Second Grade Update – Week of 9/16

Dear Second Grade Families,

Happy Friday!

Please read carefully – there are some very important items this week, and I need you to do two things with your child over the weekend.

BEHAVIOR:
In second grade we continue to practice routines, procedures, and positive behavior choices. This week, we talked about the importance of setting a good example if you know what to do. We need to work together as a class. Following routines, procedures, and making positive behavior decisions that demonstrate our SLEs is not only important when students are with me, but with their enrichment teachers as well. 
As we are now four weeks into the school year, I need to specifically address behavior choices and make a request of all families. 

Issue: Over the past few weeks, many students (not just a couple) have needed multiple redirections within a single enrichment period (usually 30-40 minutes). This is not acceptable because it demonstrates a lack of respect and disrupts the learning environment for other students. Examples of frequent choices include blurting out instead of raising a quiet hand, having side conversations instead of listening, being silly to make others laugh, being off task by playing with things in desks or not following instructions.

Request of ALL Families: Please have a conversation with your student about what they think they are doing well and what they will commit to improve. If your child blames others or doesn’t think they need to do better with anything, please dig deeper. All students can improve on something. Ask them to be specific and serious about how they can make our learning environment better. Then please follow up with them about their goal this coming week. If they know you think their behavior goal is important and that you’re going to ask them about it, it is more likely they will follow through. Thank you for your partnership.

Goals:

• Behavior choices that consistently demonstrate our SLEs and class agreements
• Consistently positive reports from enrichment teachers
• Many tickets, marbles, and SLEs earned for great choices in second grade 🙂

CONFERENCES:
Between September 17-28, you will be able to sign up for parent/teacher/student conferences via a link in the school newsletter. Conferences will be held during the afternoons of October 8th-11th. Thank you in advance for signing up, and I look forward to meeting with you and your child!

HOMEWORK HEADS UP:
Next week, students will have a special social studies assignment. I am assigning this for homework because it is not something your child will be able to easily accomplish in the classroom without your background knowledge and spelling help. To balance this out, I will NOT assign any math or spelling next week.

PRE ASSIGNMENT – Respond by Sunday: Please review next week’s homework sheet here. I’m also including my example along with some different flower templates. Some families are very large, some are smaller, some children will want to include many people/traditions/etc, some not so many – so I need YOUR help to look through with your child and choose a template that will work best for them. The templates are numbered. Please respond to this email by Sunday evening and let me know the number of your child’s choice. I will print it for them on nice paper.
Below is our second grade update.

Focus Areas for Our Learning Next Week:

• Reading – 
  • In reading groups, students will continue SUPER magazine with a focus on understanding how text features and pictures support comprehension. Students will also work on understanding vocabulary and making connections.
  • At night, students should read aloud to practice fluent reading skills. Please encourage your child to observe punctuation, read at a good pace, and read the words as they appear in the text (no deletions or substitutions).
• Grammar/Spelling – In Superkids, students will review pronouns (he, she, it, our, my, etc.) and possessive nouns (adding ‘s or s’ to the end of nouns to show possession). Students do not have a spelling list due to social studies homework.
• Writing – The class will review informative writing and then complete a paragraph that shares facts about something they know a lot about. As always, we will focus on the structure of the paragraph – topic sentence, facts and details, wrap-up sentence. Students will use editing skills to finalize their paragraphs (focus on capitalization, punctuation, and their best spelling). After completing their piece, students will illustrate.
• Math – Building on the story problems we have been working together on during Number Corner, we will introduce Math Masters! In Math Masters, students will have six story problem opportunities to complete each week where they read the problem carefully, identify important and relevant information in the problem, and solve. This week, the class will also be reinforcing our understanding of odd/even numbers, counting by 5s and 10s, and working with time and math facts through 20.
• Religion – We will review our chapter about the Bible, remembering that the Bible is the written Word of God, there are two main parts (Old Testament and New Testament), and that the first four books of the New Testament are the Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We will also start our new chapter which focuses on the ways God invites us to know and believe in him and the importance of demonstrating faith and hospitality to others as disciples of Jesus and signs of God’s love.
• Science – This week, students will develop a model of the earth’s surface and use it to discover an important principle about how rivers work. In the activity, Paper Mountains, students take turns using a spray bottle to make rain fall on paper models of mountains to observe patterns of how water and rivers flow.
• Social Studies – Students will discuss the concepts of family history, traditions, relatives, and ancestors. They will start our LIFTS Garden project for homework and explore more about their family.

Other Updates for this Week:

• Author Visit – Walking Field Trip to Alameda Free Library
  • Date/Time: Wednesday, 9/18, 9:15-11:30am
  • Chaperones:1 more chaperone needed to walk with us! If you have completed Virtus and fingerprinting and would like to walk with us, please reach out.
  • About the Author: Robert Liu-Trujillo is a local author from Oakland! He’ll read his latest book, Fresh Juice, tell us about his journey to becoming an author, and answer questions from our students.
• Old t-shirt for Art Docent and Art class – By Thursday 9/19, all students need to bring an old t-shirt. It should fit over their uniform (the purpose is to shield their uniforms from art materials, etc.).
• Tardies – Please be aware that if your child is not in line at the 8:00 bell, I mark them tardy. This is a school policy.
• Daily Screening – Please continue to do the daily screening. Your diligence is important and appreciated.
• Dates to Remember:
  • Saturday, Sep 14 – Fun Fair Dinner 6pm O’Brien Hall
  • Tuesday, Sep 17 – Free dress for Sept. B-Days
  • Wednesday, Sep 18 – Walking Field Trip to the Alameda Free Library for Author Visit! (9:15-11:30am)
  • Saturday, Sep 21 – FUN FAIR!
  • Wednesday, Sep 25 – Noon Dismissal: Teacher Development
  • Saturday, Sep 28 – 8th Grade Car Wash Fundraiser!
  • Friday, Oct 4 – Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, Prayer Service Blessing of the Animals, 8:00 a.m.
  • Friday, Oct 4 – Progress Reports
  • Sunday, Oct 6 – Family Mass, 9:00 a.m., hosted by grades 7-8
  • Oct 8-11 – Noon Dismissal, Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences
  • Monday, Oct 14 – NO SCHOOL: Indigenous Peoples Day
  • Tuesday, Oct 15 – Free Dress Oct B-Days!
  • Thursday, Oct 31 – Noon Dismissal; Halloween Parade 8:15 a.m.

We look forward to seeing our students on Monday! 

All the best,
Catherine