September Updates

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, September 2 - No School (Labor Day)
• Friday, September 20st- No School (Professional Learning for Teachers)
• Thursday, September 27th- Digger Dash
• October 3rd- Parent Teacher Conferences
• October 9th- Parent Teacher Conferences
• October 14-18th- Fall Break

Curriculum Update:

READING:
During Reader’s Workshop students are working on the following:

• Learning the routines and rituals that will make Reader’s Workshop successful
• Choosing Just Right Books- Books that we can read most of the words without difficulty or can use strategies to figure out the hard words
• Building our stamina to be able to independently read for longer periods of time
• Recording our thinking while reading
• Stopping, thinking, and retelling a story to check for comprehension
• Reading more and more to continue growing
• Strategies to use when words are tricky

WRITING:
Our writing unit is Opinion Writing. During this unit students will be writing letters to share ideas about books (opinions). By the end of the unit students will be able to: 

• Write about an opinion (likes or dislikes) and give reasons why
• Have a good beginning in which you state your opinion and set the reader up to expect the writing to convince them
• Connect parts
• Have different parts, a lot of lines about each part
• Have at least two reasons
• Have an ending that reminds our reader of your opinion
• Chose words that would make your reader agree with your opinion

Conventions are a big emphasis in second grade as well:

• Capital at the beginning of each sentence
• Punctuation at the end of each sentence

MATH:
We are wrapping up Topic 1: Fluently Add and Subtract Within 20
During this unit students focused on the following:

• Math Tools and classroom routines-using manipulatives, number lines, and tens frames
• Understand if order matters when adding two or more numbers together (commutative property)
• Adding and subtracting within 20 using a variety of strategies
• Making 10
• Doubles or near doubles facts
• Fact families
• Counting on
• Using a number line to count on or count back
• Bar diagrams
• Beginning to develop fact fluency within 20
• Understanding the connection between addition and subtraction
• Solving addition and subtraction story problems, sharing strategies for solving, and ways to record

During Topic 2: Work With Equal Groups, students will focus on:

• Even and odd numbers
• Using arrays to find totals
• Making arrays to solve addition problems
• Modeling problems with equations, drawings, and arrays

SOCIAL STUDIES:
Civics- Roles, Rights and Responsibilities of responsible community members.

During this unit we described important characteristics of a responsible community member. We learned that people can express their ideas respectfully within a community. We also explored the idea that responsible community members influence the rules, policies, and laws in their communities (including classrooms).

Communities - We are exploring how communities change, reasons for living in a specific community, and the different types of communities.

WORD WORK/SPELLING: Each student was given a spelling inventory to identify areas of strength and areas to work on. Students were then divided into groups based on their unique needs. Each week your child will come home with a list of words based on a spelling pattern. Please practice these words with your child (see yellow word study page in homework folder). The idea is that your child learns to identify the pattern (through sorting) but is also able to accurately spell the words as well.