Storytell Like Stella

Dear Families,

It's hard to believe the end of September is already here!  The children have settled nicely into our new academic routines and continue to be Respectful, Mindful, and Cooperative second graders.  We celebrated filling our Marky Mark container a second time, with PJ and stuffy day!

Druing Writing Workshop, we read Stella Tells Her Story and practiced ways writers plan, by telling their story across the pages of a booklet and thinking about what happened first, next, then and last.  We also studied Fireflies as our mentor text and noticed what the author did in her writing, that we could also try in our writing.  Some things we noticed were: precise words, describing the setting, adding character thinking and feeling. 

This week we began our Word Study routine.  Word Study is based on learning word patterns rather than memorizing unconnected words.  While the children are learning this new routine, they will all have the same set of words.   When the routine is solid, children will be working in small groups.  The children participated in a word sort, blind partner writing sort, speed sort and ended the week with a word check.  You will find this word check in your child's take home folder today.

Day 2 Writing Sort

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Hope and Dreams
~Math games Battling Bugs & What's the Difference
~Strategies for figuring out tricky words
~Exploring Google Slides
~Bubble Gum Brain

Have a great weekend!
Katie

Readers Grow Like Beanstalks

Dear Families,

There's a wonderful way we begin each school day and it's called Morning Meeting! Morning Meeting usually takes between fifteen and twenty minutes.  Each morning, we gather in a circle.  We begin by greeting each other.  Every day, your child hears his or her name spoken by a classmate in a friendly and cheerful manner.  Next is sharing.  There are five goals of sharing.  Students will develop and practice the skills of caring communication, such a empathetic listening, to help children know others and be known, to encourage habits of inquiry, to give opportunities for children to practice speaking in a strong individual voice, and finally to develop children's vocabulary and language skills. After sharing, there is an activity for the whole class.  We might sing or recite a poem or play a game.  The activity time helps the class feel united as a group, reinforces academic skills, and helps the children learn how to cooperate and solve problems.  Finally, we read the morning message chart, which helps students think about the day ahead.  Sometimes, I use this time teach a reading, punctuation, or math skill.  Every day, Morning Meeting lets children know that school is a safe place where all children's feelings and ideas are important.  We'd love to have you visit a Morning Meeting.  You'll see for yourself why we're so excited about this start to our day.

We wrapped up our  Peter Reynolds author study by reading Rose's Garden and The North Star.  In Rose's Garden, Rose plants flower seeds in a neglected corner and waits patiently for them to grow. In The North Star, Peter Reynolds encourages readers to observe, to wonder, and to consider taking a new path - to pursue their dreams. Students created their own flowers and stars which will be added to a second grade hallway garden display.  

Our first unit in Reading Workshop is titled Second-Grade Reading Growth Spurt.  Students are learning that growing up doesn't just mean getting taller; it also means growing to be stronger readers. Stronger readers make lots of decisions as they read; they decide how their reading will sound, how much they will read, and how to make sure their reading makes sense.  This week we practiced building our reading stamina.  We were able to read independently for 25 minutes each day this week!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Before you speak...THINK (Is it true? helpful? inspiring? necessary? kind?
~Wonderous Word Jar
~3 ways writers get ideas for stories
~Changing the background on Chromebooks
~Count & Compare Two's

Have a great weekend!

Katie

Change Your Words, Change Your Mindset

Dear Families,

Our first full week of second grade was a combination of building our classroom community, and beginning our academic routines.  With the beginning of academics, it's especially important for children to maintain a growth mindset.  This week we  read Flight School and created a class anchor chart with growth mindset phrases.  This chart will hang in our classroom as a constant reminder of how your words can impact your mindset. 

In keeping with the Dot day theme, our STEM challenge this week was to create a tower using only  12 index cards and 20 dot stickers. Students encountered many challenges like towers falling over, and dots not sticking!

On Friday, September 14th the Second grade took a trip to Oakledge Park to celebrate International Dot Day.  Please check back to see all our fun,  once all picture forms have been returned to the main office!

We are still taking donations of unscented baby wipes.  We have already seen some sickness in our class. Cleaning our tables at the end of each day helps to ensure everyone stays healthy!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Farm to School - making salsa
~Number Racks
~Math Menu
~Name & game book
~One - kind vs. unkind words

Have a great weekend!
Katie

Just Make a Mark and See Where it Takes You!

Dear Families,

It has been a wonderful second week in second grade!  Students have been working hard to be respectful, mindful and cooperative learners. We have earned our first classroom celebration this week.  We celebrated with gum day today!

During the month of September, we will be assessing our skills in reading, writing and math.  We will be keeping the majority of your child's written work in school in a working portfolio.  It is helpful to them and to me to revisit their work so that we can continuously look at their progress.  It will be fun sharing it at a variety of times during the course of the year.   All of their work will come home at some point.  Thank you for understanding the value of keeping a working portfolio.

The second grade is also participating in a Peter Reynolds author study.  We have read The Dot, Ish and Sky Color.  We chose Peter Reynolds because of his positive messages and he supports our work with growth mindset.  The world has recognized his fabulous work and recognizes September 15th as International Dot Day.  The second grade will be celebrating the community that we have built over the past two weeks by going to Oakledge Park on Friday, September 14th and participating in more team building activities.  Look for more information on Monday. 

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Team building games: Octopus, Elbow Tag, What Time is it Mr. Fox, Turtle Tag
~The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes and Your Fantastic Elastic Brain
~Helping Harry Engineering challenge
~Collecting 60 minutes a day in Number Corner
~Counting stations in Math

Have a great weekend!
Katie