Dear Families,
It was a pleasure seeing so many of you for our parent-teacher conferences this week. For those of you with conferences next week, I am very excited to meet with you and share about your child’s learning. Thank you again for supporting their learning outside of school.
Despite the short week, we accomplished a lot this week and had many fun learning experiences together. For example, the Williston Fire Department visited Harmony House and taught us about fire safety in a student-centered and engaging way. I hope you saw your child’s goodie bag, filled with learning activities about fire safety.
Here is our short week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
This week, we revisited what it looks like, and sounds like, to have a whole body listening at school. We talked about the importance of having a calm body with eyes on the speaker and listening ears. We practiced being “brain in”.
We also practiced bus safety at ABS. We boarded a bus along with Ms. Ashford’s class and learned about what it looks like and sounds like to be safe on the bus.
Ms. Nicole visited our classroom again for another restorative circle. We had a conversation about school safety and how important it is for everyone to feel safe in our building. The students shared about the mixed feelings they sometimes have when unexpected things happen and what they can do to ask adults for help and find calm spaces. They did an amazing job sharing their thoughts. They also did an amazing job showing compassion and empathy when sharing their wonderings and questions about the different feelings all people experience. What an outstanding group of young learners we have! I am so proud of them all.
Reading:
This week, the students continued to participate in our guided reading groups, which provide direct, differentiated reading instruction. It is wonderful to have Mr. Matt and Ms. Bassett in our room too because they can help us with our groups. The students love reading with them!.
We had reading buddies with Mr. Deyo’s Kindergarten class. It is great sharing our love of reading with our new friends. I wish you could hear the “productive buzz” in the classroom as they all read aloud to each other!
Writing:
This week, the students started revising their writing pieces about our Open House. They started by re-reading their own work and correcting their own writing. Then, they met with their “editing partner”who also checked and corrected their writing piece. In second grade, the students will learn to independently show lower case writing, finger spacing, correct letter formation/direction, along with ending punctuation and capital letters for the beginning of sentences and for names/places.
The students also wrote a letter to a marine biologist in Australia. She is a friend of Ms. Bassett’s and she has sent the class videos of underwater adventures and sharks. We wanted to thank her for taking the time to share her passion for marine life with us.
Math:
This week, second grade mathematicians continued building their understanding of place value and decuples by playing some new games.
We continued our work on creating number bonds in our daily number corner activities.
This week, mathematicians focused on splitting the numbers into efficient parts using expanded forms as an example.
We also reviewed telling time to the hour and the half hour on a digital and an analog clock. In second grade students are expected to learn how to tell time to the nearest five minutes and know the difference between a.m. and p.m. times. We will continue to build our understanding of telling time throughout the school year.
Technology:
The students used the online program Dreambox this week to practice their math facts. Please see your child’s Home Folder for at-home log-in information. Thank you.
Have a great weekend,
Maria