Second Grade Update – Week of 9/25

Dear Second Grade Families,

Happy Friday!

This week, we had our first art docent lesson with Mrs. Lane (Bennett’s mom!). Ms. Lane tapped into your children’s eye for detail with self-portraits. 🙂 Thank you to her assistants, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Escobar for supporting our students with the project! 🙂 We look forward to welcoming Mrs. Lane throughout the year!

Next week we will have a few special events. 

• Walking Field Trip – On Monday, we will enjoy our walking field trip to the Alameda Free Library where students will go on a tour and see behind-the-scenes! What happens to those books after they go through the slot?? 🙂
• Author Visit – On Friday, students will be treated to a special virtual visit with award-winning author and illustrator, Grace Lin. She will share the customs, traditions, and stories of the Moon Festival. Then she will lead students in a draw-along of one of the characters from her new book, Chinese Menu!

Quality Work:
This week, the class discussed the importance of completing quality work – what it means and what that looks like. Completing quality work is important because it shows that you care about your learning and that you know you’re responsible for doing your best work. The main ideas were:

• Making time for your assignments by using time wisely and giving your focused attention (whether homework or classwork)
• Using your best handwriting and writing in pencil so that you can erase if necessary (versus scratching out)
• Following directions and asking for help if you don’t understand
• Writing in complete sentences whenever possible 
• Reviewing/editing your work – capitals at the beginning of sentences, proper punctuation at the end, sentences make sense when reread

Thank you for your support with these ideas at home, too. These skills create a solid foundation for all of your child’s work, learning, and growth going forward – in second grade and way beyond! 🙂

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 connecting articles to themselves and the world around them. We will also cite text evidence for responses and compare/contrast information presented.
  • 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 sh, ch, and tch words. They will also practice identifying homonyms (words that sound the same, but have different meanings and often different spellings – example: there, they’re, their). Students should practice their spelling words for homework so they are prepared for the quiz on Friday.
• Writing – The class will review opinion writing and then complete a paragraph that shares reasons for their opinion. As always, we will focus on the structure of the paragraph – topic sentence, reasons and details, wrap-up sentence. Students will use editing skills to finalize their paragraphs (focus on capitalization, punctuation, and their best spelling). Students will have the opportunity to illustrate their writing as well.
• Math – Throughout the week, the class will also be reinforcing our fluency with counting by twos, fives, and tens from different starting points. Telling time on an analog clock to the nearest five minutes continues to be a focus as well.
• Religion – We will wrap up our new chapter with a focus 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 – Students revisit the mountain model we created last week and connect concepts about rivers to our anchor phenomenon. They will expand on their initial ideas about how and why two rivers come together and look a certain way. Students will document these new hypotheses in preparation for our next exploration.
• Social Studies – We will discuss the concepts of neighborhoods and communities as part of understanding our own families and the world around us. We will also celebrate Hispanic Heritage this month with read-alouds and discussion.

Other Updates for this Week:

• Conferences – If you haven’t already, please sign up for a parent/teacher/student conference using this link: Second Grade Sign Up
• Students need to bring an old t-shirt for Art class. It should fit over their uniform (the purpose is to shield their uniforms from paint, etc.).
• Tardies – Please be aware that if your child is not in line at the 8:00 bell, I will need to mark them tardy. This is a school policy.
• Covid Daily Screening – Please continue to do the daily screening. Your diligence is important and appreciated.
• Dates to Remember:
  • Monday, Sep 25 – Walking Field Trip to the Alameda Free Library (9:15-11:30am; Mrs. Lobo and Mrs. Fowler to chaperone – thank you!)
  • Wednesday, Sep 27 – Noon Dismissal: Teacher Development
  • Wednesday, Sep 27 – “Jeans Day” with $5 donation to support 8th grade activities
  • Friday, Sep 29 – Spirit Day: Wacky Day!
  • Oct 3-6 – Noon Dismissal, Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences
  • Tuesday, Oct 4 – Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, Prayer Service Blessing of the Animals, 8:00 a.m.
  • Monday, Oct 9 – NO SCHOOL: Indigenous Peoples Day

We look forward to seeing our students on Monday! 

All the best,
Catherine