October 6, 2017

Dear Families,

Important dates to remember:

Friday, October 13th: Spirit Day for Color Run, bring in a dollar for PJ Day!

Thursday, October 19th: DCC Parent Meeting

Friday, October 20th: Spirit Day for Color Run, bring in a dollar for Hat Day!

Friday, October 27th: Spirit Day for Color Run, bring in a dollar for Favorite Team Day!

Tuesday, October 31st: Halloween Parade in the AM, Color Run in the PM

  Here are some highlights from our learning this week:

Our class picture with The Golden Crayon! 

We won the opportunity to have him stay with us in our classroom for the month of October. We are so proud to be the first class to win the Golden Crayon for our amazing and excellent behavior 

in Art class!

Reading- This week we reviewed some of the decoding reading strategies that your child may have learned about in first grade. We went over Chunky Monkey (chunking the word into manageable pieces), Lips the Fish (getting your lips ready to say the sounds the letters make), Skippy the Frog (skipping the word and reading the rest of the sentence all the way through. Then coming back and thinking about what word would make sense there). When I listen to your child read, I'm looking to see how your child uses strategies to figure out unknown words. I'm also listening for fluency and then talking to your child about the book to check on comprehension. If it's painful to listen to your child read, then the book is too hard at this time and needs to be switched to something that will be simpler for them to read. 

Our Books of the Week for next week!

How can you support your child's reading skills at home? Read with your child as often as possible! They should be reading aloud to you and you should be reading aloud to them. This will help you get to know your child as a reader. What does your child do when they come to a word they don’t know? Do they have any strategies that they use to try to figure out the word or do they just give up? Next time this happens, ask your child what strategy they could use to help them.

We finished our first read aloud series, the Lulu books! If you haven't heard about Sonia Sophia Solinsky, be sure to ask your child about her! We're sad that they're over but excited to start a new series next week! Series books are a great way to get kids hooked on reading and great read alouds at home. Check some out at the library!  

Writing – Students continued working on their rough drafts and learned different tricks that writers use to make their writing more interesting. Students had a chance to improve their lead sentences, add dialogue and insert transition words. We will continue with Personal Narratives next week by using what we’ve learned this week to make a great story, and learn some new tools to use as well! 

Math – This week we finished up our first unit with our Unit 1 test.  You should expect to see your child’s score next week. We'll send home the cover sheet with the points per skill. If your child did not meet expectations YET, please don't worry, these skills are reviewed and retaught throughout the units. Please practice the skills that weren't met. We also started our next Unit. The At Home Review will go home next week. Please keep these at home, there is no need to send them back to school. I sent  a game home today called Spinning for Money. It's a fun way to practice counting change and can tell you a lot about your child's money counting skills. Notice if they can recognize the coins, count them and exchange for a dollar. I also sent home some money(yes, money),  ones, tens, twenties, and hundreds so that they could play with it at home. They were super excited that I had a money making machine in the back room couldn't wait to have some of their own! 

       Money Games in Math Class

Social Studies- 

This week we took a deeper look into our what our community looks like by learning about maps. Your child created both a family map and started making a neighborhood map. Next week, we will continue learning about maps by working in groups to create maps of a community. We will also go over how to successfully work and disagree in a group setting by using Accountable Talk.

Mindfulness—This week we started our training in Mindfulness. We are so lucky that after showing great progress last year in our classes with mindfulness, that the NEF awarded the 2^nd grade team with a grant to continue our training this year with our second graders. Our Mindfulness trainer, Ms.Carol, will be coming in twice a week for the next 8 weeks for about 20 minutes, to teach our students about being mindful and how it can help them in their everyday lives. This week we started learning about mindful listening and mindful breathing. Ask your child what they learned about this and how it can help them! 

Character Trait—Self Control

Our new character trait of the month is centered around Self Control. This week, your child should have brought home their next calendar with suggestions of ways to practice self control. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Second Grade Team