Our class has spent a lot of time building strong place value understanding, and making sure we can quickly and efficiently add within 10. We have begun to shift our focus to double-digit addition, which will eventually lead to multi-digit addition. There will be many “strategies” taught, and your child will be encouraged to use the strategy that works best for them. These strategies are not like the traditional method that you or I learned when adding multiple digits. Studies show that the traditional method increases errors and takes away from the value of each digit (i.e. in a problem like: 54 + 23 we would say 4+ 3 and then 5+2 instead of 50 + 20). Plus, with these new strategies you will notice your child attempting to solve problems mentally, which is the ultimate goal. Next week’s homework will enforce some strategies we have learned. Keep in mind that not all strategies are a good fit for all students. I encourage the students to stick with the strategy that they can connect with and are most comfortable with. When students become more fluent in their adding, they will begin to realize that some strategies work best for certain problems and some for others. Also know that one of the strategies students WILL still learn is the traditional algorithm. This simply comes after students have built up a strong place value understanding. You will find an example of just a few strategies on the back of this letter. As always, please contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to this math journey with your child!
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It's hard to believe that we have been in school for 28 days! The weather is starting to change and it sure is nice not to be as hot in the classroom. It is much easier to concentrate.
Next week we will finish Unit 1 in literacy. In this unit we looked at story elements -- setting, characters, problem, solution, and plot. Although we will come back to narratives, Unit 2 has us looking at nonfiction. Nonfiction texts can be so engaging for kids and in the "real-world" we tend to read more nonfiction than fiction, so learning how to read them and comprehend them is very important! We have started Unit 1 in math by "dissecting" word problems and making sure we can identify clue words to help us figure out if it's a subtraction problem or an addition problem, or maybe even both! In Writer's Workshop we have continued to work on personal narratives. We have practiced adding lots of details, "showing not telling," adding ellipses (...), using ALL CAPS FOR IMPORTANT WORDS, adding transition words, and using sound effects (like Bang! or Slam!). Soon we will learn how to add dialogue. Yesterday in science we started our unit on Force and Motion. We first talked about what we already know and what we want to learn. These second grade scientists sure do know a lot! One student shared that in her paper airplane book at home she learned that on a plane there are different forces acting in all directions. We learned that a force is a push or a pull. We did some modeling of both forces and discovered that a force can make an object move, or make an object stop. We then did an investigation to see when we exert a force at school, is it more often a push or a pull. Most kids found it was a tie. As with most things we tend to exert both types of force. For example, we pull a marker cap off and then push it back on. |
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