Second Grade in Room 108: Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Reminders:

There will be no school on Thursday, October 23 (Diwali) or Friday, October 24 (family conference day).
If you would like to volunteer to lead a Pease Mountain hike, please check out the Pease Mountain sign up. There are many slots for upcoming hikes available. We truly appreciate your time and support!

Math: Mathematicians wrapped up their first unit focused on developing solid understanding of addition and subtraction to 20 and some of the ways in which these two operations complement each other. We have begun our second unit called ‘Place Value & Measurement with Jack’s Beanstalks.’ The goals of this unit are to:

Explore base ten concepts and models within 1,000
Review the first three place value units: ones, tens, hundreds
Develop strategies for counting, measurement and double-digit computation
Decomposition - the ability to break numbers into their component parts
Develop early understanding of the open number line and base ten area pieces

Word Study: This week in word study reviewed the bonus letter spelling pattern. The letters s, l, f, and sometimes z get doubled or bonused when they are the last letter of a one syllable word and they IMMEDIATELY follow a short vowel. See the example below! We also learned about glued sounds and practiced reading and spelling words with this pattern. For more information about unit 2, check out the Family Support Letter in our blog!

Writing: Our narrative writers are learning from mentor authors. We are studying beautifully written books to discover what is powerful, why it is powerful, and how the author writes in a way to make it powerful. Students are discovering many craft moves from mentor authors and trying those moves out in their own writing! Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon has taught us a lot! Second grade writers are also working to revise their work with intention, making sure the craft moves they are trying add to their story.

Readers’ Workshop: We have begun our ‘Power Up! Next Level Word Solving Skills’ unit. In the first group of lessons, students will be introduced to the six syllable types in the English language. Students will also be learning to identify common prefixes & suffixes in order to determine the base word. When decoding, syllable types & syllable division patterns are used with base words. So far, students have learned about closed syllables and the closed syllable exceptions.

SEL/Theme: We wrapped up our first unit in Second Step… Skills for Learning. Throughout this unit, students learn to listen, focus attention, use self talk, and be assertive. Second graders began our second unit, which focuses on empathy, this week by working to name feelings, decide whether those feelings are comfortable or uncomfortable, and to think about how faces, bodies, and situations give us clues about feelings.