Monday, February 4, 2019

February 4th Newsletter


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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