Post date: Aug 24, 2018 8:11:20 PM
Our first few days were a success. Here is some news for the upcoming week 8/27-8/31.
Since our days continue to be shorter this week and we will be dealing with some warm temperatures, we continue to ease into our 2nd grade work... remember that students may continue to wear their P.E. uniforms throughout the week so that they are comfortable.
This week, we will really start to get into our LITERACY series READING STREET. Our theme for Unit 1 is Exploring Communities, and for the first week, the main selection is realistic fiction titled The Twin Club. We will read the main selection twice together and students will be asked to read it aloud to you at home to build fluency.
Here are some important words we will focus on this week...
High Frequency Words: beautiful, country, friend, front, someone, somewhere
Note - High frequency words, also called sight words, are words that appear often in print and students need to be able to recognize them without having to decode them. Just a few of these each week will be included on our spelling list.
Selection Vocabulary: cousins, meadow, parents, promise
We will write and define our vocabulary words in our Word Work notebook so they can be reviewed for our Weekly Reading Test.
Spelling and Phonics: rock, job, sack, mess, list, sad, tag, dust, desk, chop, rib, drum (also country and someone) 14 words total
On Friday of each week, we will have Weekly Spelling and Weekly Reading Tests. The spelling test will include the 12 words listed above, plus some of the High Frequency words listed. For this week, students should practice and be able to spell country and someone. Weekly Reading Tests include a Vocabulary section that assesses knowledge of the words listed above. Word Work done in student notebooks will be sent home for review on Thursday to help students prepare for weekly tests. Be sure to bring the Word Work notebook back to school! Grammar and Writing practice will be done mainly in our Voyages in English Workbook.
For this first week in Unit 1, our Weekly Tests will be practice.
MATH
This past Friday, students took a Math Inventory Assessment (no grade recorded) so that I could see where I need to begin this year with review and new content. For this week, we will be reviewing some skills learned in 1st grade. How parents can help -- It is important that 2nd graders have mastery of their basic addition and subtraction facts, so please make it a habit to review these for a few minutes each day at home.
SCIENCE & SOCIAL STUDIES
Our days are so full that we don't have enough time to do both! We will begin after Labor Day with SCIENCE Chapter One - Matter. After we complete this, we will refocus our time and energy on the first chapter of our Social Studies series.
RELIGION
Our Religion series is Blest Are We. As you know, 2nd graders prepare for and receive two sacraments, Reconciliation and 1st Eucharist. I noticed that there is a Reconciliation meeting for parents on our school calendar for September 17 at 7 p.m. Please make a note of it.
HANDWRITING
We begin our year with a review of manuscript writing. Once I feel that students are ready, we will dive into cursive. Please encourage your child to take their time to form their letters correctly and neatly.
CONDUCT
We are reviewing classroom expectation daily. This week I am sending home a list of these 10 "I Will" statements and ask that you review them with your child, sign and return the bottom portion by Friday, 8/31. We have discussed consequences together as well, and will review those regularly. This is a nice bunch of 2nd graders, so I don't anticipate any real trouble! Ask them to tell you about Groot Fruit!
OTHER
If you have not yet sent in $3 for an assignment notebook, please do so as soon as you can. 2nd graders need to learn to be responsible for their homework assignments, and writing them down each day is very helpful.
A few students are still missing some supplies. I'm checking things off as they come in and will let you know by the end of the week if anything important is still needed.