We have had a great start to the school year.  This group of students is up for many challenges placed before them.  I appreciate their tenacity and drive.

Math : We begin with number sense, how numbers impact our personal lives, looking at digits, ordinal numbers, structure of calendars, graphing, and odd / even.  This month our unit lessons consist of grouping 10's, 100's and then adding 1 more and 10 more.  I will also supplement the unit with basic addition equations both vertically and horizontally.  We will look for the missing addends.  Ex. of this 6 + 5 = 11,  6 +  ___ = 11,  ___ = 6 + 5.  Gaining the true understanding that all three of these digits work together to solve these equations.  Games will be added so when work is completed skills can be practiced.  Students will also have the opportunity to practice skills in center activities.  

A math journal is sent home for each unit that should be left home for homework purposes.  I will send an email/sheet home letting you know what pages should be done for homework.  I will make a weekly calendar.  I ask that homework not be completed prior to the assigned date because the children may not have learned the topic yet.

Reading : your child gets a monthly reading  log.  It has directions on one side and if you have further questions please don't hesitate to send me an email.  

HMH : Our new ELA program.  This program consists of a phonics piece called structured literacy, a written component, and a reading component.  It is a new program for the district that teachers are getting professional development on.   Components will be coming home and if you have questions please don't hesitate to ask.

This month we will begin with social studies.  We start with communities and discuss the importance of a community and how the members in a community all play an important role.  

We have finished out the month strong.  Update 9/29/2024

ELA

We finished module 1 in reading and structured literacy (phonics).  The children have worked very hard and they are learning  the routines. Structured literacy comes with routines to the program and as we move through it together they have picked up many of the patterns and seem to enjoy it.

The children have been learning about nouns, verbs, adj. and writing sentences with good descriptions.  We are working on writing a piece of fall writing where they will include nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  The children have been working all month on their September journal.  Most of them seem to enjoy it.  

MATH:

During module 1 of math they have done lessons in graphing, measurement (cm/m), place value (different forms), and looking at dollar bills.  When looking at different forms within place value they are learning about 

standard form - 286

unit form - 2 hundreds, 8 tens, 6 ones

expanded form - 200 + 80 + 6

written form - two hundred eighty six

base ten blocks to represent the numbers.  Then we use bills to sort to represent the number.  

S.Studies/Science:

We have talked about the life cycle of an apple.  Most of our time has been spent talking about community, rules in a community, citizens and how we interact with each other.  Moving into maps and globes.      

We are looking to form a garden committee.  If you would like to volunteer please send me an email.

October ended with our annual literacy parade.  The children enjoyed reading many of Kevin Henkes' books to decide which character they would like to be.  Their masks came out so adorable.  It was great seeing so many of you in attendance.

Math: Our first unit in math came to a close and the children did very well learning the concepts.  I am incredibly proud at how hard they have worked.  Our module assessment has gone home.  Also know that you can reach out with any questions at any time.  We have begun module 2 which consists of addition and subtraction. They are learning many different ways to solve equations however I have made it very clear to them that they need to own their own learning and solve equations by using the way that makes the most sense to them. Children are adding in the hundred thousands with regrouping once or twice and they are so proud of themselves.  We have just begun subtraction (using base ten blocks to rename).  They are doing very well.

ELA: We have finished modules 2 and 3 in the reading program.  The children continue to complete written responses for each text.  They are learning about many different concepts and strategies.  I am spending a substantial amount of time on retelling, main idea and answering questions by looking back into the text for evidence.  We are learning the importance of answering complete sentences by restating the question. As we begin unit 4 we will begin talking about fairy tales and we will include the strategies of beginning, middle, end, author's purpose, and retelling. In October they completed their In Fall books, wrote Witches Brew, and wrote clues behind their ghost.  We have learned about suffixes s and es, verbs, common and proper nouns, facts and opinions, and have just begun learning some editing skills. We will begin persuasive writing. We continue to add to our poetry notebooks.

Social Studies: We have been working on our map skills learning about how to read maps, using the compass rose, and symbols within a map key. We have looked at many different types of maps.  This week we will begin expanding our knowledge by talking about continents and oceans. 

SEL: October was kindness month. You should be incredibly proud of your children.  They are an extremely kind group who continually receive compliments and look out for others.

*We are still looking for a committee to help us get the garden ready for winter.

*Mayo is collecting items to be sent to those that have been effected by the tropical storm in NC

November we are Thankful for a wonderful time spent with each other. 

One of my favorite projects during the month of December is learning about how other cultures celebrate their holidays. So we "traveled" to other countries and learned how they celebrated their holidays and the children loved it. We learned about many different country traditions and completed projects.

Math: The children have come so far in their addition and subtraction knowledge. They have learned how to regroup and rename and I will call them experts at this point.  I'm so proud of them. When we subtract we talk through the problem to see if it makes sense. 

Ex.           329 - 164 =        I will suggest that they set it up vertically and then talk through the problem. We start with the digits in the ones column 9-4  = 5  then move to the tens column 2 - 6  we say can we do it? and we answer "NO"  so we go to the neighbor and ask for help.  3 gives us help so we cross out 3 and make it a 2, now go back to the tens column and say the 2 now becomes a 12.  now 12 - 6 =6  and 2 -1 is 1   the answer is 165. The important thing is we talk through the entire problem out loud. 

ELA: We have worked on fiction and fantasy.  Our reading responses have focused on beginning, middle, end and retelling. It is important to reflect on the components of what is important when you retell a story. We have read many different types of texts. We incorporated a week of compare and contrast by reading many different gingerbread stories. 

Our Choose To Be Nice Assembly ended the month out nicely. Our class has learned about honesty. We watched videos, read books, and did activities in our Monday library rotation.

ELA: Our units were based around nonfiction and information text. We learned about nonfiction conventions, what they are used for, and how they can help us while we read. We created a term book with definitions and examples. We used mentor texts and practiced. The children learned about table of contents, index, glossary, photographs, captions, diagrams, labels, maps, graphs, charts, comparisons, close ups, cut aways, and timelines. After reading different texts we completed reading responses which included, cause and effect, answering questions, defining terms, and beginning, middle and end.

Writing: We wrote our New Years resolution when we came back from our winter break. We started our narrative writing unit. We have been working on writing drafts. Learning how important it is to have a topic sentence and the detail sentences that support your topic.  How a concluding sentence supports our writing piece and wraps up our thoughts. Throughout the month we have developed that piece by adding details, editing (capitals, spelling, and punctuation), and building our sentences from simple to a bit more complex. Once they worked on their piece they printed it and then illustrated their sentences.  Many of the students are beginning their second piece of writing. 

Math: We finished unit 3 by taking our unit assessment this month. We worked on geometry, fractions and telling time. The children enjoyed this unit. We learned about the names of different shapes and their attributes. Created a term book to use as a resource. Then we moved into fractions, and they are able to identify both a numerator and denominator. Taking a shape and breaking it into parts with the understanding that a fraction is equal parts of a whole. We started telling time in the fall, so we were able to take time during this unit to simply revisit it.  Time is a life skill so we will continue to practice it throughout the year. 

As February comes to an end we begin our last Monday with a Choose to be Nice Assembly. 

ELA: Our module 6 in reading has wrapped up with reading many different types of text mainly nonfiction and historical fiction and learning about nonfiction text conventions (table of contents, glossary, photographs, captions, headings...). The children created a nonfiction term book that was used as a reference throughout the unit. We completed many different types of written responses that went with the texts we read (some altogether and some independently). I encourage the children to complete some of the responses independently as they have seen the response sheets multiple times and ones that I know they have multiple exposures to. 

We have completed our narrative writing unit. The children have written a handful of pieces of writing. We have worked on adding to our sentences to go from simple to more complex. We will begin this next week writing a piece on themselves called "The Greatest Kid". This piece of writing will culminate our unit. They will write four different paragraphs (what they look like, their family, their hobbies, & interesting facts). They will use our narrative writing rubric to construct this piece. 

Math: We practiced addition and subtraction in the hundreds. This was a skill that was taught earlier in the year but we have continued to practice this. The month of February is a shorter month so revisiting skills is important so we spent time on telling time, adding, subtracting in the hundreds, counting on with 10's and 100's. We will be moving into module 4 which is multi-step word problems.

We exchanged Valentines  which is always fun!!!

We will end the month on February 28th with a virtual Author visit from Melissa Stiveson. I won this by participating in a summer writing institute organized by friend and former colleague Andy Hacket. She is extremely kind to be holding the visit for the entire school. We are so excited to have her kicking off Read Across America. 

The children did an amazing job working on their informational writing pieces. They chose an animal and then began their research. 

Their habitats and paragraph writing was impressive.  They worked so hard and were so excited to present to the 4 kindergarten classes. I was incredibly proud of them as they took the responsiblity of sharing what they learned very seriously.  

In math we began module 6 which focuses on multiplication and learning about "groups of". We play a game, nests and eggs which the children enjoy. Ask them to teach you. 

We were visited by the Acton Discovery Museum who shared their knowledge of Matter along with such fun experiments. 

The last full month of second grade...WOW this year went quickly and I have had so much fun with your children.  

Writing- We are working on poetry and creating a collection of their created poems.  They will also create a fiction story. This process includes creating a character, 1-2 supporting characters, setting, developing a plot which will include a problem and solution. 

Reading- We continue to work through our reading group books, center work, and comprehension questions with decodable text.

Math- We will finish up module 6 and move onto module 5 which is filled with review material.

Science- this unit includes plants. The children have planted and will continue to both observe their baggie seeds along with the seeds they planted in small pots.