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| Doing homework book pages with partners. |
We had a great last week in second grade. The first part of the week was Camp Second Grade and then we embraced the warm weather and had a couple of beach days. I want to thank all of you for the cards and gifts, and all of the support throughout the year. I have enjoyed this group of kids so much! They are truly special people. Here are some highlights from our week:
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| Beach reading. |
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| Snap circuits. |
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| S'mores salad. |
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| More beach reading. |
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| Fun on the playground. |
Writing:
The second graders wrapped up poetry writing with concrete poems this week. They had fun exploring all the ways the placement of pictures and words on the page can influence the meaning of those words. On Friday everyone brought home their poetry notebook so you can see some of the poems we worked on. They loved silly rhymes, so don't be surprised if there are a lot of them in your child's collection. We started doing some end-of-the-year letter writing which we will do next week too. The second graders wrote to the third grade teachers introducing themselves and next week they will write to the first graders all about what second grade is really like.
We read and listened to fables this week. We explored their characters, settings and purpose as we compared and contrasted them with fairy tales. The second graders had to try to figure out the lesson or the author's purpose and find evidence in the text to support their ideas. We also started reading Og the Frog this week. Every second grader in all three classes has a copy and the students have been taking their copy home to read too. So some of the kids are farther along than we are as a class which is great! Thanks to our Parents' Club who helped us buy them!
This week we wrapped up marble runs and worked on graphing. The second graders did some data collection and made picture graphs and bar graphs and worked on problems interpreting the data on the graphs. Next week we will play games that review the skills we worked on throughout the year.
Field Day:
Thanks so much to everyone who helped out with field day and the picnic. The second graders had a fantastic day!
Writing:
Next week we will wrap up our poetry unit and the second graders will bring home a "notebook" of all their poems. On Thursday everyone brought home their green writing folder with scored writing inside. The scores on the attached grade sheet will give you a good idea of what to expect on your child's report card. They are also a great springboard to talk to your second grader about how they have grown as a writer this year. End of the year STAR reports were also in that folder.
The second graders took the very last unit test in Math on Friday! They had to demonstrate understanding of all the things we did while building, collecting data, and making line plot graphs. I am hoping to get those in mailboxes on Tuesday. Next week we will make some more just-for-fun marble runs.
Phonics:
We are working on parts of speech as part of our word collecting adventure. We have talked about nouns, adjectives, and verbs, but since not all of the second graders have those completely figured out yet we will work with them again next week!
Reading:
We have been having a great time reading fairy tales and exploring characters. Next week we will wrap up fairy tales and switch to fables. We will move from studying characters to studying the author's purpose. We will be trying to figure out what lesson the fables are trying to teach!
May 23 and 26- No School- Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!
May 28 - Penny war ends
May 30- Field Day & last Bike Bus
June 6- Last Day of School (Early Release day)
We had a great time on our field trip. Thanks to everyone who walked to City Hall with us! We got to see where the police cars are kept and heard Deputy Popma talk about his job. Then we got to go inside the fire barn and see a few trucks up close while we learned about the job of a fireman. We also got to go inside City Hall and see where the mayor and the City Commissioners sit for meetings.
Writing:
I have never had a class get into writing poems like this class has. They want to use their free time to write poetry! They love that free verse poems can be about anything, especially silly things, and they don't necessarily have to rhyme! We have also written haikus, diamantes, and cinquains. We touched on acrostic poems, but will revisit those next week, along with a few other types of poems.
Math:
Phonics:
We continued our work with affixes and bigger words by studying suffixes this week. We learned that -ing at the end of a verb means it is happening right now, and the suffix -ly on an adjective tells how something happened. We also learned -est means the most, -ful means with, and -less means without.
We have been studying fairy tales this week and tracking the elements we see in each. Fairy tales are great places to study characters because the characters usually learn a lesson. We have been studying when they have big feelings and looking for the why behind how they are acting.
We also did a little reading with Mrs DeSmit's kindergarten class this week. They shared their Gift of Reading with us!
Homework:
The two-sided math homework is due by May 22
Extra Information:
May 22- All library books are due.
May 23 and 26- No school! Have a wonderful long Memorial Day Weekend!
May 30- Field Day: Here is the notice from the office that went out about this fun event:
Mark your calendars for Friday, May 30th!! The time has come for our annual Park Pride Field Day and Hot Dog Picnic and we need volunteers to help make this a successful event! We have volunteer opportunities to help grill, set up and serve food, and run the Field Day events. If you are interested in volunteering, please visit this link to sign up to help make our celebration the best it can be! All volunteers will need to have filled out the background form for HPS. Note, there will not be a normal hot lunch offering on May 30. If your child doesn't want to have a hot dog picnic you are welcome to send a lunch with them.
Thank you for your interest and we hope to see you there!
June 6- Last Day of School (Early Release)
We are so excited to go see the City Hall and Police and Fire Departments, on Wednesday, May 14. We are going to leave straight from school in the morning, and are going to WALK there! So make sure your child wears comfortable shoes and is dressed appropriately for the weather and walking. We would love for you to come as well, and walk with us. We are going to leave sharply at 9am, so please make sure you come to school in the morning on time, and also let your teacher know if you are planning on chaperoning. If you plan to chaperone, make sure you already have a background check filled out for this school year in advance (at least 48 hours in advance). We will be back to school in time for lunch, so your child may order the school lunch or bring their own lunch from home.
Let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to join us! Also, keep your fingers crossed for amazing weather! The 10-day forecast looks great so we are optimistic!
Reading:
We have been working on reading poetry and these second graders have been doing great! We have talked about poetic devices like rhyme, rhythm, stanzas, couplets, alliteration and more. We will continue to study and read poems next week too!
Writing:
The second graders all turned in one last informational piece on Friday. Since the second graders' writing has improved so much since this winter I am excited to read these and score them. I will use the better score for the report card. Next week we start writing poetry by exploring a few different types of poems like cinquain, diamante, and haiku.
Math:
We have started our last math unit and it is all about data collection and reporting. We have graphed how many tiles second graders can hold in one hand, and then we invited Mrs DeSmit's kindergarteners to come and grab tiles. We graphed that information and are hoping to invite 4th graders to grab tiles next week! We have also started to experiment with marble runs. We used different materials to build and marbles made of glass, wood, and metal. Now that we have built all sorts of runs and experimented with different designs we will move on to collecting data about ramp height and distances travelled. Thanks for sending in all your paper towel and toilet paper rolls. It is an exciting time to be doing math in second grade!
Phonics:
We are continuing our work on prefixes and suffixes next week. We have been comparing words with prefixes to compound words and working on building our word collections We played charades using words with prefixes and we watched a few clips of the un people.
Important Dates:
Field Trip: Weds 5-14 See more info here.
Last Day: Fri 6-6 This will be an early release day.
From Mrs. Stefanich:
This May, our display case outside of the new library will be completed, just in time for us to leave school for the summer. I'd love the opportunity to start the school year and our open house next Fall with some of our amazing Park Students on display! Here's how you can help:
If you're willing, would you send a picture of your Park student doing something that Sparks Joy for them? Please send the picture in a 4x6 or 5x7 frame that stands on it's own. No need to buy anything new - just grab a frame you have laying around, or construct a cardboard easel out of a cereal box. (The internet will teach you how!). You will receive these pictures and frames back to you, but not until next year, so please don't send a precious, "only copy" photo or frame to school.
Some examples might be a picture of your child at the beach, holding a favorite stuffed animal, or doing a favorite activity. It might even be the same photograph you sent for our beginning of the year "Spark Joy" project currently hanging on the wall! Have your child bring it to my office, or give to their teacher to deliver to me. I'll collect them and get them on display for next Fall!
From Parents' Club::
We finished up our both our Economics and our Civics units this week! We tackle some big concepts and the second graders did a great job. Goods, services, trade, specialization, scarcity, capital and human resources, and opportunity cost should all be part of your second grader's vocabulary now. They should also be able to tell you ways a citizen can affect their community.
Reading:
Math:
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| The second graders play skill-based games just about every day. This one has them making decisions based on place value and adding three-digit numbers. |
Phonics:
We will wrap up our study of compound words next week. This week we learned why beautiful isn't a compound word but cupcake is. We will also be learning about prefixes and suffixes next week.
Writing:
Next week we will revisit informational writing one last time. The second graders will be writing one more non-fiction piece about something they already know a lot about. There will be reading time to do a little research for specific facts, but this won't be a research project. If you get a chance ask your child what they are going to write about.
Homework:
The two-sided math page is due by May 9 (Early Release Day).
Extra Information:
Keep sending in those pictures of mom and child. I would love to have them all by Wednesday.
May 9- Early Release Day
