4/26 - 4/30

 Hello,

Happy last week of April. Wow this school year flew by. This week I included a video for math to help teach you some strategies that we are working on in school.

Spelling Words This Week:

• they
• said
• bought
• brought
• piece

Upcoming Events:

4/26: Ice Cream Party for K.A.T

4/30: No School

5/9: Mother's Day

5/13: iReady Testing

5/14: iReady Testing

5/28 Half Day and Last Day of School

Testing

May is close...too close.  We will begin testing in May.  We will take our end-of-year iReady assessments in math and reading.  We will give students a reading test to identify their reading level and needs.  We will assess your students' spelling growth.  Finally, we will give an end-of-year math assessment to look at the growth your child has made.

 

There is nothing fancy you need to do to prepare for these tests.  These tests are a great resource, for us as teachers, to reflect on our teaching and student learning from the year.  It is also a great tool for next year's teachers to start the year off.  We DO NOT WANT STUDENTS stressing about this work!!  We will work hard to build them up.  

Math

Here is a video I recorded explaining our current unit!

4/19-4/23

 Hello,

Last week was very busy, but fun! I hope you had a nice weekend with the great weather.

Upcoming Events:

4/22: Earth Day

4/30: No School

5/9: Mother's Day

Writing

In writing we started a new unit.  It is our Writing Project Unit.  This unit is unique and fun. Students get to choose which genre of writing they will write under.  What’s super cool is that one student might be writing a fictional book, one a nonfiction book, while others might be in opinion, comics, or others. 

In this unit students will work through the writing process.  From picking an idea, planning, drafting, to editing and revising.  We will work through this writing process while studying other author's to see how they write in each specific genre. 

Reading

In reading we are working to lift students' level of talk with one another about books.  Students learn that talking with others about their thinking helps them to grow new ideas.  Students are learning to write powerful post-it notes that they can bring to their talk time, with partners or clubs.  

Math

This new math unit has been lots of fun for students.  They enjoy learning about place value.  They are learning about groups of hundreds, tens, and ones.  They are learning how to add equations like: 500+85 by thinking about each place value.  We have been building numbers, decomposing them, and really working to understand that 565 means 500 hundreds, 6 tens, and 5 ones. 

The next part of our unit takes us into addition and subtraction problems with three digit numbers. 

KAT

Our Knowledge-A-Thon was such a great success.  So much fun was had Friday with a Kahoot (think Jeopardy like game) that had students answering the questions they studied.  We had a special visitor from Pete the Cat. And...movie and popcorn to end the day Friday!!!  Thank you to all the families for helping your student practice their questions.  We also want to thank everyone for their donations.  I can’t wait to see if our school meets our goal!

4/12 to 4/16

A short and sweet blog this week:

 KAT

Our school-wide Knowledge-A-Thon is approaching. This is one of NDLC’s biggest fundraisers. Students receive a prize for bringing back those yellow envelopes, even if it is all digital donations.

We will take the KAT "quiz" on Friday morning. In the afternoon we will celebrate with a movie and popcorn! In addition we will celebrate all week with dress up days:

--Monday--Pajama Day

--Tuesday--Purple Day

--Wednesday--Sportswear Day

--Thursday--Hat Day

--Friday--Rock Star Day

KEEP PRACTICING THOSE QUESTIONS!

4/6 to 4/9

 Hello,

Dear 2nd grade families,

2nd graders will be performing a concert on April 15th @10:00am during the school day. The performance will be virtual (live recording) as well as recorded for future viewing. Students are encouraged to dress up in something nice, avoid jeans and tennis shoes if possible. 

Spelling Words This Week:

• ocean
• early
• Monday
• Tuesday

Upcoming Events:

3/29: Welcoming a student back from virtual school

4/5: No School

4/15: 10:00 AM Virtual Concert that will be livestreamed but also available to watch as a video after the performance

4/16: Knowledge-a-thon: this is a big fundraiser for our school where students answer 2nd grade questions and then we have a big celebration after. Usually we have a dance the day of knowledge-a-thon but this year we will be doing a movie instead. Let me know if you have any questions about this!

4/30: No School

Math

We will finish Unit 7 this week, it is a quick unit meant to help lay a foundation for 3rd grade concepts. We will then start Unit 6 at the end of the week. Which will focus on place value up to 1000 and starting to add and subtract with 3 digit numbers.

Reading

We will finish our Nonfiction Unit in reading this week. Students have been in topic groups, picking a different topic each week.  Students are using their nonfiction reading strategies to read books around the topic their group has chosen.  At the end of each workshop topic clubs get together to talk and grow ideas together.  Students have great discussions!

Writing

In writing we will also wrap up our nonfiction unit.  Students have learned a lot about teaching their audience through elaboration.  Students have taken many risks to write nonfiction books that are written in different structures such as: narrative nonfiction, comic nonfiction, how-to’s, and more!!