September 30- October 4

Hi Parents,

Reading

This week we are starting our next component of Daily 5 called Listen to Reading. It is all about listening to someone else read a book and following along to reinforce fluency, expression, and comprehension. We will be using websites such as Tumblebooks, Bookflix, and Pebble Go.

We will also be diving into an author study. We will be reading 5 different books by Leo Lionni and comparing and contrasting the characters, settings, problems and solutions.

Writing

This week we continue to work on launching Writing Workshop by Lucy Calkins.  This means we will continue to model  picking a topic, types of writing, what to do when you are done writing, and how to fix our writing and publish it.  This week we will focus on making booklets and how to tell a longer story over several pages (which develops into paragraphs in older grades). I will also continue to model complete sentences in my teacher model of writing for the class. I will begin to hold them responsible for complete sentences with capital letters and punctuation. We will also begin to discuss parts of speech.  We will begin with nouns.  At home you can help your child practice by asking them to list all the nouns they can think of or all the nouns they see in a room.

Spelling

Our spelling words continue to focus on beginning blend sounds flag, grip, strap, splash. Words will go home on Monday and we will check our learning on Friday.

Math

We’re going to be rockin’ in math this week with addition facts with sums up to 20!  We have some fun songs that will help you learn your math facts!  Learning strategies for addition problem solving with challenging word problems will be a focus.  Battling addition facts with decks of cards against a partner to see who has the fastest recall will be a blast!  We will review some math vocabulary words such as sum, addend and strategy.  We’ll have a delicious lesson on fact families and discuss that flip flop facts give you twice the knowledge.  The end of the week will be double the fun as we hop with doubles and get a little exercise too!  Please continue to practice math facts at home through games on IXL, decks of cards, dominoes or flashcards.  Students should have a 6 second recall for math facts.

Science

Solid, liquid, and gas! This week students will classify matter by it’s properties. We will discuss how matter has physical properties such as shape, relative mass, relative temperature, texture, and flexibility. Throughout the week, we will be performing simple experiments to understand that heating or cooling a material may change it’s state of matter.

Reminders:

• School pictures are October 3rd. Order forms went home in last week’s Tuesday folders. Pictures must be ordered ahead of time!
• Please remember that it is unsafe and now illegal to talk or text on your cell phones while you are driving in a school zone.
• Life journals are due on Friday.
• Library day is Thursday

September 23-27

Hi Parents,

Reading

Our next component of Daily 5 is called Read to Someone. We will practice sitting elbow to elbow, knee to knee and learn about different ways to read with a partner.

Our reading skill for the week focuses on connections. We will learn that good readers take what they have read and connect it to a past experience. Through books like Wemberly Worried and Roxaboxen we will learn about making text-to-self connections, text-to-text connections, and text-to-world connections. When reading this week at home, ask your child to think about what his or her book reminds them of!

Writing

Next week our writing will align with the school’s Education Go Get It theme.  The focus at the school will be going to college.  Our writing will focus on deciding on a career we would enjoy and then thinking about the choices we need to make to get there.  We will be discussing careers, what college we could attend or what training we would need, and choices we need to make in school to get to the college we want to go to.  It would really help your child to talk these ideas out with you at home before we begin in school.  I will tell them on Friday to think about a career they would like to have and that they might want to do some research at home to be prepared. On Monday they will be picking a career they would like in class and designing a “dream board” of their career, school, and college dreams.  We will then turn that into our writing piece for the week. This is a really cute activity, and it is always fun to see the ideas the kids come up with for their future!

Spelling

Our spelling words focus on beginning blend sounds, such as stop, twin, and scan. Words will go home on Monday and we will check our learning on Friday.

Math

We will continue working with place value this week.  “Peeking at Place Value” will will be a fun activity to get us moving around the room searching for big numbers.  We will work on matching number words to the numbers in standard form to 1,200.  How do you know if a number is odd or even?  We’ll learn the strategies to make it as easy as 1, 2, 3!  Students will become Place Value Detectives and search for number clues to solve an exciting mystery!  Number lines and order will be an active lesson as we create a human number line and discuss points on a line.  At the end of the week, students will have a place value assessment.

Science

We are starting our first unit in science this week! We’ll understand what a scientist does, the scientific method, and have the opportunity to be scientists ourselves! At the end of the week, we’ll be performing two exciting experiments!

Reminders:

Next week is Education Go Get It Week:

Monday:  “Give a Hoot/College Bound”   Students and teachers wear Kathy Caraway t-shirts.

Tuesday:  “Dress for Success” Students dress up in career outfits or as if they are going for an interview.

Wednesday:  “Step up for Education” Students and teachers wear sneakers or tennis shoes.

Thursday:  “Hats off to College” Students and teachers wear favorite collegiate hat.

Friday:  “Show Your College Spirit” Students and teachers wear their favorite collegiate t-shirt.

• September 25th is an early release day. School will end at 12:45. That night is also Family Skate Night starting at 6:30.
• School pictures are October 3rd. Order forms went home in last week’s Tuesday folders. Pictures must be ordered ahead of time!

September 16-20

Hi Parents,

Reading

We are becoming really great silent readers! Now it’s time to add to another component. We will be learning about Word Work this week. During Word Work we use materials such as paint, play-doh, pipe cleaners, and magnetic letters to practice our spelling words. It is a fun way to get some extra practice on our words for the week!

We will also be learning how to make an inference. We will take what we already know (our schema) and hunt down clues from the author to thoughtfully guess what is going on. We will be using clues to infer what special item is hidden in my box. We will also read Don’t Take a Shark to the Dentist and infer why that might be a bad idea.

Writing

In writing we are continuing to work on Writing Workshop following the Lucy Calkins model.  We are learning what to do when we are done with a writing piece, how to pick a new piece to start writing and how to edit and revise our writing.  We will use these skills all year on all of our writing pieces. At the end of the week we will publish our first piece and share with our class!

We will continue to also work on basic sentence skills.  This week we will focus on capital letters and sentence ending punctuation.

Spelling

We will continue with short vowel sounds this week. We are focusing on the -ea sound as in bread and words that end with a -ck. We will practice our words all week and then check our learning on Friday.

Math

In math, we will be learning about place value. We will also be working on putting numbers in order and recognizing greater or lesser values. We’ll have some engaging place value games that will teach us to recognize numbers in standard and expanded form.  Tuesday homework will reinforce place value and is due on Wednesday.

Social Studies

This week in Social Studies, we will be learning all about different types of landforms. We’ll be able to identify them and describe what they look like. We’ll end our geography unit with an assessment on Friday.

Reminders:

• September 25th is an early release day. School will end at 12:45. That night is also Family Skate Night starting at 6:30.

September 9-13

Hi Parents,

Reading:

We are continuing to practice the Read to Self portion of Daily 5. We are hoping to make it to 20 minutes of sustained silent reading this week! Our reading skill for the week is making predictions. Through guided and independent practice, we will be able to thoughtfully guess what will happen next!

Writing:

In writing we are beginning to launch our Writer’s Workshop. We’ll read The Best Story and brainstorm ideas in our writing journal of possible writing topics that we would like to write about this year. We will focus on telling stories through illustrations and draw a picture of something that has happened to us.  We’ll work on using the pictures to tell a friend the story before we write them.  Tapping into the dramatic side, we’ll discuss acting it out and using interesting descriptions to tell a story.  Each of us always has a story in our pockets; we just have to find it, take it out and share. At the end of the week, we will model writing a story with pictures and how to sound out words they get stuck on.  Having this strategy will show students how to move forward with writing stories without getting stuck on a word.  Picking a story from the heart will be a lifelong skill and will encourage our students to be awesome storytellers and writers!

Spelling:

Spelling words will come home this week. This first unit focuses on short vowel sounds. There will be a short assessment on Friday. More details will be given at Open House.

Math:

Graphing Galore is happening this week! We are going to take surveys, make tally charts, collect information and sort them into categories to make organizing our data easier. Have you ever made a pictograph with real shoes? What’s your favorite weekend activity? We will gather information and learn how to answer questions and analyze our graphs as problem solvers. Our first Tuesday math homework will go in this week’s Tuesday folders. Please complete and return on Wednesday.

Social Studies:

This week in Social Studies, we will be learning all about maps. We will discuss the purpose of maps and interpret basic elements such as title, compass rose, and legends. Students will also understand the location of the continents and oceans.
 

Reminders:

• Open House is Monday! 2nd grade’s time is from 6:30-7, with a PTA meeting immediately after in the cafeteria. If you have older children, grades 3-5’s time is from 7:30-8. Come and learn more about what to expect as the year goes on!

• Please make sure your child’s agenda comes back to school each day!

September 3-6

Hi Parents,

We have had a great week of getting to know each other and the routines of Second Grade! Now we are ready to dive into learning.

Reading

In reading we are starting to build the framework for Daily 5. This week we will spend time learning how to pick just-right books and different ways to read a book. Our goals is to become  independent readers as we practice reading to ourselves. We are building our stamina and will be pro-readers in no time!

Writing

In writing we will be reviewing sentences in a fun way.  We will learn  what makes a sentence by  focusing on complete thoughts, capitalization, and correct punctuation.  We will be using our knowledge to make  up funny sentences to write a short comic strip. At the end of the week we will be able to jump into Writing Workshop with full sentences!

Math

We will be working on telling time this week.   Starting by estimating how long common tasks take, a second, minute or hour, we will then move on to telling time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, and 5 minute intervals on a digital and analog clock.  We’ll discuss the difference between the minute and hour hand and complete a flipbook of time.  At the end of the week, we will race against the clock and work on some problem solving skills with telling time.

Spelling

This week we will take a short spelling inventory that will guide our spelling instruction for the year.  In second grade we use the program Words Their Way, and we focus on sorting words by focusing on  a spelling pattern.  We will go over our spelling in more detail at Open House, and our first set of spelling words will come home the following  week.

Social Studies

This week we will discuss the significance of ethnic and cultural celebrations in our city, state, and nation. We will also be learning about landmarks, and how stories, poems, and paintings can reflect local cultural heritage.

Reminders:

• Agendas will start coming home this week. Please record your child’s reading minutes and initial in the appropriate box. Send these back to school each day.
• Open House is September 9th. Be sure to check back for times.
• Looking ahead: We have an early release day on September 25th. School will end at 12:45. Buses will run normally.