Last week we had the privilege of Mystery Number Skyping with a 2nd grade class from New Jersey.  This was the furthest distance that we have been so far.  It was exciting to find out that they live in a town that is almost the same size of our town.  It was also fun to hear that when it snows they always cancel school.  This class was amazed that we have recess outside in the snow.  Check out our Twitter feed to find out more information about what we learned.

We are reviewing 3 digit numbers.  After putting our “flags” together, we wrote the number in number form (289) , written form (two hundred eighty-nine), expanded form (200+ 80 + 9 = 289), and base ten form (using base 10 manipulates 2/100’s, 8/tens, 9/ones). We are getting ready to start adding 3 digit numbers together.

We are working on making inferences for the next couple of weeks. This is one of my favorite strategies because when kids can infer they start to really understand what the author is trying to tell them.  We infer using our schema (what we already know) and text clues (pictures or words).  Good News Bad News by Jack Mach is an excellent book that I use to make inferences with.  Ask your son or daughter how to infer tonight.

Pictures taken by Kaycie and Sam (class photographers for the day)

We finally won a round of mystery skype! Not only did we guess their number correctly before they guessed ours, we found a 2nd grade classroom that we have a lot in common with.  We both have cold, snowy weather, we like to fish and play video games in our spare time, and we both have a class pet.  We also found out that they live in a city that has 88,000 people.  This is considerably a bigger city than us.  We will be tweeting more things that we found out about the other 2nd grade class later today.  Can’t wait for the next Mystery Skype!

All year long, we work on expanding our vocabulary.  We start by Mrs. Hammer choosing the words (they are posted on the doors on the 2nd picture) .  This week students are starting to pick their own interesting words.  Students will identify these words in their reading and be able to use them correctly when they speak and in their writing.

All pictures taken by student photographers.

We have been learning to count coins up to $1.00.  We practice counting coins using fake money,  QR codes (students figure out the problem then scan the QR code to check their answer) , games and of course worksheets.  We are also learning how to make different combinations of coins for a specific value.  For example, How many different coin combinations can you make to show 52 cents?  The best way to practice at home is to hand your son/daughter a hand full of coins and have them count it up or ask them to build a specific amount 2 different ways.