Weekly Update for June 12th-16th -Happy Summer!

​​Hi Families,
Thank you for such a great year!  It has been a privilege and a joy to teach your children this year. They are definitely one of the best classes I’ve ever had! I have so many fond memories filled with silliness, nerdiness, pride, and joy. What a great group of kids. I will miss them.

Also, thank you so much for your end of year generosity. I definitely feel the love and am humbled by it all. 

Below, check out students working on math and welcoming Nurse Rose to Morning Meeting.

---

Community Building
Although students were a little dysregulated this week with the excitement of the end of the school year, we had a very positive week. I stretched out our Morning Meeting so we could spend more time socializing, sharing, bonding, and playing games together. I’ve always found that a well-run Morning Meeting everyday is the best tool in creating a strong, empathetic, collaborative classroom community. It definitely worked this year!

Literacy 
We wrapped up our Greek Mythology unit. Students were riveted for much of it. I was amazed at the high-level of vocabulary and sentence structure in the read alouds. My apologies that so many of the myths involved violence and death. Students were quick to figure out that the words, “subdue,” and “defeat,” actually meant “kill.” However, we discussed how myths are “fictional stories that explain events in nature, teach moral lessons, and entertain listeners.” They were very entertained, that's for sure! Highlights:

• Read 3 myths this week: “Daedalus and Icarus,” “Hercules,” and “Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx;”
• Learned and practiced new vocabulary words, such as “plummet,” “immeasurable,” “aimlessly,” and “commotion;”
• Practiced fluency with a decodable story about missing socks in the laundry.

Writing
Students wrote reflections this week about their year in 2nd grade. I encouraged them to use our “sentence expansion” technique to say more. 

Phonics
We wrapped powered through an abbreviated unit 17 on the “consonant -le” syllable. We practiced reading and spelling words that end in “-le,” such as “giggle,” “bubble,” “pickle,” and “sparkle.”

If your child is still struggling with Phonics, see my Literacy Page, on the Phonics section for all of the Fundations Home Support Packets for each unit.

Math
We finished Unit 7 on Addition and Subtraction within 1,000 just in time for the end of the school year. Highlights:

• Added and subtracted 3-digit numbers using base-10 block models and manipulatives;
• Used different strategies to add and subtract 3-digit numbers, such as counting on, adding up, and subtracting down, and used equations to show our thinking;
• Decomposed hundreds and tens to subtract.

Science
We were engineers this week, designing homes for burrowing owls. Highlights:

• Learned about burrowing owls and their habitat in the desert;
• Drew prototypes of burrows given limited supplies;
• Worked in teams to build the burrows, revising our thinking when our designs didn’t work out as planned;
• Conducted an experiment to see which burrow kept the owls the coolest using ice cubes in cups and heat lamps. Congrats to Eve and JoJo, and Evan and Brett!

Below, check out students planning, designing, building, and testing their owl burrow prototypes.

Lastly, check out students working on their writing reflections --on the 2nd to last day of school! Our learning community was strong right up until the very end.

​​Thank you for taking the time to read the entire update! It was a great year. I hope you have a wonderful summer!