Learning in Full Swing!

Nikki Crisp
Oct 6, 2017
3 min read

As the first quarter comes to an end, here is the important info you need to know:

Important Dates:

10/9 - NO SCHOOL

10/11 - Grammar Test

10/12 - Reading Homework goes home, it is due the next day

10/20 - Spelling Quiz

10/26 - 2nd Grade Musical (8:00 am)

Requests:

Our stash of emergency snacks as ran out. Please remind your child to pack a snack daily. If you can donate, we would greatly appreciate it! (packs of chips/pretzels/goldfish, fruit snacks, etc)

What We're Learning & What How You Can Help:

Phonics: Long and Short "e"

Please refer to the 3 column list of spelling words, and review from other lists often.

Reading: Non-Fiction Text Features

Students are learning about how text features help them learn more. Text Features are: table of contents, headings, diagrams, labels, captions, photographs, key words (bold, italics, highlight), glossaries, index, etc. Your child should be reading a healthy balance of fiction and non-fiction for their 20 minutes a night. When they are reading non-fiction books, they should practice searching for examples of these.

Grammar: TEST!

Please use the ELA Journals to study for the test. It will cover: collective nouns, plural nouns, punctuation, capitalization, adjectives & adverbs. You can also look at past blog posts for IXL #s.

After the test, we will talk about Formal vs Informal Language. We refer to "formal language" as "fancy", and informal as how you would chat with a buddy.

For example: Yo, dude! What's up?! = informal language

Good morning, Mrs. Crisp! = formal language

Practice using these at home! You can challenge each other to only use formal language for a day!

Writing: Informational Writing

We have finished our Narrative Small Moment Unit and are now working on Informational Writing. This pairs perfectly with our transition in reading to non-fiction books. Students are going to be writing about things they are "experts" on. This could be a sport, an animal, a place, etc. Reading non-fiction books will help your child become an expert in various topics, and give them more to write about. We encourage them to even add text features into their writing, like published authors!

Social Studies: Problem Based Learning (PBL)

Hopefully, your child came home on Thursday excited to tell you all about the box full of artifacts we received! This will be our center of focus for the next month as we dive into the world of Native Georgians and their culture. Our Reading, Writing, and Social Studies will all be wrapped around this subject as we begin our Problem Based Learning journey. As we learn, students will prepare and eventually create a presentation that answers the question: "How do we, as historical preservationists, justify the importance of the Creek artifacts being preserved?"

-- As stated, most of our subjects will be enveloped in this topic, so it is very important that children are at school on time/every day as much as possible! Each day, each subject will build on the other, and missing out on any block could cause confusion and lead to problems down the road with presentations. You will all be invited to these presentations, so get excited!

Math: Unit 2

Please be sure to keep and refer to the Unit 2 Parent Letter that went home earlier this month. This unit will focus on addition and subtraction strategies, word problems, and money. During this unit, your support is extremely important. As a second grade team, and as a school from grades K-2, it is understood that students are not ready to solve problems using the standard algorithm- in other words, the stacking and crossing out method shown below. Please do NOT teach this to your child and have them solve like this at home. Developmentally, students do not understand why/how the algorithm works, making it mindless steps vs true understanding. We teach students how to solve using pictures, number line, and expanded form. The following links are to 2 videos that 2nd grade created personally for our students and parents. Please save the links, and refer to them as often as needed to help your child! Again, your support is very important during this unit, and I thank you in advance!

Copy and paste the links into your browser to view:

ADDITION: https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/2nd-grade-addition-methods/33941649/?s=VNgpGd&ref=appemail

SUBTRACTION: https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/subtraction-methods/34524904/?ref=link

Thank you for all that you do to support your child's learning, and our teaching.

Please reach out with any questions or concerns!

Fondly,