Last day of school

Thank you for a fabulous year! I could not have asked for a more wonderful group of students to teach. We grew so much and learned a ton!
I will miss you!
Mrs. Scheck

Funny Faces

Good bye second graders, hello third graders! See you next year!

Last week of school!

Dear families,
It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with this group of Second Graders all year!
We had an awesome time at our first ever Popcorn and Poetry event. We will hopefully continue this new tradition next year.

Students are bringing home a lot of stuff! Folders, pencil boxes, papers and anything they kept at school should be left at home tomorrow. Students will not need anything except a snack. If they would like to bring a backpack, please send one.

Tomorrow I will be gone for my son's fifth grade graduation. I will return to school at 11:30 to say good-bye and see the off for the last time.

Please email me any changes in pick up. Let your child know as well what their plan is so we are not scrambling at end of the day!

Thank you!
Mrs. Scheck

Week of May 29-June 1

Dear families,

This week we had a busy and exciting week! Field day was on Friday, June 1!

We read the book Me First, a story of a pushy pig named Pinkerton. Pinkerton learns a lesson about always wanting to be first. We learned the vocabulary word pricked, as in the dog pricked up his ears at the sound of a doorbell.

We worked on publishing our poems for our Popcorn and Poetry celebration on June 12th.We worked on our shape poems and on our bio-poems.
We will be wrapping up our Poetry unit and getting ready for our celebration all next week.

We finished our unit on plants. Thursday we took a short test on what we have learned. The students were able to take home their Brassica plants if they wished to do so.

In math, we are in the middle of Unit 9. This unit is a review of everything we have learned this year.
Students will wrap up Unit 9 next week and have one last Unit test the last week of school.

In Social Studies, we have learned about US symbols such as the Flag, the Statue of Liberty and the White House. We have been working on a booklet to review the facts.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Scheck

Week of May 21-25

Wow, another week has flown by! I can't believe we are almost at the end of May!

This week in Room 105 we read the book Koala Lou  by Mem Fox.
In the story Koala Lou feels left out when her baby brothers and sisters are born. She enters a contest in hopes she will win both a race and her mother's love! We learned the vocabulary word spectator and we discussed the lesson Koala Lou learns throughout the book - it is okay to be in 2nd place, your family will love you no matter what!

In writing this week we have been working on writing shape poems and on using structure in our poems to convey feelings to the reader. Coming soon is our Popcorn and Poetry day (date to be announced)! We will be sharing our poems and having a popcorn treat outside. Parents will be invited to attend this event. Look for an invitation coming home soon!

In math, we have moved on to our last unit of math, Unit 9. A family letter was sent home detailing the new unit. We have started working on dividing shapes into equal parts. We have learned new vocabulary words: one half, one of two, one whole, three-thirds, fourths, etc. We will continue with Unit 9 next week.
A home link will be coming home today with more practice on partitioning shapes!

In Science, we have observed our wheat seeds growing. We have measured and recorded their growth. We will be opening up the seed pods of our Brassica plants tomorrow. A Science test will be coming up next week. We will review in class plant life cycles, what all things need to survive and labeling plant parts.

In Social Studies we have begun a new unit on American Symbols. This week we read the book I Pledge Allegiance. The book details each part of the pledge and the meaning behind the words. We also read about the Statue of Liberty. We learned some facts about lady liberty in a Time for Kids article.

Field day is also coming up! June 1, we will have field day on our playground. Mrs. Bellino has planned an awesome day fun filled activities. If you would like to volunteer, please email her at LeeAnnbellino@wlcsd.org.

The warmer weather is here! Please consider sending covered toe sandals to school or gym shoes for  use on the playground. Flip flops can be very slippery on the pea pebbles and rocks get stuck inside of sandals, which can be uncomfortable!

There is no school on Monday, May 28th, in observance of Memorial day!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!
Mrs. Scheck

Week of May 14-18

Dear families,

What a fun week we have had in our classroom!

The most exciting part of our week was the Second Grade field trip to Millrace Village!
We loved stepping back in time to 1873 and seeing all the interesting buildings and artifacts. I think the students agree our most favorite part was the Wash Oak one-room school house! We sat in the desks, used real slates with chalk, read from real McGuffy readers and everyone tried on the dunce cap for fun.
Outside we played games such as: duck, duck, goose, jump rope, London bridge is falling down and marbles. We had a great time and hope the students learned a lot!

Mrs. Scheck's class in front of the Wash Oak one-room school house!

We have been continuing to write poetry in our room. This week we learned that poets select certain structures for their poems such as a conversation or a "list" poem. We have also been working on color poems!

In reading this week we read a book that compared schools from the past to today. We read the book Mr. Peabody's Apples by Madonna. The story has a great message about using your words wisely!

In math, this week we have finished unit 8. A study guide came home on Wednesday. We will review the study guide on Friday, May 18 and take the unit 8 math test. Look for a family letter to come home early next week!

Spring reading assessments have begun. I have been working one on one with students to test students.

We will not be having reading groups until I have been able to assessment every child. Please continue to have your child read daily at home.

In science we planted wheat seeds this week inside of straws. We will observe the seeds sprouting and the roots growing down into the "soil". We have cut our grass and it quickly grew back. We will observe the Brassica plants and how they grew seed pods containing what will be new Brassica plants. The new seeds the plants produce start a new life cycle for another plant.

In Social Studies, we shared our Venn Diagrams that compared  Schools in the Past to Schools in the present.

Reminders for the next few weeks...

Monday, May 28th is Memorial Day, we will not have school in observance of the holiday. 

June 1st is Field Day! If you would like to volunteer, please email myself or Mrs. Bellino. Lots of volunteers are needed to make Field Day a success!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Scheck

Week of May 7-11

Hello families,

This week in Second Grade we read the book Otis and the Kittens by Loren Long. This was another book in our Otis series. In this story Otis continues to show the same character traits: caring, kind, sympathetic,  and playful. We read how Otis goes inside a burning barn to save 6 kittens. He then gets stuck in the barn, crashing through the wooden floor. The animals pull together to rescue him this time! Students were finding the author's message and one said, "Don't leave anyone behind!" We also made a Venn Diagram comparing this Otis book to another Otis stories finding similarities and differences.

We continue to work on poetry in writing. We worked this week to make comparisons in our poems. We tried using similes and metaphors. We tried to stretch out a comparison through our whole poem!
Today we will have fun trying out an acrostic poem.

In math we continued to learn more about 3-D shapes. Many students brought in shapes to share with the class. We learned vocabulary words: side, face and edge. We also worked on making arrays and equal groups to begin learning how multiplication works! We will wrap up Unit 8 next week and be getting ready for a Unit test again near the end of the week.

In science we observed our growing grass and we "mowed" our lawns. We continue to see how our Brassica plants develop. We have seen pollen and now are waiting for the plants to grow seed pods as they come to the end of their life cycle. Today we will plant another seed.

In Social Studies we will continue to decide whether Walled Lake should have an amusement park. We will share our at home Venn Diagrams for schools today compared to schools in the past next week. Students diagrams are due on May 14th.

We will be going on our field trip to Mill Race Village on Wednesday, May 16th!

If you have not returned the slip notifying Wixom Elementary if your child will be returning next year, please send it in as soon as possible.

Have a great weekend,
Mrs. Scheck

Week of April 30-May 4

Hello families!

Here are some thing we will be doing this week in Second grade...

We are reading the another story in our Otis series! Today we read the book Otis and the Scarecrow. In this story Otis shows compassion and caring for the scarecrow left alone in the rain. We are building on our knowledge of Otis character. We will learn two new vocabulary words and work on making text to text connections with the book later this week.

Today we worked on writing poems with repeating phrases, words and images. We listened to poems where authors used sound words, rhyming and repeating phrases. We continue to use our poet's eyes and write down ideas that give us a big feeling. We will learn some new techniques to try out as well.

In math, we are continuing to work with polygons and 2-D shapes. Today students made 5 sided and 6 sided shapes with straws and twist ties. I will introduce the attributes of quadrilateral shapes. We compared the shapes we made. We will continue to work with 2-D shapes tomorrow and we will begin learning attributes of 3-D shapes later this week!

In social studies, we will continue learning the history of Walled Lake. We will learn about the amusement park that was once in Walled lake. We will discuss the pros and cons and then pick sides on the issue: Should we have an amusement park in Walled Lake?

In Science we have observed our Brassica plants as they are growing. We noticed the new leaves that appeared over the weekend. We will see this plant flower and go to seed quickly. We planted potatoes and will watch them grow stems. Tomorrow we are planting grass which we will observe over the next several weeks!

We have about two weeks until our field trip on Wednesday, May 16th. If you have not yet sent in your child's permission slip and fees, please send it in soon! The cost is $11.00.

Thanks and have a great week!
Mrs. Scheck