Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
We had another learning-filled and busy week together. Ms. Filion visited our class this week with a special read aloud about belonging and inclusion. It fit beautifully into the themes that we have in our classroom this year. Thank you Ms. Filion for reading to us.
Social-Emotional Learning:
We continued discussing what the word “belonging” means and how our class can promote a sense of respect, compassion and kindness in our classroom. The students shared their ideas with each other as we developed our classroom contract. Our puppets Snail and Puppy also showed us how we can show respect and kindness to each other. Ask your child to explain.
This week, the students participated in a “Hopes and Dreams” project as well. Traditionally, my class will do this project with Ms. Fisher’s class. Our finished projects will later be on display on the wall over the students’ lockers as a visual reminder of the wonderful things we’re hoping to learn and do together this year. This year, some students from Ms. Fisher’s class visited our room and shared their own writing/drawings before we started. They answered questions from our class and provided inspiration. Thank you for helping us get inspired!
This week, the students also wrote/drew pictures about their feelings about coming back to school.
We continued to learn new games this week. Ask your child to explain the game “Buzz”, “Boo-ga-loo”, and “Perdoodle”. We also played an old favorite, “Keep it up” with balloons. Enjoy these pictures:
Reading:
The students practiced independent reading expectations and strategies this week. They continued to practice our “5+1 Rule”. This rule encourages the students to keep 5 “just right books” (books they can independently read for a long period of time) and 1 “choice book” (a book that might be too easy/ difficult to read but interests the student in another way) inside their book box. The students are encouraged to exchange their books as soon as they have finished them rather than keeping already read books inside their book boxes. The students are also practicing “classroom stewardship” as they carefully and respectfully handle these books so many children can enjoy them in the future.
The students are also encouraged to immerse themselves in various chapter/series books. This week, we added more books authored by Kate DiCamillo and the Key Hunters series (Eric Luper) to our collections.
The students are eager to try these books and love to read many books about the same characters. The predictability and familiarity leads to a deeper understanding of the plot and leads to greater engagement and active reading in class as well. I am so proud of these second grade readers. If you have any old chapter/series books at home that are not being used/read anymore and would be willing to donate them to our classroom, I know our students would love to read them. Thank you for considering.
Writing:
This week, the students on Harmony continued our beginning of the year spelling assessments. These assessments will help us create efficient and differentiated spelling groups in our Fundations classes.
The students decorated their writing folders to reflect various aspects of their own unique talents, interests and hobbies. These folders will store most of their writing pieces this school year.
Second Grade Math:
Second grade mathematicians continued to build their understanding of odd and even numbers. They are encouraged to understand these numbers as “partners”, ie a 2s pattern rather than a sequenced pattern reflecting odd, even, odd, even and so on as they count. They showed their understanding using tiles, drawings and equations. We also partnered students up in our classroom to build a deeper understanding.
The students also participated in a unit assessment, which reviewed first grade math content and will help guide small group work in the weeks to come. We will focus on counting forwards and backwards to 200, understand place value (ie 14 is not the same as 41), and anchoring to the next decuple to solve math problems using larger numbers.
Technology:
The students signed into their new chromebooks this week and used Lexia. They received new QR codes/clever badges to sign in and did a great job. This year, all students have access to Lexia. Lexia is a research-based reading program that allows students to practice phonological awareness skills and strategies in engaging ways. Your child can also use this program at home. Lexia differentiates to your child’s unique reading needs. We strongly encourage parents to find as little as 10-15 minutes/day to allow your child to use this program. Since Lexia responds to your child’s unique reading needs, it is important that your child solves the problems/questions independently. If a question is frustrating to your child, ask your child to click on the icons for clues/help instead of giving them the answer. This can be tricky as we want to help, but Lexia gathers information constantly and new questions/tasks are created based on the previous answers. In class, we talked about trying your best and that it is okay to make mistakes. The important thing when using Lexia is trying your best and not giving up. Log in information containing passwords and usernames is inside your child’s Home Folder. Please keep this at home for future use. Thank you for considering using Lexia at home to support your child’s reading development..
Please read and sign the Computer Contract which is inside your child’s Home Folder this week. As soon as we get these contracts back at school, your child will be able to use our chromebooks during the day as part of our stations. Thank you.
News and Reminders:
ABS Picture Day is October 7th. More information will follow.
While meals are free for students this year, your school still needs you to complete a school meal application. (On the left side at that link, you'll find a form that can be printed and filled out and an online form.)
When you return your school meal application, you are helping your student, your school, and our entire community. When more students turn in school meal applications, that means more money for education in the cafeteria and in the classroom. Even if you do not think you qualify for this, please take the time to fill out the form. Every response helps!
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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