Reminders:
The CCS Open House will be on Tuesday, September 20th from 5:00PM to 6:00 PM.
There will be no school for students Thursday, October 10 & Friday, October 11, 2024
Second grade family conferences will be held the week of September 30. Please sign up using the sign up form below. If you have any questions, please reach out.
Important “Have Tos”
Send your child with a water bottle daily. (They may leave it at school. We will remind them to take their water bottles home with them on Fridays.)
Ensure your child has an extra set of weather appropriate clothing in their backpacks at all times.
Email Cindy LaWare (claware@cvsdvt.org) AND your child’s teacher with any attendance/dismissal updates.
Home School Folders should return to school the following school day.
Supply Request: In our classrooms, students have access to tissues, hand lotion, band-aids, and cough drops. We talk in depth that cough drops are to be used to soothe sore throats, they are not candy. Students must check with their teacher before getting a cough drop. We also discuss that if a person needs multiple cough drops throughout the day, this may be a sign that they may not be well enough to be at school and we will need to send them to Nurse Lauren. At this time, we would greatly appreciate donations of cough drops for our communal container!
Math: Our second grade mathematicians have been busy putting their growth mindset into practice this week. Our focus over the week has been on representing and solving addition and subtraction word problems. We began exploring a special math tool known as a number rack. This number rack contains 20 beads in all, 10 red and 10 white organized into two rows of ten. The number rack reinforces our number facts to 10 and introduces facts up to 20. We played a fast-paced math game known as “Flash Attack”. In this game students waited while the teacher built a number on their number rack. Then students were able to take a quick 3-second look at the rack. In this time they would need to determine how many beads were present on the left side of the rack. To explain how they saw the number they used equations to show how many were on the top and how many were on the bottom. Later in the week we pretended to go on a field trip via a train! Students practiced their 10s facts in order to figure out how many students were taking a nap and how many were awake. Seeing these numbers and explaining how we saw them was an important part of our Habits of Interactions that we learned about last week.
Writers’ Workshop: Second grade writers are focusing on narrative writing by sharing small moment stories from their own lives. Second graders are working on writing strong beginnings and endings. As a group, we leaned on our mentor authors and other authors to determine ways to write strong beginnings and endings. We have also introduced a second grade narrative writing checklist. Students used this checklist to plan for their writing by setting goals. Students have also begun to work with our second grade language conventions checklist to edit their work.
Word Study: During word study this week we launched our first unit of our FUNdations program. This first unit will focus on reviewing the concepts taught in first grade. So far we have focused building routines and zoomed in on the concepts of digraphs, blends, and digraph blends. Digraphs are 2 letters that work together to make 1 sound (see the attached images for your reference). Blends are a group of two or three consonants that appear together and blend to make a new sound. Check out the word study family support letter located in our blog’s side panel for more information!
Readers’ Workshop: Our readers have been working hard! Students have been working with the idea that reading is thinking. We need to read the words as they are written (decode) and understand what we are reading (comprehension). In our minilessons, we focused on the core idea: Readers retell a story to help them understand the story better. We shared one retelling technique, the 5 Finger Retell, which supports retelling of major events while also synthesizing details.
Theme/SEL: This week our squad has started exploring mindfulness as a learning tool. On Monday, our class began by sharing what we already know and what we wonder about mindfulness. We then watched a short video that helped us define mindfulness. Check out our definition below!
On Wednesday we learned about the benefits of mindfulness. Mindfulness can be used to positively influence our learning. We learned that our classroom is like a forest and each one of us represents a tree in that forest. When we come together and use our mindfulness skills it makes our brains stronger and our learning community stronger too! To represent this idea of stronger brains and the connection between mindfulness and learning success we created a classroom forest! As the weeks go by we will add useful tools and tips about mindfulness to our trees in the form of leaves.
Project Based Learning: Our second grade squad aims to engage in project based learning once a week. Our topics and subjects will vary throughout the year. These themes are often based on the current “Heritage Month” . A heritage month is a designated time, usually one month, to recognize, celebrate, and honor the history, culture, contributions, and achievements of a specific group of people. These months help raise awareness and educate others about the unique aspects of the group's heritage, while promoting inclusivity and understanding in the broader community. September 15 - October 15 is Latinx Heritage Month. Want to learn more about Latinx/Hispanic Heritage month? Click here to watch the video your children saw!
This week’s project was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s artwork.
Quiet Time: Our students have ‘traveled’ far these past two weeks!
Workboard Menu: Workboard Menu is a time for students to independently practice literacy and math skills that address their individual needs. While students work on completing a literacy practice activity, a math task, and a technology opportunity each day, their classroom teacher and other adults may pull them to work individually and/or in small groups. The Workboard Menu offers an element of choice for students. As our goal is to have this time 4 days a week, the menu has 4 literacy activities, 4 math tasks, and 4 technology activities. Students pick one activity from each section working through the menu in a “first, next, then” fashion. An important thing to note is that while the menu has options that could be completed, students may not have the opportunity to complete the menu in its entirety by the end of the week. This is OK as students may have met with an adult during their workboard time or possibly be completing a different task/activity. At the end of the week, their workboard menu will be sent home in your child’s “home-school folder”. They can either complete the packet at home or leave it be, the choice is up to them!
Here are our photos from the week!
