GRADE  2

    Happy 2008 from Mrs. Butler's second grade!  The beginning of a new year is very exciting.  Mrs. Butler's class finished 2007 with their own Chapel service during the Advent season.  Mr. Sanger led this service with Mrs. Butler, who read a poem, "Jesus is the Reason For the Season."  The second grade's message was to tell about the meaning of the symbols of Christmas.  Each student read about what their specific symbol meant and showed a picture of the symbol.  They worked very hard preparing for their readings at this special service attended by Grades K-8, teachers, staff members and parents.

     The second grade also went on two field trips.  One to Medieval Times and the other to a Christmas musical at Count Basie Theatre, which was about customs of other countries.  Both trips were enjoyable and educational.

     Getting ready for the winter season has been fun.  The children have been busy making snowflakes, snowmen, mittens, and "Winter Fun" drawings to decorate and display in the classroom and hallway.  They also wrote stories about their favorite things to do in winter which are displayed for everyone to read.

     February 7th is our Academic Fair and the children will be making dinosaur dioramas and informational booklets about dinosaurs.  Learning all about dinosaurs is one of our science units.  We are also learning about animals and how they survive in the winter.  One of our favorite units of study is learning all about the rain forest.

     Our Reading, Spelling and Language Arts activities continue to be met with motivation and enthusiasm by the children.  We have Spelling Bees, learning games and do a lot of creative writing.  The children are learning many new vocabulary and spelling words and their definitions.  Many new words are written in their "Words I Use" booklets for reference.  Using a dictionary is also encouraged as needed.

     We continue to work on sequencing events in a story, finding the main idea of the story, drawing conclusions and reading with expression.

     Basic math concepts are being reviewed.  We do a lot of graphing activities and are adding and subtracting two-digit numbers.  Adding three-digit numbers will be introduced shortly along with regrouping of numbers. Using a hundreds chart has been taught.

     In Social Studies we continue to learn about different customs, various landmarks, rules and laws and map skills.  The children really enjoy doing all of the map skills activities.

     Mastering any kind of learning takes practice, and the skills being taught in our second grade, on a daily basis, helps each child progress successfully towards his/her potential.