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.