Second Grade Update – Week of 5/20

Good morning Second Grade Families,

This week, students ran their hearts out at the Fun Run and also enjoyed their last art docent session for the year with Mrs. Lane! A big thank you to Mrs. Lane for her time and dedication to our class and for the wonderful artwork she’s inspired your children to create! 

Next week, our second graders will be kicking off a food (and money) drive to support the Alameda Food Bank. They will create posters and announce the drive at Tuesday morning’s assembly. 🙂 Attached is more information, which will also be included in next week’s newsletter.  Please support your child by making a donation (large or small) – second grade is leading this initiative and should be the example with 100% participation.

On a related note, our welcome sign for the Alameda Food Bank is complete! Students worked so hard, and the end result is a spectacular representation of the amazing beauty of working together toward a common goal! Attached are a few pictures – zoom in to see the details!

On Thursday, we have our field trip to the U.C. Botanical Gardens.

• Field Trip Focus: What plants need to survive in different environments as well as plant adaptations that help them survive and thrive 
• Time: Depart 10am, return by 1:30pm
• Transportation: Bus, no booster seats required
• Lunch: Bag lunch and water bottles

Finally, as we start to feel the wind-down of the school year, please encourage your children to keep up with their routines. School is not over, and we are still working hard in second grade! 🙂

Below is our second grade learning update.

Focus Areas for Our Learning Next Week:

• Reading – 
  • Students will take end of year assessments.
  • At night, students should read aloud to practice fluent reading skills. Please encourage your child to observe punctuation, read at a good pace, and read the words as they appear in the text (no deletions or substitutions).
• Grammar/Spelling – In Superkids, students will practice decoding and encoding /ōō/ words.
• Writing – Students will finish drafting their animal research reports and identify at least three revisions and edits to make their work better. This has been a great iterative process where students have had the opportunity to take notes, start drafting, recognize they do not have enough information, and go back to their informational text for additional facts. They are doing a fantastic job sticking with it!
• Math – Students will continue working with different types of word problems. Their focus is reading and interpreting the problem, determining the useful information, solving, and labeling answers.
• Religion – We will finish our Family Life Unit – God’s Gift of Love. Students will reflect on how they show love to others in their lives.
• Social Studies –The class will learn about goods and services and make connections to businesses their families visit. We will also discuss the different types of resources needed by many businesses: natural, human, and capital resources.
• Science – This week, students will examine how scientists organize animals into groups based on their characteristics. In our activity, students study animal traits and use these traits to sort animal cards into mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates. Students are then challenged to make decisions about animals that don’t fall neatly into any of those categories.

Other Updates for this Week:

• Dates to Remember:
  • Monday, May 13 – Math Night, 5:00-7:00pm
  • Tuesday, May 14 – Fun Run!
  • Friday, May 17 – SPN Spartan Spirit Day; Sports Awards, 5:30-7:30pm
  • Tuesday, May 21 – Free Dress May AND June Birthdays
  • Thursday, May 23 – Field Trip to the U.C. Botanical Gardens!
  • Friday, May 24 – SPN Olympics, 10:45-11:45am; Noon Dismissal
  • Monday, May 27 – No School, Memorial Day
  • Thursday, May 30 – Field Trip to Semifreddi’s Bakery!
  • Thursday, Jun 6 – Noon Dismissal, No Share and Care
  • Friday, Jun 7 – Last Day of School, Moving Up Ceremony, Report Card Day, 10:30 a.m. DISMISSAL, No Share and Care

We look forward to seeing our students on Monday!

All the best,
Catherine