May Updates

Dear Parents,

As we have been planning for remote learning for the rest of the year, we have worked as a team and as a building to prioritize key concepts and skills to cover in these final weeks. We wanted to share these main learning targets with you to help you prioritize what your child should focus on at home.

That said, we continue to believe that the social emotional needs of your child and your family are the very most important right now! Please use the following information as a reference, but continue to give yourself the flexibility to adjust the learning opportunities to meet the needs of your child and your family situation.

LITERACY PRIORITIES:

Read, Read, Read!  

• By far, the most research supported thing you can be doing is encouraging your child to read texts at their "just right" level everyday.  
• Listen in and coach your reader.  Use these prompting strategies to help. 

Respond to text verbally and in writing

• Retell the most important parts of a story
• Identify the problem, solution, and author's message
• Identify the main idea and supporting details in non-fiction
• Here is a link to additional comprehension questions you can ask. 

Writing Conventions

• Work on appropriate upper/lower case letters and punctuation
• Encourage correct spelling of no excuse/sight words and use of spelling patterns
• Third grade has said that having students practice writing about their reading is one of the most helpful things we can do to prepare the students, but any authentic writing opportunities are great (pen pal letters, journaling, etc) 

MATH PRIORITIES:

Computation Skills

• Automaticity with addition and subtraction facts within 20
• Solidify strategies to add and subtract numbers within 100 (see strategies reference sheet here) 
• Begin to add and subtract within 1,000. 
• Solve addition and subtraction story problems 

Additional Skills

• Telling Time
• Adding and Subtracting Money

Please also help your child foster a growth mindset!  Celebrate effort, be flexible, and view mistakes as a positive opportunity for new learning!  

We are so thankful for your partnership in this online learning adventure.  Please continue to reach out if there is anything we can do to better support your family. 

April Updates

What an interesting time this is! I am so thankful to have such a resilient group of students and supportive group of families. We will work through this new and uncharted territory together!

Here is some important information to keep track of:

• Click here to go to the google site for morning message, check in, and parent resources. This is a home base for all of second grade. It is a great place for supplemental resources, check ins for students, and more.
• Google Classroom (different from our site) is our home base for our specific learning opportunities and videos. You have done a great job navigating through our google classroom so far!
• We will continue to utilize Zoom for occasional morning meetings, check ins, etc. I will send out a new invitation for each zoom meeting we have. You don't need a sign in, just click the link I send. Just be sure that students click to turn on both the video and audio features.
• Please email me throughout the day with any questions or technical difficulties and I will see how we can work through them!

Here are some additional links for you:

• iReady
• Student’s Google Email 
• Raz Kids
• EPIC

March Update

 
Upcoming Dates:

• March 4 and March 12 Parent Teacher Conferences
• March 16 - 20 Spring Break

CURRICULUM UPDATE

READING:
We are in our Reading Unit Called Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power. During this Unit we built the following charts to anchor our thinking when reading:

                                                 
We will conclude this unit by launching Book Clubs. Students will understand club member behaviors. They will create a plan, set goals and work together to accomplish their goals.




WRITING: 

Our current writing unit is Narrative Writing. During this unit students will write short stories based on true events from their lives. By the end of the unit students will be able to: 

• Discover small moments that matter-generating ideas
• Generate tiny topics for writing
• Stretch out small moments- learning to plan a story by touching each page and saying what they will write
• Write a good beginning, middle and end
• Write with detail: Magnifying a small moment
• Bring characters to life by using talk, feel or actions
• Set goals and make plans for writing time
• Use checklist to self assess and plan for next parts
• Close Reading: Looking closely at how mentor authors write and trying it
• Collaborate a partner to help make a story better (revise by listening)
• Choose strong words to help a reader visualize
• Revise and edit rough drafts
• Conventions are always a big emphasis:
• Capital at the beginning of each sentence, for the word ‘I’, and proper nouns
• Punctuation at the end of each sentence
• Quotation marks when using dialogue

MATH: 

Students are refining their addition and subtraction strategies, including solving story problems, and working towards accurate and efficient strategies that can be generalized to greater numbers. We will continue to focus on the mathematical practices of precision, making sense of problems, and persevering to solve them and constructing viable arguments to explain our mathematical thinking. We will also begin to investigate graphs and data in conjunction with our Tech project. 

Over the next few weeks, students will:

• Add and subtract one and two digit numbers using models to help them visualize the regrouping concept.
• Use drawings, equations and models to solve one and two-step addition & subtraction problems.
• Collect, represent and interpret data using line plots, bar graphs and pictographs.

Please continue to review your child’s daily math worksheets and practice fact fluency using the flash cards that were sent home last fall.


SCIENCE:
In science, we will continue our unit on weather. During this unit, students will:

• Conducting weather experiments
• Observing changes in weather over time
• Becoming familiar with instruments meteorologists use to monitor weather conditions
• Exploring the various types of clouds and the the weather they bring
• Gaining an understanding of the water cycle
• Gaining an understanding of how weather and changing seasons impact people, animals, and plants
• Gathering and analyzing data on the weather in different locations and in different seasons
• Use graphs and models to represent and interpret data
• Analyzing the ways severe weather contributes to catastrophic events (floods, wildfires, etc.)

February Update

Upcoming Dates:

• Thursday, February 6th-1st/2nd Grade Specials Program:
• Graham - 6:15-6:45
• Munson - 7:15-7:45
• Thursday, February 13th- Classroom Valentine’s Day Parties
• Friday, February 14th- No School (Professional Development for Teachers)
• Monday, February 17th- No School Presidents Day

VALENTINE PARTY:We will have our class Valentine party on Thursday, February 13th. Children are welcome to create a Valentine’s Day Box to collect Valentines in. Please make sure that the opening on the box will fit a card with candy attached (if families choose to do that). If your child chooses to make a valentine for students in our class, please make sure that you bring one valentine for every student in the class. A class list will be sent home. Please also be on the lookout for a party SignUp.

1st and 2nd Grade Specials Program:
At Gold Rush Elementary we believe that the arts serve an essential role in helping Our 1st and 2nd Grade Specials Showcase is a way to highlight some of the important learning happening in their specials classes. Each year at GRE the first and second grade students explore a theme during their Art, Music and PE classes and then have the opportunity to share their learning with parents and invited guests. Each performance will last about 30 minutes



Please look for your child's class above and save the date and time. Since there will be two different performances on each night, parents and students are asked to arrive only 15 minutes prior to the performance.

CURRICULUM UPDATE

READING:
In this next reading unit, a major focus is on reading fluency as they encounter longer texts. Students will focus on reading in phrases with appropriate expression, at a just right pace. Students will also pay attention to literary language in texts. They will notice when an author plays with words or uses comparisons. We will explore some poetry as we dig into literary language. As students encounter longer texts, it is important that they “hold on” to the different parts of the text so they are able to understand the book as a whole. Continuing to jot thoughts down on sticky notes, sharing ideas with a partner, and rereading are critical reading behaviors. Students will continue to set goals and monitor those goals.

     

We conclude this unit by launching Book Clubs. Students will understand club member behaviors. They will create a plan, set goals and work together to accomplish their goals.



WRITING:
We are now moving into Narrative Writing. During this unit students will write short stories based on true events from their lives. By the end of the unit students will be able to:

• Discover small moments that matter-generating ideas
• Tiny Topics- using a notebook to remember topics for writing
• Stretching out small moments- learning to plan a story by touching each page and saying what they will write
• Writing a good beginning, middle and end
• Writing with detail: Magnifying a small moment
• Bringing characters to life by using talk, feel or actions
• Setting goals and making plans for writing time
• Using checklist to self assess and plan for next parts
• Close Reading: Looking closely at how mentor authors write and trying it
• Collaborate a partner to help make a story better (revise by listening)
• Word choice
• Revising and editing rough drafts
• Conventions are a big emphasis:
• Capital at the beginning of each sentence, for the word ‘I’, and proper nouns
• Punctuation at the end of each sentence
• Quotation marks when using dialogue

MATH:
We are continuing to learn subtraction strategies, with an emphasis on developing fluency to 100. In addition to subtraction, we will continue to focus on the mathematical practices of precision, making sense of problems and persevering to solve them and constructing viable arguments to explain our mathematical thinking. Over the next few weeks, students will:

• Subtract one and two digit numbers using models to help them visualize the regrouping concept.
• Subtract using partial differences
• Solve one and two-step subtraction problems.

Please continue to review your child’s daily math worksheets and practice fact fluency using the flash cards that were sent home last fall.

HELPING YOUR CHILD WITH MATH

• Helping your child with math: Click Here
• Math Words and Ideas: Click Here
• Investigations Game Center: Math Games

SCIENCE:
In science, we will begin our unit on weather. During this unit, students will:

• Conducting weather experiments
• Observing changes in weather over time
• Becoming familiar with instruments meteorologists use to monitor weather conditions
• Exploring the various types of clouds and the the weather they bring
• Gaining an understanding of the water cycle
• Gaining an understanding of how weather and changing seasons impact people, animals, and plants
• Gathering and analyzing data on the weather in different locations and in different seasons
• Analyzing the ways severe weather contributes to catastrophic events (floods, wildfires, etc.)

January Update

IMPORTANT DATES:

• January 6th: NO SCHOOL
• January 20th: NO SCHOOL

CURRICULUM UPDATE

READING/SOCIAL STUDIES
As readers, we will be doing an integrated 3 week mini-unit that will help us grow as readers and historians. We will hone all the great non-fiction reading strategies we built in the last unit as we read biographies to learn about important people and how they impacted our world. Determining importance, asking questions as we read, and learning strategies to synthesize our learning will be a big part of our mission as readers. We will also learn to think like a historian, using and creating timelines, examining multiple sources, and considering how a person can impact their community or world. We will be creating some great projects to share our learning towards the end of the month.

WRITING
We will wrap up our Informational Writing Unit during the first few weeks of January, In this final bend, students will plan and write their own “how to” chapter books, incorporating science content, along with strategies to write books that teach. Some of our teaching points will include:

• Planning with a Table of Contents
• Drafting and Revising With Feedback
• Studying Mentor Texts
• Using Comparison
• Going Deeper to Incorporate Science Writing 
• Addressing an Audience with Strong Introductions and Conclusions
• Editing with a Checklist 

MATH
In Topic 5, students will learn various strategies to subtract within 100. We will build upon previously taught addition strategies to fluently subtract within 100. During this unit students will be focusing on the following:

• Using place value (tens and ones) to subtract 
• Using an open number line to subtract tens and ones within 100
• Subtracting 2 digit numbers using models
• Subtracting and breaking apart numbers using mental math and compensation
• Modeling one and two step problems 
• Selecting the most efficient strategy to solve a math problem

HELPING YOUR CHILD WITH MATH

• Helping your child with math: Click Here
• Math Words and Ideas: Click Here
• Investigations Game Center: Math Games

WORD WORK/SPELLING
It is so exciting to see the progress students are making in their spelling. Students were given a spelling inventory before Thanksgiving break and some students moved into different groups based on the results of their assessment, weekly spelling test scores, and spelling quizzes. Spelling groups were formed based on their understanding of spelling patterns and their regular application of these patterns in both their spelling tests and daily writing. Please continue to support your child by making sure that their word sorts are practiced daily along with the 5 “No Excuse Words” and challenge word of the week. Using the sorts throughout the week helps your child develop the spelling pattern they are working on for the week.