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2S Newsletters via Weekly Reports
-and- Backpack Binders
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Embedded Files
Weekly Newsletters via "Weekly Reports!"
To save paper, my classroom newsletter will be printed on the back of our 2S weekly reports. Weekly reports go home at the end of the week (usually Fridays), and are to be signed by parents and returned/handed-in to me by students at the start of the next week (usually Monday mornings). If you don't have a chance to read the curriculum blurb over the weekend, please still sign the sheet to send back in with your child to develop and increase student responsibility. You can reach out to me anytime and I am happy to send along the newsletter blurb you may have missed via email.
The “2S Weekly Report” will share a little newsletter blurb on what we’ve been learning about and working on in 2S that week (yay curriculum - academic and social!), as well as sharing your child’s individual learning effort and behavior over the course of that week. I want to emphasize that this report will NOT be indicative of how your student is doing academically. It is not a “report card,” but instead is a report/update on your child’s effort and behavior that week regarding our 2S decided-upon rules for best learning (to be determined by the class each trimester as we consider our individual goals/hopes and how we can help each other as a class to reach them!). In the first weeks of school, I will fill it out for them, but eventually students will evaluate themselves to start to build their own self-awareness and set their own goals to improve upon.
That said, no one is perfect! We learn from mistakes! If we “break” it (say something mean to a friend - “break” their feelings, or actually knock something over and it breaks or ruins)… we fix it! If we need help, we try first and then ask! We are all growing and learning, getting better at certain things and working on others.
The students and I will discuss how there is usually at least something to work on for the next week - a goal to set. Even though getting all ✩s across everything all week long would be possible, it is unlikely as we all have things we can improve upon or areas we can grow in - we are growing humans and we all have “moments!” That said, ✩s mean “yes!” they pretty consistently met effort/ behavior/rule expectations. A ✓ means “mostly!” meeting those expectations. A 〜 (“wiggle”) means “working on” meeting those expectations and usually will be followed by a goal or note in the words of your child (though handwritten by me from our little chat we had to reset and retry for next week).
Backpack Folders
Students will come home each night with their backpack/back-n-forth folder that will live in their backpacks. Their Backpack Folder is “happy when it’s empty!” Students will be working on getting into the independent habit/routine of checking it each night at home to see if there is anything to give to you or get signed/returned to school. In the first few weeks of school (and maybe longer for some - remember: student development is not linear and therefore is different for every child), students may need some helpful reminders to check their Backpack Folder each night as they get start to develop that at-home student responsibility routine.
At the end of every week (usually Fridays), students will come home with their “2S Weekly Report” (to be signed and returned!) in their backpack folders. They will also come home on Fridays with that weeks' collection of work/activities which can be taken out and kept at home (feel free to recycle or scrapbook as desired - but please have your child celebrate/show you first as this can boost confidence and remind them of all the great work they are doing and effort they are putting in!). Their weekly collection of work will consist of unfinished/finished coloring, activity sheets, worksheets, completed unit work. Unfinished worksheets can be used/counted as homework practice if they'd like to complete them (typically math or spelling sheets), but is not mandatory. They were assigned as extra practice already, so do not need to be completed on my end, but can be a good resource for choice-homework tracking.
**Please note: You will see a lot of math and fundations(spelling) sheets coming home in 2nd grade, but not as much of what students have been working on in writing, reading, or science/social studies on a daily basis. 2nd grade writing, reading, science/social studies work accumulates, grows, changes, and progresses throughout each several week unit - so at the end of those units, that work will come home in its entirety to celebrate! (That said, works-in-progress will often be posted digitally in their Seesaw Accounts - so stay tuned!)
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