun. They were delicious!

For Your Information

For Your Information:~Homework folders come home every Monday. Mrs. Lankford's class homework folders are green and Miss Evanko's class homework folders are orange.Please look over all the work in the "Notes to parents" (front pocket)You can keep all the work unless stated differently. All homework will be in the back pocket “Homework”.

Week 2

Another great week!We started the week off with number strings. We discussed strategies for adding "strings" of numbers. The students are encouraged to use doubles (3 + 3, 4 + 4) and combinations of 10 (3 + 7, 4 + 6) to solve addition problems. Ask your child about using “legs” when looking for Combinations of Tens and Doubles.We are counting the days of school with our Every Day Counts Calendar Math. The students are enjoying using their Math Journals to answer questions about the calendar, the coin counter, counting tape and the hundreds chart.We spent a lot of time learning how to make computations using two and three addends. We also explored the calculator as a tool for Mathematics. The students enjoyed practicing mental math while playing the game Beat the Calculator. We made up problems for other students to solve on the calculator. Tons of Fun!We added mixed coins and solved coin problems. Trading 10 pennies for 1 dime will make your pocket feel lighter!In Science we continued to discuss the Sun. The sun supplies heat and light energy to the Earth.Dreams begin here on Main Street Second Grade!
Please check us out on schoolnotes.com zip code 32224

Dreams Begin Here

We are off to a great start in Second Grade. The students are ajusting very well to switching classes for ELA with Miss Evanko.In Math we are working in the 1st Investigations unit Coins. Coupons, and Combinations. Our focus will continue with:~ becoming more familiar with number combinations of 10 and doubles~ Exploring patterns and developing fluency in skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's.~ communicating about mathematical thinking through written and spoken language~ exploring the calculator as a tool for problem solving.In Science we will continue to discuss the Earth and Space with our focus on the Sun, and why the sun is so important to us.

Welcome Back to School!

Imagine where dreams really do come true... You will find Happiness and Knowledge in Mrs. Lankford's Cottage!