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!! 

3/29 - 4/1

 Hello,

Here are a few important notes:

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. 

Students at NDLC will be participating in an Egg Crack-off.

Please send a hard-boiled egg in a container to school with your child on Thursday, April 1.  Eggs cannot have paint, crayon, marker, or film on them.

Upcoming Events:

3/29: Welcoming a student back from virtual school

4/1: Egg Crack Off (bring a hard boiled egg)

4/2: No 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

4/30: No School

Photos from March, this includes photos from science experiments, setting up leprechaun traps, our author poster we shared with the school, our letters we mailed with our opinions, and a few more! (busy month!):

3/22 to 3/26

  Hello,

If you did not get a chance to sign up for the upcoming conferences, please do so ASAP. Here is the link.

Also, I would love to prepare for the conferences using this survey to make the conferences as meaningful as I can for you. Here is the link to the survey to fill out by tomorrow.

Tomorrow (3/23) I will send out the link for the conferences. I will send it again on Thursday (3/25) that we will use to meet. Let me know if you have any questions!

Upcoming Events:

3/19: Fill out survey for conferences

3/23: Protective Behaviors Talk

3/23 and 3/25: Virtual Conferences

3/26: Early Release

4/2: No 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. I believe more information will be coming soon from our music teacher.

4/30: No School

Special Note:

You are all raising some kind, compassionate, and funny kids! They surprised me with a talent show for my birthday. It was so cute! It was organized, thought of, and conducted all by them! I actually was surprised too haha. I heard some rumblings during our quiet time we have each day and they let me know I couldn't come over by them but I was not expecting that they were organizing a show. How cool! Here are a few photos I captured:

3/15 to 3/19

 Hello,

If you did not get a chance to sign up for the upcoming conferences, please do so ASAP. Here is the link.

Also, I would love to prepare for the conferences using this survey to make the conferences as meaningful as I can for you. Here is the link to the survey to fill out by the end of this week.

Spelling Words this Week:

• thought
• whose
• their
• Mr.
• Mrs.

Upcoming Events:

3/14: Daylight Savings Time

3/17: Wear Green

3/19: Book Orders Due. You can also order online at https://clubs.scholastic.com/home Our class code is: QJMYM

Sorry for the quick ordering time. But I figured if you wanted books to put into Easter baskets I should put the order in soon so that they get to you in time!

3/19: Fill out survey for conferences

3/23: Protective Behaviors Talk

3/23 and 3/25: Virtual Conferences

3/26: Early Release

4/2: No School

4/5: No School

We have a busy week this week! We are starting a bunch of new units. Exciting things ahead!

In math we will be taking our Unit 5 test on Wednesday. That unit was on graphs and telling time. 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.

In reading and writing we will be going back to nonfiction.  In reading students will be working in clubs to study different topics and share everything they learn around that topic with each other.  We are going to try some digital text for this unit.  These 2nd graders are 21st Century Learners and we are going to work to help them gain digital literacy skills. 

In writing we students will be exploring different structures of text that are written to teach the audience.  They will explore narrative text, comics, question and answer books, and more.  Then each writer will get to decide what structure they want to write their nonfiction text in.  

Both of these units will be highly motivational for students and a great way to “spice” up reading and writing this time of the year!!  

In researcher’s workshop we will be heading into a new unit, as well.  We will be exploring the states of matter!! 

3/8 to 3/12

 Hello,

Spelling Words this Week:

• thought
• won
• son
• whose
• head

Upcoming Events:

3/8-3/12: Last week of roller blading!

3/14: Daylight Savings Time

3/17: Wear Green

3/23: Protective Behaviors Talk

3/23 and 3/25: Virtual Conferences

3/26: Early Release

4/2: No School

Things to know:

Soon there will be a survey sent out about conferences.

This is to help me plan for conferences and make sure that we

discuss topics that you want to cover. I am excited to have the

opportunity to meet soon and update you on your child’s 2nd grade year.

That being said there will also be a link sent out soon to sign up

for conferences, be on the lookout for that as well!

Math: 

We will continue to practice telling time on both analog and digital clocks this week. But we are also adding in more work with data and graphs. We are learning that mathematicians collect data but then need to organize it and be able to answer questions about their data. We will collect some of our own data this week and get it ready to share!

Writing:

This week we are going to have an extra week of opinion writing. But now put it into practice! Kids can change the world! They have a lot of impact! We will be writing letters this week to authors to tell them our opinions about books and mail them out. It will be a fun way to wrap up opinion writing.

3/1 to 3/5

 Hello,

Happy March! 

Spelling Words this Week:

• favorite
• school
• reason
• great

Upcoming Events:

2/22-3/12: Bring in helmet and pads for gym class (we will keep these things at school)

3/1-3/5: Read Across America Week

3/2: Wear USA colors

3/3: Cozy Day

3/4: Virtual Family Night (see below)

3/5: NDLC Wear

3/26: Early Release

Math:

This week we are starting a new unit about telling time to the nearest 5 minutes and organizing data. This week we will focus on clocks, both analog and digital. We will look at how clocks are organized and have games that practice telling time. Any extra work you can do at home with clocks would be great! There are some great apps for practicing telling time but also talking to your kids about it and having them practice reading time at home is all great!

Writing:

This week we will start to wrap up writing our opinions about books. We have been working hard on convincing others to read books that we love. Giving our opinions about the characters, the lesson of the story, and our favorite parts. Then strengthening our opinions with quotes from others and comparing it to other books. Lots of great opinions!

Researcher’s Workshop:

In researcher’s workshop we are working on our geography unit and finding our place in the world, we are going to study our Kaukauna community. We will look at historic pictures of Kaukauna and ask questions about how it has changed and stayed the same. 

March Madness and Read Across America:

This first week of March we will celebrate Read Across America.  Each classroom picked a different author and read many books written by the author.  We studied Kevin Henkes.  Ask your student about this author and his books.  We also made a poster to share what we learned about him.  Each class did this for their author.  These posters will be displayed this week for classes to explore. 

Additionally, each classroom has nominated a book to be entered into our March Madness Competition.  The brackets are being created and we will read lots of books, voting for our favorites.

2/22 to 2/26

 Happy Monday!

It is about that time of the year where we start to dwindle on our supplies here at school. We are in need of a few things for our classroom at this time. We are in need of black dry erase markers and post-its. If you are willing to donate an item, that would be great!

Spelling Words this Week:

• favorite
• reason
• great
• away
• nothing

Upcoming Events:

2/22-3/12: Bring in helmet and pads for gym class (we will keep these things at school)

2/24: Wear yellow or purple

3/4: Virtual Family Night (see below)

3/26: Early Release

Math:

This week in math we will be finishing our big unit that included: subtraction, story problems, solving with money, and number families. We will take the test on Wednesday and be reviewing for a few days.

Social Studies:

We have started our new unit: Our Place in the World. We are studying our community including it's history and geography. We will study what makes our community unique from others.

Photos from February: