Reminders
No school Thursday, September 16, 2021 in observance of Yom Kippur.
Want to learn more about Yom Kippur? Check out this All About the Holidays page from PBS Kids!
Please make sure your child’s water bottle comes to school, full, daily.
Please refer to the email about this blog post to sign up for a family conference. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!
Math: Second graders continued to focus on their Growth Mindset in math. This kickoff has been a great way to lay the foundation for our math growth this year. A few of the concepts mathematicians in second grade have been exploring are graphing, place value, and visual comparisons.
Writing: We continue to focus on small moment narrative writing. This week, second graders began to think about writing with lots of details to help their readers see what is happening. Writers worked to think about writing strong beginnings and powerful endings to their pieces. Second graders have also begun to think about the importance of revision.
Readers’ Workshop: What a week in reader’s workshop! Second graders continue to build their stamina during reading time. This week, second graders worked to use everything they know to tackle tricky words and about a new way to keep tabs on comprehension. Throughout second grade, we will be using our fingers to give a ‘5 finger retell.’ The five fingers represent: setting, characters, beginning, middle, and end. Second graders will work with this five finger retell structure all year although the skills required will deepen over time. As second grade readers begin to tackle longer and more complex text, they will also begin to synthesize information. This work is very challenging and requires lots of practice!
Word Study: This week in word study second graders were introduced to a new tool... letter boards! Letter boards enable students to build syllables/words and practice spelling patterns we learn as a class. To start off the year, the letter boards hold sounds that students learned in first grade. As the year goes on, and new concepts are introduced, new sounds will be added to the board. You’ll notice that I have only referred to sounds, not letters. That is because the emphasis in word study is to make a connection between letters and sounds. In the beginning of the year, we start with a lot of one syllable words, emphasizing the initial, medial (vowel sound typically), and final sound. As the year goes on, we will apply these concepts to multisyllabic words (words that have more than one beat). Our goal is that students will use the skills learned in word study in their writing and their reading!
Theme: This week, we wrapped up our unit devoted to mindfulness. In the previous week we focused on the essential questions “What is mindfulness?” and “How does mindfulness help me?”. This week we brought mindfulness into our daily practice. We learned that mindfulness is something that can regulate our bodies. Every day our brains and our bodies go through waves of excitement and tiredness and that is okay! We use our mindful practices to either give our brain/body energy or to help calm it down. We practiced guided meditation as well as movement activities. We took the time to notice how each activity made our body and brain feel. We also talked about how these activities feel different to everyone, we are all unique and we are all working on noticing what is happening in our body to find out what works best to help us be in a space where we are ready to learn and grow!
Students also continued to work with our mantra, “We are all the same. We are all different. We are all unique.” The second grade squad did a fun activity with our school counselor, Betsy Lloyd, to further our understanding. Each student received an ailment card (headache, bumped knee, sore throat, cut arm, etc). Ms. Betsy then asked everyone what they had and “helped” each person by equally giving out band-aids! Students made it very clear that a band-aid was not needed by each person and that some people needed something different. Our discussion reflected on how what is fair is not always equal, we work to give everyone what they need, and we are all the same, we are all different, and we are all unique!
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