Hello Second Grade Families,
I hope everyone had a nice weekend. January was a super busy month packed with
lots of fun activities and academic assessing. I like to have one on one
assessing with math concepts, writing and spelling tests before the February
break, since we are in the half way mark of the year. Over the last week I have pulled students
over one at a time to complete a unit 4 math checkup with me sitting next to
every child. Each student will verbally tell me how they first think about
solving each problem and then take me through the step by step procedure of how
they solved it. Normally I don’t have
time to do this for every quiz or assessment, but at the half way point I like
to see how each child’s thinking has changed and progressed in the last four
months. This one on one time to have a
conversation about their thinking also gives me a clear idea about how each
student takes in information in the full class instruction.
Along with sitting with each of them for a math quiz, I also
start the monthly dictation. The
dictation is a story that I read to them each month. As I read the sentences in the story out
loud, the students need to write the words as correctly as they can on their
paper. Usually each story is about ten sentences. From August to December I do not have the
students complete the dictation, because the students have to build their confidence
and stamina for writing, identifying, and spelling vocabulary words and high
frequency words. Now that we are at the
half way mark, we will be doing one of these stories once a month until the end
of the school year. There are one
hundred words in each story. The goal
for each child is increase the number of words they spell correctly each
month. Every child is on a different
path in their learning. I am looking for
progression throughout the next five months-not that every child is able to
spell 100 words correctly on each story.
The class did an excellent job on their first one and these will be
coming home later this week.
The last assessment until the end of the year is the Primary
Numbers and Operations Assessment.
Unfortunately I am scheduled to assess the students on Valentine’s Day. This
assessment breaks down every math concept that we have worked on throughout the
year and shows their understanding and mastery of each skill. We
will still have a little party at the end of the day on Valentine’s Day. The class can give out their treats to their peers
if they choose to do so. Students are
not required to make Valentine’s, but if they are participating in handing them
out they need to make one for each person in class. I will send an email with the class list to
aid in this activity at home.
Last Friday, February 1st-The whole school
participated in making s’mores for achieving the all school goal of ignoring
distractions during learning time. I recently put the pictures on the classroom
blog.
The Growing Change students from Dartmouth College have
returned with lessons about gardens and what happens to the plants during the
cycles of the four seasons. On Friday,
January 25th the Dartmouth students brought the class out to look at
the garden DBS has behind the staff parking lot. The class observed and discussed their
findings of what snow and ice do to the plants and also hypothesized where they
think the bugs go in the winter as well. This past Friday, February 1st, the
Dartmouth students had the class brainstorm on how they could allow plants to
grow indoors during the winter. At the
end of the lesson, the students created their own method of growing beans and
seeing the roots form within our classroom.
Tomorrow Tuesday, February 5th is the 100th day of
school. The students will be participating
in lots of activities, crafts, and writing prompts based on the number
100. It will be a fun day!
The past two weeks the students have been learning the life
skill in writing letters. Last week the
class took part in writing Mrs. Sheppard get well cards and this week the
students are writing letters to Beatrix and asking her about her new
school.
The students have also started typing out their scientific
responses to concepts that we have been learning about like “how do wild fires
start and what often happens to the land after a wild fire occurs?” or “Why is
the ocean so salty?” Students have been working on their typing skills all year
on Typing Club but last Friday was the first time they typed without the
program. It was definitely challenging for many students, but they persevered
and they will continue to strengthen their typing skills as they keep
practicing.
We are ending our Mexico unit and are going to be
transitioning into learning about Canada. In April/May the students will be
completing another project based learning project answering the question “What
makes a town or community successful?” Seeing how amazing the butterfly
projects were, I am sure they will be excited to partake this activity. I haven’t told them this yet, so it is still
a secret.
The reading groups have altered based on the skills each
student needs to work on and strengthen. All the second and third grade reading groups
are based off the information we got from the F &P assessments I carried
out in January. Most students are receiving two layers of
reading lessons, one from the primary classroom instruction, and then two from
the reading WIN groups. Based on
different plans for children, some students are receiving three to four tiers
of reading throughout the day.
All the students are showing growth and pride. They have worked very hard all year and I am
so proud of them. Every child volunteers
during class throughout different subjects of the day. It is so wonderful to see! As always if you
have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Ms. Mac
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