Rosh Hashanah is Almost Here!

he students have worked hard this week preparing for Rosh Hashanah and completing their beginning of the year assessments! I am proud of their focus this week and we have received fabulous reports from our music, art, and project based learning teachers! 🙂

Reading
At this point I have told all of the students their new reading level based on the one-on-one assessment they took with me. The students should bring home books written at or near their level. Some of our books are labeled on the back with a letter and the students have learned strategies for how to determine if unlabeled books are “just right” for them. Being able to tell if a book is near your reading level is an important skill since books at the library and bookstores often aren’t leveled. We have practiced the “Five Finger Rule” to help the students figure out if a book is too hard or too easy. The students can open a book to any page and begin reading. If there are more than 5 words on that page that a student cannot read then the book is too hard. If they know all of the words on a chapter book page then the book is probably too easy. A perfect book is one that students can comprehend and enjoy while also learning some new words!

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Spelling
We began our first spelling unit this week on words with the short and long “a” sound. The students took a pretest which was used to help them choose a list of words that meets their needs. This unit is a review for most of the students. Each spelling unit contains five days of word work. Throughout the five days the students sort the words into categories based on sounds or spelling, think of new words that fit the same patterns, write sentences with the words, and complete other engaging activities like crossword puzzles. On the fifth day of each unit the students are assessed on their words. Because each unit requires five days of work these tests will not always fall on a Friday. Next week the students will be assessed on their words on Thursday and then make their new list of words the same day. On each child’s spelling list you will also see two extra words that are from the 250 high frequency word list and will not fit the weekly spelling pattern.

Here are the students working hard on their spelling skills!

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Writing
We are working on writing sensational sentences in second grade! The students have learned to begin each sentence with a capital letter and end it with punctuation. They know to capitalize all names (proper nouns) and use commas between items in a list. We are practicing these skills during our whole class Daily Oral Language lessons.

Math
This week the students worked hard to find patterns on number grids, complete number puzzles, tell time, count coins and dollars, and find equivalent numbers. One of the important skills we focused on this week was different “names” for numbers. For example, 12 can be a dozen, 10 + 2, or two less than 14. The students have learned that 10 + 2 and one dozen are both equivalent to 12. Next week we will continue finding equivalent numbers and equations (like 4 + 5 = 3 + 6) and continue to work on greater than and less than.

Here are some of the students practicing their place value an addition skills!

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I hope everyone has a wonderful Rosh Hashanah! I’ll see you next Wednesday!