Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
What a week we had!
First, the students of ABS filled our school-wide BeeHive so we celebrated together with a dance party, using finger lights! It was so much fun dancing and making a light show at the same time. Second, our class filled the buzzy jar in our classroom again! This time, we celebrated with extra choice time. The students had the opportunity to play with our legos, marble runs, magnets and connecting discs together.
Third, we had our first ABS Open House! It was a huge success and we are so pleased that so many families and students could come. Thank you for finding the time to visit our classroom spaces, meet teachers and other staff members at our fabulous school.
Here is the rest of our week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
This week, we focused on the different, and sometimes conflicting, feeling we all experience throughout the day. We reviewed our calming strategies and practiced how we can use our “Calming Corner”. We added various pictures to our “Calming Corner” to help the students identify different feelings they might experience when needing to take a break. We added pictures representing angry, sad, worried, nervous, giddy/excited and tired. While it is important to identify the emotions and validate their impact, it is also important to proactively teach and practice self-regulatory techniques and strategies. After all, we hope for the students to return to learning and a calm and content state of mind. Puppy and Snail helped us identify these picture cards. Ask your child to explain.
Ms. Nicole joined our class again for another Restorative Circle. She reviewed the expectations with the students when we meet in circle, ie we take turns talking, we share from the heart and we make sure we actively listen to each other’s opinions, feelings and experiences. Thank you Ms. Nicole for helping us create a community of learners who feel that they belong together and can trust each other.
Reading:
The students exchanged their library books again on Tuesday. Thank you for helping your child pack the books so new books can promptly go home for daily reading. I am so excited to see that more and more children look for the books we read in class and how excited they are to share that you read them together at home. Thank you for supporting your child’s love of reading.
This week, we started two new series for our daily read alouds. We finished the first book in the “Ella and Owen” series, written by Jaden Kent. This series is about a couple of silly dragons and their even siller adventures.We also started reading the first book in the series “Big Foot and Little Foot” by Ellen Potter.
Writing:
The students finished various writing prompts and projects around our “We are all Super Heros” theme. The students are encouraged to think about what special super hero talents/skills and abilities they all have; skills and talents they use every day as super heros. Some students see themselves as super heroes when they persevere and show a growth mindset, while others say they have super hero abilities when they show kindness and bravery. This week, the students finished writing about themselves and their special “super hero” skills. I hope you read some of these amazing pieces in their scrapbooks yesterday during our Open House. If you missed them, do not worry. We will have many other opportunities to share these throughout the school year, and just like last year, these scrapbooks will come home at the end of the year.
Second graders also started practicing hand-writing and proper penmanship skills this week. Let me know if you are interested in supporting this at home and I would be happy to share our hand-writing pages with you.
Second Grade Math:
This week in math, second graders started our district-wide online math assessment called iReady. We divided the assessment into several smaller sessions and divided our tasks throughout the week.
Second grade mathematicians continued counting forwards and backwards, by 10s and ones, starting from familiar and unfamiliar numbers. Second grade students also started to divide numbers into chunks of fives, counting forwards and backwards. If you wish to practice at home, counting off-decade is a very important skill in second grade, especially when crossing decades and starting from larger, more unfamiliar numbers. Ask your child to count by 10s (forwards and backwards) between 67 and 187, or 91 and 301).
We continued working on partners to 20 as well. This week, the students were encouraged to represent their understanding with number bonds and multiple equations.
Second grade students learned about money/coins this week too. A second grade math standard is to know the value of the coins and being able to identify each coin. We used nickels and dimes this week to group larger sums into friendlier fives and tens.
Science:
We had our first 4 Winds science class this week. 4 Winds is a science-based program that is run by parent volunteers. Once a month, they provide hand-on/nature based science activities for our students. This week, we enjoyed a puppet show together in our kiva space, followed by some outdoor scavenger hunts looking for insects and life cycle puzzles.
News and Reminders:
ABS Picture Day is 10/7/22. Your child’s photo order form is inside the Home Folder today. Please fill it out and return to school as soon as possible if you are interested in having school pictures made. Thank you.
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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