Cursive

I remember last year, one of the boys told me, "[classmate] writes her name in cursive."  They were impressed.  But hey, she had an older sister to teach her, and her name is only four letters long.  The other night Christian showed me he could write his whole name in cursive.   For some reason, I think he's starting to like cursive, even though he dislikes writing in general. 

Then last night, Ehren came home with his name written in cursive on both of his math worksheets.

I like it!

Midterm Update

While school takes effort for Ehren and Christian, they both brought home a glowing mid-term report this week with mostly A's and a couple of B's. 

I was hoping that would be the case since they've continued to have many perfect spelling tests and have been scoring 97-99% on recent timed 100 Math Facts tests.

Their teacher works hard to devise creative, engaging learning opportunities for the class.  She recently brought her two dogs, Rocky and Lexis, to class as subjects for a descriptive writing exercise.  Since then, every Friday, two students are selected to bring home a stuffed animal version of Rocky or Lexis for the weekend.  They write in a class journal about their weekend with their stuffed animal sidekick.  Writing is definitely the big challenge of second grade.

Next up, they have to power through writing their first big report on a historical figure and giving a presentation to their class.  Ehren chose George Washington, and Christian chose Thomas Jefferson.  They have finished reading the book they chose about their historical figure and have found one alternative source of information from the Internet.  They need to find one more.  At school, they're taking notes and preparing their reports.  The final presentation is coming up in less than a month.  More on this to come, but in the meantime, wish them luck!

Update: 100 Math Facts Test

You may recall that at our last parent-teacher conference, there was concern about the upcoming 100 math facts test.  In this timed test, the second graders must complete 100 adding facts in five minutes or less.  I was surprised and completely ecstatic when the results came home.

I checked with Ehren, "Did you do this test with a timer, in five minutes?" Then I double-checked with his teacher too. Yes, it was really true. Christian completed over 80% of the test in time allotted.  That wasn't too shabby either. At our parent-teacher conference this week, I found out they just completed another similar test, and both boys got A's on that one.  I'll be looking forward to seeing that test come home in their folders! More positive things to dwell on.  Now I'm not as apprehensive about the 100 subtraction facts test later this year.  They get six minutes on that one!

Math Cookies

Is there a more fun way to learn about math than making cookies? Probably not in second grade. Ehren and Christian's class got to make no-bake chocolate cookies to learn about measuring.

Pretty exciting stuff when you're in second grade.

Keeping Up With Second Grade

You may remember that Ehren's been working on improving his spelling test scores. Last Friday as he was going into school, I heard him say,"I can't wait for my spelling test!"  This Friday, he got back the results from that test.  He spelled all 15 words and the two challenge words correctly.  Pretty exciting stuff.

At parent-teacher conferences last week, we found out that we have new academic challenge to tackle.  In a few weeks, the second-graders will be taking a timed math test.  They have to complete 100 adding facts in five minutes.  Ehren and Christian's accuracy is there, but not the speed.  I found these five-minute adding frenzy grids for practicing at home.  I did a baseline assessment and found out Christian is at 8 minutes and Ehren is at 11 minutes.  I'm going to have them race each other for practice, but I can't have the winner get a piece of Halloween candy {yes, we still have a lot} because right now, Christian will win every time.  Instead, they are racing to beat their own best time.

As the baseline times show, Ehren is struggling more than Christian.  I overheard the two of them talking after they raced through the first two grids.  Ehren asked Christian, "How do you write those answers so fast?"  So, as extra motivation for Ehren, I dreamed up the 5-5-5 challenge.  Ehren is saving up for a deluxe pack of Pokemon cards that costs $15.  He has $5 so far, and I told him if he can get down to five minutes on these grids five times, I will give him another $5 towards his Pokemon cards.  I'll keep you posted.

Stack the States

Although she doesn't know it, my friend Bonnie is indirectly responsible for getting Ehren and Christian excited to learn about the states.  When she got a new iPad, she asked her blog readers and friends on Facebook what apps they and their kids liked. I don't have an iPad, but we love our iPod touch, so I scoured Bonnie's comments for good ideas. Lo and behold, someone mentioned "Stack the States."  I downloaded the free version, and the rest is history. I haven't found many educational iPod games that the kids really like, but Christian loves, loves, loves this one, more than any other game we have right now.  He's collected 41 states so far, and going strong. For the moment, he has forgotten that Tower Defense and Angry Birds exist.

This game is perfect for second graders except for one thing: reading the names of cities, states, and landmarks.  I forgot how hard some are to pronounce until my kids started trying to read names like Cheyenne, Phoenix and Louisiana.  Also, Christian likes to call Iowa "Aloha," which totally cracks me up.

Now Ehren generally isn't that excited about computer and video games, but even he like this one. In his excitement about the states, Ehren drew me this Texas-themed picture the other day.

As you collect more states, you unlock bonus games. The first bonus game is called "Pile Up!"  State shapes pile up.  At the bottom of the screen, a state name appears, and you have to click the corresponding state shape to make it disappear.  Given Christian's excellent visual memory, he excels at this game. He was correcting me as I tried to play. He might not remember how to pronounce "Louisiana," but he knows exactly what shape it is!