2 A

November 2, 2026

Families,

We hope you had a fun Halloween and a lovely weekend. 

Thank you to Celine’s mom Tammy, Zoe’s dad James, Colton’s dad Josh, Arielle’s mom Katie, and Dylan’s mom Vanessa for joining us on our trip to Sunset Park.

This week is Solidarity Week where students learn about the importance of standing in solidarity and being an ally to the LGBTQ+ community at Poly and in our larger world. We’ll read many books and have discussions. We are headed to the Dyker Heights campus for a school-wide celebration on Wednesday, November 4.  Students will do an art activity with students from the Upper School. Second graders should wear a blue shirt that day so we can form a big rainbow flag with the whole school. We’ll return to the Lower School around 12pm and have pizza lunch in our classroom.

Our next field trip is walking over the Brooklyn Bridge on Thursday, November 12. We will walk halfway over the bridge and then turn around and walk back. Any chaperones who are interested may join us. Please let us know if you’re planning on joining us. Meet us at Cadman Plaza around 9:15 AM. We’ll walk over the bridge together and then students will board buses in time for lunch back at school. Meet us at this google maps link near the Brooklyn War Memorial at Cadman Plaza. 

Tons of new photos to check out! Highlights include buddy time, our trip to Sunset Park, and Halloween.

We look at both Pick Up Patrol and the lunch menu every day at Morning Meeting. 

Please continue to send in snacks and water bottles for your child every day.

Your Second Grade Team,

Inha Yang (2A Head Teacher) iyang@polyprep.org

Joyce Vizcaino (2A Associate Teacher) jvizcaino@polyprep.org

Sarah Davies (2B Head Teacher) sdavies@polyprep.org

Bria Jourdain (2B Associate Teacher) bjourdain@polyprep.org

Important Dates:

NOVEMBER

02: School Closed: Professional Day 

03: Solidarity Week (Nov 3-6)

04: Solidarity Week Celebration, Gr 2 students should wear BLUE

06: Fall Conference Sign-Ups shared in Pulse

06: POLY PM Winter Enrichment Courses shared in Parent Portal

12: Gr 2 Field Trip to Brooklyn Bridge 9:15 AM - 11:00 AM - all parents welcome to join!

13: LSPA November Meeting, 8:45 AM - 10:00 AM

14: HUGS B&L Friendsgiving, 6:00 PM

16: POLY PM Winter Enrichment Registration Opens, 10:30 AM

17: United Voices November Meetings, 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM

19: No After School: In-Person Conferences (3:30 - 6:30)

20: Regular Day of School. After School Open

23: School Closed: Virtual Conferences

24: School Closed: Lower School Professional Day

25: School Closed for Thanksgiving (Nov 25 - 27)

What’s going on in our classroom:

Reading

Reading groups are currently reading the Nate the Great series, the Pinky and Rex series, Bunnicula, The Littles, and the Catwings series. Students discuss the text and write responses. Reading groups also review phonics lessons taught in class and work on applying them to their own reading. 

Writing

Students continue writing personal narratives. They are working on focusing on the most important part of their stories. We talked about adding inside thoughts and feelings in our writing. 

Fundations

Students are practicing vowel suffixes such as -er, -est, -s, -es, and the past tense suffix -ed, which has three distinct sounds: /id/, /t/, and /d/, as in: wanted, jumped, and showed. We’ve linked our current Trick Words if you’d like to practice them at home with your child.

Math

Students finished their unit on addition with regrouping. We continue to work on mental math strategies and using friendly numbers like 10 and 100. Remember that we have subscriptions to ixl.com for extra math practice at home if you’re interested.

We start multiplication this week! Students will learn that multiplication is repeated addition. We will look at pictorial representations of multiplication, and identify the number of groups and the number of objects in each group. Students will write addition equations and multiplication equations that match the picture. 

Social Studies

Students observed slides, took notes, and wrote about the Roeblings. This week they’ll start learning about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Ask your child what it was like for the sandhogs working in the caissons!

Read Alouds

We continue reading The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron. We also read Cinderella Skeleton by Robert D. San Souci, “The Big Toe,” from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz, “The Green Ribbon” from In a Dark, Dark Room by Alvin Schwartz, and The Widow’s Broom by Chris Van Allsburg.