💡What We're Learning This Week💡

🔤Phonics: This week we started unit 11. Focused on new vowel teams: ea and ey!

📖Reading: In this unit, students build on their plant knowledge by exploring how we get the fruits, vegetables, and flowers we enjoy. They are investigating the guiding question: How do pollinators help plants grow and survive?

Students are learning about different types of pollination, with a focus on how animal pollinators—especially insects like bees—help plants reproduce. Through whole-group research, students study how bees help plants, and in small groups they research other insect pollinators.

Throughout the unit, students create scientific drawings and models to show their thinking. Their learning will conclude with an informative writing piece explaining how pollinators help plants grow and survive.

🔢Math: We are beginning a new module in math! Students are learning to recognize and describe two-dimensional shapes by their defining attributes, such as the number of sides and angles. They identify, build, and describe polygons including triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons.

Second graders are also learning about right angles, parallel sides, and equal side lengths to compare and sort quadrilaterals. For example, they discover that a square is a special type of rhombus with four right angles.

Students will also connect two-dimensional shapes to three-dimensional figures by relating a square to a cube and describing cubes by their faces, edges, and vertices.

🌍Leader in me🌍

Leader in Me Habit 4: Think Win-Win

We are continuing to focus on Habit 4: Think Win-Win, which means acting with both courage and consideration. Students are learning to share their ideas bravely (courage) while also being kind, respectful, and thoughtful of others’ feelings (consideration). Practicing both helps create an inclusive classroom and stronger conversations during learning.

How to practice at home:

Encourage your child to speak up respectfully about their needs and ideas.
Model listening carefully and showing kindness when others share their thoughts.
Talk through disagreements and guide your child to be both brave and thoughtful.
Notice and praise moments when your child shows courage and consideration.

Building these skills helps children become confident, respectful problem-solvers.

🔤Fundations🔤

Level Two_Family Letters-11.pdf

📚EL Reading and Writing✍️

In Unit 1, students are learning about the guiding questions "How do plants grow and survive?". Students learn about the stages a plant goes through in its life cycle. Students learn about each stage: seed, plant, flower, and fruit.

In Unit 2, students use the background knowledge they have developed about plants to learn more about pollinators and the role they have in pollination. We will read and research to learn about how pollinators help plants grow and survive. They will learn about ways that plants get pollinated with a focus on animal pollinators. We will learn about bees as a pollinator. Students will do research about the topic and will write a pollinator booklet to show what they have learned.

In Unit 3, students apply their learning about plants and pollinators in their end of module activity. They will choose a pollinator to research. They will create both a visual presentation and notecards to present their learning to students in another class.

Throughout the units, students participate in collaborative conversations with their peers to process and extend their understandings of the relationships between plants and pollinators.

Important Reminders🗣️

The temperatures in our classrooms are hard to regulate, your child may want to bring a jacket or sweatshirt to keep in their cubby. You may want to put their name on the tag in case they misplace it.

Remember to either send your child in tennis shoes or to pack tennis shoes when it is your classes PE day!

Royal: Tuesday Rhye: Monday Coomes: Wednesday

What can you do at home each night to help your child?

Math facts:

- Making 10. ( 7 + __ = 10, 4 +__= 10, “When I say 9 you tell me what number is needed to make 10.” Child says “1.”)
- Facts to 10. (3 +__= 9, 5 + __= 7, “When I say 6 you tell me what number is needed to make 8.” Child says “2.”)
- Doubles Facts: 6 + 6, 8 + 8, 4 + 4, etc.

High Frequency Words/Trick Words/Heart words

There are many names for them, but they are all words that don’t follow our usual rules of phonics!

It is VERY IMPORTANT that students know these words by heart and automatically!!

Here is a link to videos that can help your child learn trick words.

https://www.reallygreatreading.com/heart-word-magic

-Helping your child with these at home will greatly improve your child’s reading skills.

When we read with students we are looking at 3 different things:

Accuracy, Fluency, and Comprehension.

When your child is reading at home, you can work on these things too!

For accuracy, if you notice that your child misreads a word, don’t immediately stop them. Instead, wait until they finish the sentence or the page and read the sentence with the error back to them the same way they read it and see if they can find the error and correct it. Remind your child to finger stretch unknown words and use the sounds we are learning in phonics to help them read the words correctly.

For fluency, if you notice that your child’s reading sounds choppy, ask them to reread what they read to make it smoother. Remind your child that their reading should sound like talking. 80% of what a child reads should be easy for them to help them build their fluency. Rereading familiar books is a great way to build fluency. Students may also bring home fluency passages they can read and time themselves to work to build their number of words they can read in 1 minute. At the beginning of the year, students should be able to read 50-60 words per minute.

For comprehension, ask your child questions about what happened in the stories they read. You can also have them retell the story to see if they can tell you the important details from the story. If there is a part they cannot remember, have them go back and reread that part of the story.

Thank you for all your support!

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