Happy Almost Sukkot

Reading

This week, the students are practicing writing summaries about stories they have read. The students learned that a summary should contain the most important information from the story. In second grade, the students focus on the characters, setting, plot, problem, and solution. As the students finish writing their summaries, they are recording themselves giving book reviews that include the most important parts along with their opinions and other interesting details. Once all the students have recorded their book reviews in their digital portfolios on an app called Seasaw, I will send you a link so you can see their wonderful work!

Spelling

This week the students studied words containing the long and short “u” sounds, like in the words absolute and shut. Next week, the students will study words that end in “y” where the “y” makes a vowel sound, like in the words cherry, fly, and pray. Our next spelling test will be Friday, 10/25.

Writing

The students are hard at work on stories about their Rosh Hashanah four day weekend! I am hearing about bike rides, baseball games, baking foods for a sweet new year, spending time with family, and meeting Senator Warren! Our first unit in the Write Traits curriculum shows the students how to pick ideas that they can fill with interesting details. The students are given a chance to try out any story idea from their life!

Daily Language Instruction or D.L.I.

Today, the students had their first Daily Language Instruction lesson. D.L.I. lessons will focus on capitalization, punctuation, and grammar rules. Currently, the students are practicing beginning each sentence with a capital letter and ending with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. Throughout second grade, this curriculum will also cover skills like capitalizing all proper nouns and abbreviations, comma and quotation mark usage, apostrophes, and more!

Math

In unit 2, the students learn about ounces and pounds, and how to use pan balance scales. The students have a chance to compare ounces to pounds (16 ounces make up one pound) and determine which type of objects you would weigh with each unit of measurement. The students are also practicing addition and subtraction strategies and working with fact families like 4 + 8 =12, 8 + 4 = 12, 12 – 4 = 8, and 12 – 8 = 4.

Social Studies

Thank you very much for the materials you have sent in to help us build our urban, suburban, and rural communities. Throughout this unit the students have learned many life skills and recently I have noticed their ability to prioritize and work together cooperatively. The students have made lists of the buildings we need for each area. For example, a suburban area must have fire and police stations, hospitals, schools, grocery stores, and a synagogue! Our plan is to have our construction completed by next week so that we can teach the kindergarten about what we have learned!