Weekly Update for 10/10

Hi Families!
It was great to be back in action for all 5 days this week. We had a great week! Read below for more details on our classroom action. Lots of pictures from this week!

​Special Note: toward the end of this week, please be on the lookout for a packet of student work, which will include your child's Unit 1 Phonics test, their Section A/B Math Check Point, at least 1 sample of writing, additional work samples for you to keep, and a brief summary of how your child is doing in class. I will include a paper for you to sign that states you reviewed your child's packet. Feel free to include any questions, comments, or concerns on the paper, or send me an email.  My hope is that this packet will give you a sense of how your child is progressing so far in 2nd grade.

Another note: If you have any important dismissal changes, please make sure to email not only me but also Donna Walsh in the front office. I am usually swept up in preparations and actual teaching from 8:00am-3:00pm and may not be able to check my email. Also, I will do my best to respond to emails in a timely manner, but I appreciate your patience if I am unable to respond within 24 hours. So much going on. Thank you!

Lastly, a couple other quick notes:

• We have a 2nd grade Tutor, Ms. Cates, and she'll be supporting students during math and literacy.
  
• If your child will be ordering a school lunch, please review the lunch menu with them before school so they know what they will order in the morning. It will save us time during Morning Meeting.

Important Dates this Week:

• Monday 10/10: No school! Indigenous People's Day/Columbus Day.

Weekly Barrows Newsletter
​Here is the link to the latest Starburst from Principal Gallegos loaded with useful school-wide info and updates

---

​Here's what's been going on in our grade 2 classroom:

Community Building
We enjoyed another All School Assembly on Wednesday. Ms. Becker and some 5th grade students reviewed safety expectations and tips. Students watched a funny video featuring minions about what not to do! In the classroom this week, some social issues that started outside of the classroom made their way in, so we had some whole-group conversations about communication, misunderstandings, and conflict resolution. We'll continue that work this week and practice some strategies for solving problems with peers.

Literacy 
Students had a blast reading their Fluency Packets to the class. I let them read in silly voices (old person voices, sing-songy voices). See pictures above! We made more headway in our chapter book read aloud of There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom. Students are doing a great job following the plot and inferring the motivations of the main characters. Here are some other literacy highlights:

• Read a couple of great books about persevering: The Magical Yet by Angela DiTerlizzi and After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat. We wrote responses to each story using our "Because, But, So" writing technique.
• Learned how to elaborate our writing using our "Sentence Expansion" technique.
• Began learning about personal narrative writing and wrote narrative sentences.
• Practice our decoding and fluency skills with a short story and partner reading.

Phonics
Students took their first phonics test this week, for Unit 1 in Fundations, which covered standard letter sounds, blends, digraphs, and closed syllables. (Be on the look out for this test coming home in the Home/School folder toward the end of the week). Unit 1 reviewed material taught in 1st grade. We'll be moving on to Unit 2, which finishes the review of 1st grade material. This week we'll be reviewing spelling with bonus letters (ff, ll, ss, and sometimes zz in words like off, full, fuss, and fuzz). We'll also review how standard letter sounds change, such as the /a/ in words like "ball," "ban," and "bam." We call these "glued" or "welded" sounds, because the sounds are stuck together. Other examples include words with "-ng" and "-nk," such as "sing" and "song," and "sank" and "sink." Many more phonics skills packed into this week's lessons!

Math
Students learned how to analyze picture and bar graphs this week, creating their own. They traded with a partner and worked on writing fact statements using the phrases, "more than" and "fewer than." This week we will build off of bar graphs and look at diagrams to compare quantities that include an unknown quantity (the beginnings of algebra!). Students will learn to use tape diagrams, a simple mathematical visualization, to help make sense of the relationship between two quantities and between addition and subtraction.

Content Area: Switching to Science!
We had fun exploring cardinal directions and maps this week. We looked at a map of the World Fair in St. Louis in 1904 and found our way around the various attractions using cardinal directions. We'll pause here on our map work in order to begin Science!

This week in Science, we'll kick off by learning about what a scientist is and what an engineer is. Any parental scientists or engineers out there? Let's schedule a visit to the classroom to tell us about your field and your work! Our topic of exploration in Science this month is Weathering, Erosion, and Our Changing Planet. This week we'll be investigating how wind and water change the land through weathering and erosion. We'll be conducting a fun hands-on experiment, drawing scientific diagrams, and analyzing results. Should be engaging!

Thank you for reading! Please reach out with any questions or feedback. Have a great week!