Happy Holidays!

I hope your holidays are going well! Your children have been working very hard and I am excited to share with you what they are studying!

Reading and Vocabulary

At the beginning of second grade, the students are assessed on their phonological awareness and phonics (the essential early reading skills), ability to read sight words, fluency, and overall comprehension of texts. These assessments give me the information I need to plan instruction on each students’ reading level. While I am administering these one-on-one assessments, the students are hard at work on their literacy centers! They have read stories from our Journeys curriculum, practiced alphabetizing words to the fourth letter, sequenced story events, learned new vocabulary words, and spent time enjoying new books. Our first set of vocabulary words are branch, brave, dash, evening, greedy, pass, present, stream, trail, and wise. Our vocabulary curriculum has five days of activities that the students practice in class. The curriculum helps the students understand the multiple meanings of a word like dash (to move quickly or a small amount of something, like a dash of salt.) I am so impressed with the way the students work together and independently to accurately complete their centers!

Writing

The students are practicing writing stories using complete sentences. Next week, they will learn that a complete sentence must contain a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb). The first writing trait we are studying is how to pick strong ideas for each story. A strong idea would be one that the student can explain to their reader and fill with interesting details.

Spelling

We are already two spelling units into our school year! The students have studied words containing the long and short “a” sounds, like in the words match and waste. They have also studied words containing the long “e” sound, like in the words between and cent. Next week, the pattern will be long and short “i” sounds, like in the words quick and pride. Spelling lists are stapled into planners at the beginning of the week and graded tests are stapled into planners at the end of the week. Our next spelling test will be Friday, 10/5. 

Math

Our first math unit is a review of many skills covered in first grade. I often remind the students that second grade math is the math they will use every day for the rest of their lives 🙂 so it is important that we understand each skill. We have reviewed telling time to the minute, counting coins, and using calendars to find dates like “two weeks from Tuesday” and “the first Saturday in September.” We have also practiced using number grids for basic addition problems, and using the less than, greater than, and equal to symbols. Next week, we will practice finding the temperature on a Fahrenheit thermometer and comparing it to a Celsius thermometer. Our second math unit will continue to focus on addition strategies.

Social Studies

The students have studied the ways that citizens contribute to society by obeying laws, working or going to school, volunteering, voting, keeping our community clean and safe, serving in the military and much more! They are currently learning about and building urban, suburban, and rural communities. Soon, they will learn how goods and services get to their homes from these different communities.