 Hello Families, We had another busy week in 2nd grade. From our Fall-Halloween Party on Monday, to our marathon read aloud on Friday, each day was loaded with learning and fun. I sent home a packet containing students' Unit 1 Math Assessment and their Unit 2 Phonics Test, along with a sample of their recently turned-in work. Please cut, sign, and return the bottom portion of the cover page so that I know you received and reviewed their work. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out. Don't forget that Fall Conferences are coming up on November 16, 17, and 18. Here is a the sign-up sheet: Ms. Kimball's Class Fall Conference Sign Up Important Dates this Week:
Above, students are using cubes and base-10 blocks to model math, and playing our relay-race phonics game. Below are some more highlights from the week. Community Building Our Fall Party on Monday was a blast! Thank you so much to the parents who lead an activity or supported. Kids loved the read aloud, the "feel boxes," the ghost craft, and the toilet paper mummy wrapping. Lots of pictures at the bottom of this post! This week, I made more time for the "Sharing" component of our Morning Meetings, during which students can share about something that happened to them, and classmates can ask questions. It's been an especially enjoyable part of the day where students get to learn more about each other. Literacy I read two picture books about persevering, The Thing Lou Couldn't Do and The Most Magnificent Thing, both by Ashley Spires. We had great class discussions about doing things that are hard and working through frustration. I also read a lot from our chapter book, There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom by Louis Sachar. We only have a couple more chapters to go! I had some students in tears today with the sad turn of events in the story --the departure of Bradley Chalker's beloved school counselor, Carla. Ask your child to tell you about it! Writing This week we wrapped up writing personal narratives. Students turned in a published version and I can't wait to read them all! We discussed the difference between writing and speaking, and I emphasized that written language is very different than spoken language, which often rambles on and happens within a conversation. I reminded students to write in a way that helps their readers. We'll have a sharing session next week! We also worked at the sentence level of writing, analyzing complete sentences versus fragments. We discussed nouns, verbs, and phrases. We'll continue this work next week as well. Phonics We moved on to Unit 3 of Fundations, our phonics curriculum. I introduced vowel teams, two vowels making one sound, in particular "ai" and "ay" making a long /a/ vowel sound, and "ee," "ea," and "ey" making a long /e/ sound. We also learned about something called "closed syllable exceptions." These are special sounds that break the rules. Instead of the vowel making the expected short vowel sound, it makes a long vowel sound even thought it's part of a closed syllable. Words like "find," "wild," "cold," "bolt," and "post" fall into this closed syllable exception category. In all of those words, the "i" or the "o" makes a rule-breaking long sound. We played a fun game reading and marking up these types of words. Next week we will learn some more vowel teams, practice trick words, practice our new sounds, and take our Unit 3 Phonics Test (this unit is a short one!) If your child is struggling with reading and writing, then practicing phonics at home in a one-on-one setting, could help a lot. Here are the Home Support Packets from the Fundations program for the units we've covered so far, plus the current one, Unit 3.
Math We dove into the next math unit on Adding and Subtracting within 100. Students are learning how to use models to represent 2-digit numbers, and then use those models to do addition or subtraction (without composing or decomposing --that means breaking apart or putting together a 10). I fried students' brains a little too much on Thursday with a challenging story problem, so we hit the breaks and focused on modeling the concept with simpler numbers. We played an easy math game on Friday to give students a more manageable math activity! Here are the Family Support Materials for the first two Math units: If you would like some activities to support your child with math at home, please let me know. Science In Science we learned about engineers and the many different types of engineers. We learned more about weathering and erosion and how it can affect our community --it's happening on our hill at Barrows! Next week students will work in groups to engineer a solution that will prevent a model hillside from eroding. Should be fun! Fall Party Slideshow!Special Message for Veterans: Is a member of your family a Veteran? Help Barrows honor those that served for our country. Two options - We are inviting Veterans to be part of our assembly on Wednesday November 9th at 8:30 OR you can send us a photo and information and it will be included in the assembly. Either way please email [email protected] to register your Veteran in order to be recognized at the assembly. Please do this no later than Monday November 7th. You will need to share the following information:
Thank you for reading! Please reach out with any questions or feedback. Have a great week! 
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