Classroom Activities 07-08

The second grade students at Boone Central have been working to improve reading. The students practice high frequency word lists and phrases to increase their reading rate. They have also been reading books and taking quizzes for Accelerated Reader. Phonics also has a part in increasing reading skill. Students have been looking at patterns in words to help them with decoding skills.

Second graders are reading stories to increase their fluency. We practice oral and silent reading in the classroom. The students work in pairs and read to each other.

The second graders are using Saxon math year. Each morning we begin the day with various activities dealing with math: calendar, money, patterns, skip counting, reading graphs, days of the week, temperature and time. There is a new student of the day that begins our charts with date, time , temperature and attendance. At present, we are working with double digit addditon and subtraction. With double digit addition, the students work with grouping and regouping. With subtraction, the students have been borrowing. The students have also been working with telling time to the five minutes and identifying a.m. and p.m.

The social studies class has been studying consumers and producers, spending, saving, and needs and wants. As part of this study, both second grade classes visited Cornerstone Bank. They listened to a presentation by Tami Nolan, that included visiting the vault, looking at the security camera, and watching how a machine counts, totals and wraps various coins.

The second grade students have assignment books so they can see what they have to complete. They need to bring them home to have them checked daily by their parents. The students have been praciting writing skills by journaling given topics and topics of their choice. The assignment books work well for parents to see what needs to be done for homework.

Second graders also are working with a program to help them remain focused while in class. The students are each given a green apple. When the student misbehaves they will turn in the green apple for a yellow apple. When the student loses the yellow apple, they get a red apple. If they receive a red apple, they have a nonsocial lunch and lose ten minutes of lunch recess. The students also have a reward system. As they follow classroom rules each day, they are rewarded with a penny for each time they are caught doing something good. When they have received 30 pennies, they choose a prize from the treasure box.

The second grade students have had their grandparents visit their classroom for Grandparent's Day in September. The grandparents shared their school experiences and read to their grandchild. We celebrated reaching our AR goals for the first quarter by having a sundae party. The students created their own sundaes.

This year we have tried something different with the social studies and science classes. Mrs. Simpson is teaching the science classes and Mrs. Beckman is teaching the social studies classes. This has been a great experience. We are able to get to know the students from both classes and it is exciting to share ideas between classes.