Weekly Update for 10/3

​Hi Families!
My apologies for my absences and the brief update this week. On top of missing Monday for full-day math curriculum training, I've was home semi-sick with my sick little one on Thursday and Friday. My son is battling one of those childhood viruses that causes general misery. We're sitting on the couch watching an endless stream of tractor and truck videos as I write this. My voice is almost back to normal. Thank you to Ms. Weisel for substituting those 3 days last week! Hopefully this week will be a little more consistent.​

Important Dates this Week:

• Wednesday: All School Assembly and spirit wear day. Dress is school colors.

Weekly Barrows Newsletter
​Here is the link to the latest Starburst from Principal Gallegos. You can find exciting info about the upcoming Monster Mash (10/21) put on by the PTO.

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Above, students are playing a little Phonics activity. Each group of students was given a word. Students worked together to segment the word into its individual phonemes, and then they "popped up" in front of the class to demonstrate.

Left, our class picture graph of what we had for breakfast. Sweet bread (waffles and pancakes) turned out to be the most popular. Students got a laugh out of the SmartBoard glitching as Ms. Kimball naively had students stick post-its to the screen. Lesson learned on my end!

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

Community Building
To get to know each other better, we've been taking time during morning meetings to share about ourselves. We also had a little competition to see who could name everyone in the classroom the fastest. Violet is currently our frontrunner at 14.2 seconds! 

Literacy 
We read a few great stories this week with great messages and responded in writing to each of them:

• Don't Hug Doug -about a boy who just doesn't like hugs and that's okay.
• I Can Do Hard Things -filled with mindful affirmations about tackling challenges and believing in yourself.
• Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed -about a naked mole rat who chooses to be different and wear clothes despite the protests from his community members. A book about being yourself and embracing your uniqueness.

Phonics
One focus this week was learning guidelines for spelling the /k/ sound in words. Help your child practice these at home for reinforcement.

• Use "ck" at the end of syllables or words when it immediately follows a short vowel. Ex. duck, black, flock.
• Use "c" at the beginning of words unless "e" or "i" follows it. Ex. cut, cap, cost.
• Use a "k" at the beginning of words if "e" or "i", immediately follows it. Ex. kick, key.
• Use "k" at the end of syllables or words if it immediately follows a consonant (in a blend). Ex. milk, shark, junk.

Math
We started learning about picture graphs this week and how they can represent data. We collected data as a class about what we had for breakfast and then created a class picture graph from the data. We also continued improving our flexibility with sums and differences to 10. We'll continue representing and interpreting data in picture graphs and bar graphs.

Content Area: Social Studies
We learned about maps this week, in particular:

• the differences between maps and globes;
• what are cardinal directions and how we can use a compass rose on a map to get to where we want to go;
• different map projections (Mercator and Peters) and how they distort size, shape, or distance;
• we even made our own maps!

This week we will finish up our map unit.

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