September 16th

Hello Parents,

 

Grade 2 has been a busy place the past couple of weeks.

 

Reading

We are just finishing up our first bend in our reading workshop (Taking Charge of our Reading).  The unit is entitled “Second-Grade Reading Growth Spurt”. We have been talking about and learning strategies which we will need throughout second grade as we practice reading more and more.  We have played with reading books with a voice of our choosing, figuring out how books “want” to be read, and have practiced reading for longer and longer periods of time with the help of a daily reading goal.  When reading at home you might try deciding how a book wants to be read or to decide together to read a book in a way of your own choosing.

Writing

In writing, we are also finishing up our first bend (Studying the Masters for Inspiration and Ideas). The name of our first writing unit of the year is “Lessons from the Masters: Improving Narrative Writing”.  In addition to continuing to work with graphic organizers during the planning phase of our writing, students have been practicing writing more with the thought in mind that we need to make our writing interesting for the reader.  Some of the strategies we have been trying out are Tiny Topics, Stretching out Small Moments, and Magnifying Small Moments. You might give your students a small notebook in which they can keep their “tiny topics”. That way if they think of a topic to write about at home or over the weekend they will have it for writing at school.

 

Math

We have been working on telling time to the 5 minutes on an analog clock and on skip counting by 5s and 10s to help support their time practice.  Most recently we have been working with polygons and have been exploring with pattern blocks what we can build with various polygons.

Social Studies

This past week in social studies we began a discussion on where might things have come from.  The discussion was begun with the idea that humans have wondered about some of the same things they may be wondering about right now for a long long time.  We had a brief “discussion with no answers” about where the Sun came from, Galaxies, the Earth, people, etc. We talked about how humans have wondered about this and have many tales about the origins of everything.  Over the next couple of weeks, we will explore some origin stories from around the world before introducing students to the stories scientists tell. So, if students ask you if you know any stories about beginnings, feel free to share and have them bring those to our class discussions.  One of the exercises which my students have always loved doing is creating their own world through writing and pictures. We will do this next week after we have heard some stories from around the world this week.

Science

As Ms. Mira and I continue to prepare our brand new science kitt on solids, liquids, and gases, students have continued to hone their observational skills.  We have been outside the classroom to various sites around the school in order for students to study the natural world utilizing their senses (not taste). We have also been keeping track of the daily weather (temperature and current conditions) and have begun charting our findings.  We have decided as a group that a line plot graph works best for keeping track of the daily temperature and that a bar graph works well to keep track of current conditions.

Important notices and/or reminders

 

• Last week of swimming coming up.  Don’t forget those swimsuits. We have swimming on Monday, Thursday, and Friday.  It is always a good idea to label your child’s belongings with their name in case of accidental misplacement or confusion of who’s is who’s.

 

• September 22 and 23rd.  LSN Invitational swimming and volleyball tournaments.  Come out and cheer on the leopards as we compete with other schools in the city.
• September 29th.  LSPA Welcome back picnic.  Details sent out by LSPA.
• Wednesday, October 3rd is an early release day.  Students are dismissed at 11:50.
• Friday, October 5th is parent-teacher conference day.  Look for more info coming in the next week or so. Just a quick reminder, students stay home this day.
• ASAs continue this week.
• Be sure to get your student’s lunch order completed online. Reminder and the next week selections are sent home Wednesday via email.

 

Finally, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions or concerns  

mstinson@lsnepal.com

 

Mr. Matt and Ms. Mira