Second Grade Update – Week of 10/14

Dear Second Grade Families,

Happy Friday!

Thank you so much for attending our parent/student/teacher conference! I appreciated your time and the opportunity to reflect with your child and you about everything they are already doing well and how they can continue to grow as a second grade student! Thank you! 🙂

Next week, I’m excited to have longer days again! Our new writing project will be personal narratives – students will choose an important/fun/exciting/etc. event from their life and share the story in a 5-7 sentence paragraph (maybe longer if they have more details). To start, students will review what a personal narrative is, discuss how to structure a short narrative story clearly, and then start the planning stage of the writing process to generate and organize ideas. To help your child prepare, please take a few moments this weekend and ask them to share about a few events they remember from their lives. (They will choose one idea for their narrative.) They should be able to share at least 3-4 details about the event. This brief conversation will help many students avoid writer’s block! An example of a personal narrative is attached.

Many students are still working on identifying nouns, adjectives, and verbs. During their nightly reading, it would be helpful to have them stop every once in a while and identify different words in the text. For example:

Your child reads:“The little girl ran down the sandy beach.”
You could ask and reinforce: “Which words are adjectives in this sentence? Right – “little” describes the girl and “sandy” describes the beach!”

This type of reinforcement is very helpful to ensure students can recognize and use parts of speech accurately.

Focus Areas for Our Learning Next Week:

• Reading – 
  • In reading groups, students will continue book clubs. Our focus is not only on the story, but group dynamics – following along with the text as we read, raising quiet hands to contribute thoughts, and listening to others respectfully. 
  • 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 changing singular nouns into plurals and listen for the sound that ‘ed makes at the end of past tense words (/ed/, /t/, or /d/). Students should practice their spelling words for homework so they are prepared for the quiz on Friday.
• Writing – Students will begin personal narratives by discussing the writing process and starting the planning stage. Each student will decide on one memorable event from their life to write about. They will need to be able to share at least 3-4 details about their event. The goal is a well-written 5-7 sentence paragraph. In ALL writing in the classroom (whether for morning work, reading group responses, etc.), students are reminded to write in complete sentences and to edit their work by reading it aloud and checking for proper capitalization and end marks.
• Math – Students will jump into the world of place value! We will evaluate how the place of each digit within a three-digit number determines its value. We will also practice the skill of estimating and evaluating/refining estimates when giving additional information.
• Religion – We will continue learning about the Holy Trinity (one God in three divine persons) with a focus on how God the Father fulfilled his Covenant with his people by sending his only Son, Jesus. Students will also practice the Glory Be prayer.
• Science – This week, students deepen their understanding of how water interacts with land structures. The class will explore the phenomenon of flash floods and create an explanation of why these severe weather events are more or less likely in different regions. Specifically, they will attempt to locate and explain a unique region in Texas known as Flash Flood Alley. In our activity, students will develop a map to document how land and water interact across the state. Students then use that map to explain how different shapes and kinds of land increase or decrease the chances of rainfall causing a flash flood.
• Social Studies – Students will explore our fifty states on a map and review the purpose of a map key and a compass rose to interpret and use a map.

Other Updates for this Week:

• ART SHIRT – If you haven’t already, please send in an art shirt for your student to cover their uniform. They need this by Monday. Thank you.
• First Communion – Please submit all registration forms to the parish office by October 30th. Please also add all of the dates to your calendars. The Rite of Enrollment is scheduled for November 3rd.
• Daily Screening – Please continue to do the daily screening. Your diligence is important and appreciated.
• Dates to Remember:
  • Monday, Oct 14 – NO SCHOOL: Indigenous Peoples Day
  • Tuesday, Oct 15 – Free Dress Oct B-Days!
  • Thursday, Oct 31 – Noon Dismissal; Halloween Parade 8:15 a.m.
  • Friday, Nov. 1 – All School Mass for All Saints Day (students may dress like a saint if they would like to; otherwise all students need their sweater or sweatshirt)
  • Friday, Nov. 8 – End of First Trimester
  • Monday, Nov. 11 – No School – Veterans Day Observed
  • Friday, Nov. 15 – Report Cards Distributed
  • Friday, Nov. 15 – Minions and Friends Spirit Day
  • Tuesday, Nov. 19 – Free Dress for Nov. B-Days
  • Wednesday, Nov. 20 – Noon Dismissal / Teacher Development Day
  • Thursday, Nov. 21 – National Catholic School Principal Appreciation Day
  • Nov. 25-29 – No School – Thanksgiving Break!

We look forward to seeing our students on Tuesday!

All the best,
Catherine