Hello Families and Friends!

Greetings and happy December! If you have a chance to stop by, please check out our lovely Christmas scene outside our room…thanks to Helen Higa-Campbell! We had such a nice time decorating our tree together as a class as well!

(I’m not the only one…am I??)

 

Please note that an envelope went home on Wednesday with 2 tickets for parents for our Christmas program next Friday, Dec. 10th at 2:00. The Covid task force has suggested limited seating, thus the 2 tickets given to each student’s families. The show will be on Facebook as well for those not able to attend. Please have your child wear their “Sunday’s best” or red tops and khaki pants on that Friday. Thank you!

Did you love your little pinecone turkey friends that the students made? I have made one for each year I’ve been teaching in the classroom…that’s now 15 pinecone turkeys to store…and counting!  My family and I collect those pinecones every summer in Pinetop just for this project! Also, did your child teach you how to set a proper table?

 

I am happy to report that our class surpassed our goal of 250 homework tickets and earned our second homework party of the year! Snacks were eaten and a special Looney Tunes Thanksgiving show was watched!

 

Today, St. Nicholas stopped by magically and filled our shoes with goodies! What a fun tradition here at St. Michael’s 🙂

 

Reading

We have had some great stories in our reading series that lend themselves quite nicely to the writing projects on which we have been working. “What are our responsibilities to each other?” That is the big question we are exploring in this new reading unit. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about good deeds and things people do to help others. This week we read “Aesop’s Fables” retold by Shirleyann Costigan. These two fables show that when you do a good deed, help can come from unexpected places. We also read “Wisdom of the Ages” which were proverbs from seven cultures. These proverbs reminded readers to do good deeds and display their pillars of good character. Some vocabulary words of note: character, choice, citizenship, courage, grateful, respect, responsible, right, and thoughtful.

 

Spelling and Language

We worked on a few different spellings over the past few weeks: Long A spelled with ‘a,’ ‘ai,’ and ‘ay.’ Also, Long E spelled ‘e,’ ‘ee,’ ‘ea,’ and ‘ie.’ At this point, all students are strong in spelling phonetically. We just need to retain the odd vowel spellings and that comes with more consistent visual exposure to all of these words and spellings through reading! We are getting pretty good at locating nouns and verbs in sentences, as well as complete subjects and predicates.

 

Writing

Our new reading unit has provided wonderful topics for us to write about. We have been describing good citizenship through several different writing forms: lists, paragraphs, and short stories. Within these writing exercises, we have been practicing finding all of the subjects and predicates in our descriptive sentences. We also wrote rough and good drafts of letters to Santa. Going along with our “lend a helping hand” theme in reading, we not only asked Santa for items for ourselves, but we also requested items for others. Did you know that I am privy to Santa’s personal information? As in…I have his address?! Knowing this information helped us learn how to address a proper envelope complete with the correct location of a stamp.

Mathematics

We have been working hard on understanding place value and also representing and solving problems involving addition and subtraction. Throughout our year, the students are asked to make sense of and solve different types of story problems, including adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing. They are also introduced to more complex problem types such as those involving an unknown change or unknown start. Tricky, tricky.

Recently, the concept of stickers that come in the form of singles, strips of 10, and sheets of 100 has provided a model for representing and making sense of place value. Students have used this sticker concept to represent numbers with hundreds, tens, and ones; consider how the value of a digit is determined by its place in a number; and compare numbers by place. This understanding helps students develop computation strategies in later units and grades. Ask your child how to play “Last Number Standing” – it’s quick, easy, fun, and an effective way to solidify place value!

Playing math games!

 

Social Studies

We have been reading several selections and have shared in many discussions regarding good citizenship and how it affects our communities. From the small community of our classroom to the large community of our state and country, every good deed counts. We also learned how to read grid coordinates on maps. The class LOVED map coordinates – like A LOT. Now these kids will all be Battleship masters! We will certainly do some more of this because I just found some fun Christmas coordinate projects! Another map-reading skill we touched on but certainly have not mastered yet is giving directions using the cardinal directions (NSEW). I personally revolt every time someone tries to give me directions to a place using language such as “turn south on Wilmot, and west on Broadway…” no thanks. RIGHT OR LEFT, PEOPLE! But, it is an important skill and I recognize that maybe I’ll become proficient along with the children whilst teaching them 🙂

 

Science

We started studying the life cycle of spiders by learning all of the arachnid body parts. Have your child sing you the super cute spider body part song! We will be learning about the 5 different types of webs that spiders weave: orb, tangled, sheet, triangle, and funnel. Ask your child about some spider facts that he or she learned from our many informational texts.

Researching spiders

 

 

Teaching Time

We sure do love learning new things from our friends!

Ralph – Legos, geodes, eyeballs

Hayden – pinecones, music boxes, leaves

Edrich – Teddy, Atlanta Falcons

Harper – rocks, how to make slime, how crayons are made

Andrew – hockey, paddle boarding

Elena – how to draw a body, dogs, how to make a fan

Nora – ocelots, parrots, how to draw a dog

Hazel – her sister, Disneyland, vaccinations

J.J. – Deloreans, Costa Concordia

Neelan – soccer, NYC

Caitlyn – salt, butterflies

Anukriti – turkeys, pandemics

Zayla – her cat, air

Quinn – homemade bubbles, Song of the Sea movie

Kaden – Highland games, chinchillas

Great job, everybody!

 

Important Dates

Friday, December 10th: Christmas program, 2:00

Friday, December 17th: half day, 11:50 dismissal, NO AFTERCARE

 

Have a nice weekend 🙂

Annie

Happy birthday, Hayden!

Thank you to Helen and Melissa for our super fun Thanksgiving pie and cider party!

Mother Clare speaking to us about Advent and our beautiful Church!

Hello Families and Friends!

The Holidays are just around the corner and the year is really flying by for us!  It is now sweater weather…I lovingly look back on our pre-air conditioning days when our old wing of the school had to turn on our archaic radiant floor heater and see crayons melt and children lay all over the warm floor haha 🙂 

And folks, she did it again! Look at the lovely Fall decorations that Helen Higa-Campbell put up for our happy campers to enjoy! Thank you, Helen! This scene is a treat for all to admire!

Thank you for all of the canned good donations given to our Thanksgiving food drive…you still have a few days to donate if you so wish. Thank you!

 

Reading

We have been reading some very interesting stories together as a whole group as well as in our small reading groups. We finished our unit called “Water for Everyone.” A few recent selections we read were “PlayPumps” by Catherine Clarke Fox which was an article that describes the PlayPump, an invention that has helped millions of people in Africa get clean water. Another selection, “The Mighty Colorado” by Mimi Mortezai, introduces Explorer Jon Waterman, who works to preserve the Colorado River, a source of water and power for millions of people. Some interesting vocabulary words that kept popping up in our reading were: healthy, invention, machine, pipes, provide, pump, require, source, and wells. Our next reading unit will focus on reaching out and lending a hand to those in need. 

Spelling

We worked on words with long e and long u during the past two weeks.  One way we worked on these spellings is by playing a “making words” game.  This is where I give the students a whole bunch of random letters and they put the letters together to make several small words. In these cases, the words had many of the sounds that we were working on.  At the end of the game, all of the letters spell one big word. This is yet another “trick” to get kids to learn even when they think they aren’t doing so! 

 

Writing

We were able to write another R.A.F.T. (role, audience, format, task): the students assumed the role of a piece of Halloween candy. Their task was to write a persuasive letter to the trick or treater who owns them to talk the trick or treater out of eating them! We went from being stale to being poisonous and every reason in between! These were incredibly funny! 

We are all actively working on using more descriptive language in our formal and informal writing. We are currently going through a writers’ workshop session with a fun Thanksgiving story. The students all are assuming the role of a turkey who is narrating the story. So, while writing in the voice of a turkey, the students are able to write a fun and interesting Thanksgiving adventure. When finished, these books will be displayed in our classroom library along with the students’ self-written Halloween books. 

 Mathematics

We have been “all about” fractions over the past 2 weeks! We began by discovering the meaning of one half. The students solved story problems in which they partitioned geometric shapes (which we studied in the past investigation) into halves. Through discussions and exploration, the students have examined the idea that halves can be equal size, but different shapes. The students also worked with fourths and thirds by creating fraction flags and working with the ever-so-fun Geoboards. The students understand that fractions are equally partitioned parts of one whole item. Next up will be Unit 3 which provides students opportunities to engage with ideas that lay a foundation for algebra – cool! 

 

Social Studies

We are still continuing to work on making and reading maps.   We worked on making maps of our bedrooms making sure to add all of the permanent fixtures. We realize that maps don’t have details, such as people and cars. Rather, maps include large objects that are stationary. 

We have also been discussing the first Thanksgiving and how it is important to reach out to our community during this time. We are focusing on Thanksgiving and the history of this holiday.  Yesterday, we gathered with Mrs. Tomiak’s class to learn about and use Native American symbols to write our own stories.We will be continuing to learn many facts about the Pilgrims and Native Americans.  The students will also learn the lost art of setting a formal dining table. I’m hoping they’ll use their knowledge of place settings nightly! 🙂

Writing stories with Native American symbols on pretend buckskin

 

Science with Ms. 🙂

We started studying the life cycle of bees. We learned so many facts about these amazing little creatures; ask your child what he or she found to be most interesting about bees! We learned various facts about the hexagonal shaped cells that the bees make in their hives, the three different types of honeybees: drones, workers, and queens, and the different body parts of bees.  Did you know that only female bees have stingers? Next up: the lifecycle of spiders!

Teaching Time

We had many interesting teaching times during the past few weeks:

Ralph – Beyblades 

Hayden – snakes

Edrich – his family

Harper – Milky Way, palo verde trees

Andrew – snow boarding, the air show

Elena – x-rays, the F35

Nora – goats, pandas

Hazel – turtles, how to play Pokemon

J.J. – sugar skulls, how to draw the Titanic

Neelan – Diwali, A10s

Caitlyn – skin, teeth

Anukriti – Diwali, otters

Zayla – how to draw anime, Koro-Sensei

Quinn – blue whales, William Shakespeare 

Kaden – chameleons, Newfoundlands 

 

Great job to you all! 

Important Dates

Nov. 17th: 11:50 dismissal

Nov. 24-26th: Thanksgiving Holiday, no school

 

Have a nice weekend!

Annie

 

Happy birthday, Neelan!

Field Day fun!

Dia De Los Muertos procession

Hello Families and Friends!

Happy (almost) November! A lot of excitement took place this week when we celebrated Halloween!  Thank you to the many parents who donated items and their time to our Halloween celebration, especially Helen Higa-Campbell, for the planning and putting up the festive decorations!   Check out all of the photos of the 2B Happy Campers in the Halloween parade! This is one of my favorite traditions here at St. Michael’s! Happy Halloween! 

 

Writing

We continued to work on our Halloween/Fall stories from last week’s pre-writing stage.  When we finished up publishing our good drafts, we then proudly shared our work during an “author’s chair” session where each author read his or her story to the class. These stories are being kept in our class library for all of our classmates to read. 

Reading

We started a new theme in reading called “Water for Everyone!”  “Where does water come from?” That is the big question we are exploring in this unit. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about the water cycle and water as a natural resource. We read “Frog Brings Rain” by Joseph Bruchac. In this traditional Native American tale, Frog helps “First Woman” when he turns Water into rain and puts out Fire. We also read “Make Rain” by Mimi Mortezai. This science experiment book demonstrates how rain forms and falls from the sky. In addition to the weekly class stories, we also worked in small groups on leveled readers.  We reinforced the correct usage and spelling of the weekly vocabulary and spelling words which were then practiced in the students’ workbooks and later tested through a comprehension and vocabulary test. Some of the current vocabulary words which we are focusing on are: absorb, become, carry, cycle, and change.

Spelling

We have been working on words that contain the long a, long o, and long I sounds spelled with the “magic silent e” on the end. In addition to our weekly spelling homework, to practice these different vowel spellings, we read poems, short stories, do workbook pages, and complete word sorts that contain words with these long vowels. As I have said before, the more times the students see these spellings in words, the better they will be at reading and/or spelling them during applied spelling times.  

Mathematics

In math we are beginning to explore fractions and are also continuing to learn about polygons.  We practice addition and subtraction with regrouping frequently. We also have been taking some basic addition and subtraction timed tests. The students need to move closer to having the basic facts (up to 12) memorized, so these tests help with that. They are given 3 minutes to complete 25 problems. When the nerves settle down and confidence grows, we will be moving towards completing 100 problems in 5 minutes. Working with flash cards and playing online math fact games at home are 2 great ways to assist in success with math facts!

Sorting polygons according to attributes i.e. number of sides, right angles, etc.

Working with GeoBoards. Also cool!

 

Bonus Science with Ms. O

We ended our study about plant life cycles this past week. We talked and read about pollination, photosynthesis, and osmosis. The students really enjoyed our lily dissection project! We each were given a lily  so we could see all of the reproductive parts of flowers.  We learned to identify each part of a flower and what its purpose is by dissecting and by color coding a flower part diagram.  We also saw osmosis occur in front of our eyes: we placed celery stalks in red water and left them overnight. The very next day, we saw how the colored water traveled through the veins of the stalks and into the leaves! After this process, transpiration begins (which is the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere). This has been a lot of fun to study!  

Flower dissection! 

Celery dissection! 

I have noticed through observation that many of our happy campers are deathly afraid of bees. We are most afraid of things we don’t know much about, so this is the perfect time to learn about the life cycle of bees (goes along with pollination anyhow!). We will also learn a bit about spiders, speaking of things “we” are afraid of!

Nurse Huff came in to talk about social distancing, mask wearing, and especially hand washing. She squirted some pretty interesting stuff on our hands which mimicked germs and could be seen only under her blacklight. The kids had to wash their hands VERY well in order to pass her post-wash blacklight test! Ask your child how many times it took him or her to wash hands before getting all the “germs” off!

Becoming germ assassins!

Social Studies

We have been doing several small group activities where we focus on completing a task while using effective teamwork strategies such as positive communication, asking questions, dividing jobs equitably, staying on task to complete the goal, etc.   Teamwork is a big part of the social studies and science grades in the second grade. Also, these are such important skills for life in general, don’t you think? 🙂 We also continued to work on maps and understanding map keys. 

We were treated to a presentation led by Tucson Electric Power. The TEP presenter addressed how to be safe around electricity in the home, school, and neighborhood. Each student received an in-depth Safety Land Learning Guide filled with exciting activities and video links to reinforce newly acquired learning. Thank you, TEP!

 

Teaching Time

We had many interesting teaching times during the past two weeks: 

Ralph – how to draw a spider, butterflies

Hayden – her little brother, her turtle

Edrich – his sister, his brother

Harper – volcanoes, how to make a fortune teller

Andrew – how to play lacrosse, how to ride a dirt bike

Elena – how to draw a body, rattlesnakes

Nora – Lego robotics, how to play chess

Hazel – how to braid hair, horses

J.J. – Titanic facts

Neelan – different swim strokes, different types of golf clubs

Caitlyn – how pearls are formed, black garnets 

Anukriti – air plants, dragons

Zayla – how to draw anime figures, fennec fox

Quinn – mini pumpkin facts, polymers

Kaden – Russian nesting dolls, hacky sack history

Important Dates

Friday, Nov 5th:  Half Day DISMISSAL 11:50/First Trimester Ends/FIELD DAY!!

Monday,  Nov 8th: No school/Grading Day 

 

Have a nice weekend!

Best,

Annie

Dr. Antista recorded us reading prayers for Monday Chapel!

Hello Families and Friends!

We have had a great few weeks here in 2B!  We are “cooking with gas” while we have been gearing up for Fall Break! My family and I will be heading to San Diego. This time next week, I will be sitting on the Navy SEAL beach on Coronado reading a good book, and watching my children and husband run around like crazy people while I protect our chips and other snacks from seagulls. I wish you all a safe and fun break!

We wanted to thank our lovely room parent, Helen Higa-Campbell, for planning a fun Fall/Halloween party for us on the 29th! She also decorated so festively with amazing Halloween decorations which truly have delighted all of us in the west wing! The students may wear their costumes to school that day as well. There will be a costume parade that your child may participate in if he or she wishes to do so. The parade will begin at 2:40 and will also be live streamed on St. Michael’s Facebook page.

Meet Princess Grace Skelly

So festive! (black and pink are my JAM!)

 

Spelling

We have been working on a variety of sounds: sh, ph, wh, th. Sometimes, knowing when to use these consonant digraphs is tricky, but the more the students work with these odd spelling patterns, the more familiar they will become with some of the “rule breaker” type words.  We have also spent some time on studying abbreviations and contractions.  I wanted the students to see them because we run across them daily and they’re everywhere!   The students understand that we are to read the abbreviation as if the whole word is actually there.  We understand that there is also a time and a place to use abbreviations and contractions…like in a quick note to a friend, but not necessarily in a formal report.

Writing

We pretended we were botanists and worked on writing a friendly letter to our non-growing seeds using proper letter-writing formats. We also worked on where and how to place quotation marks to signify a character speaking in our writing.  This is a tricky concept, but the students grasped it well.  We worked on story sequencing using the words first, next, then, and last.  This will help the students to organize their thoughts in a more systematic way when they are asked to write a story or complete a summary and/or book report. 

Some of us reading to our seeds

Reading

We read several interesting selections; one being “Living Lights” by Dr. Dennis Desjardin in which we learned about plants and animals that use light to attract prey, hide, communicate, and reproduce.  Another cool selection was “Clever Creatures” by Douglas Florian which included three poems describing animals with special features that help them survive. We have been working on making inferences when we are reading.  By definition, an inference is “the process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true.” In 2nd grade terms, we take information that we have read, combine that with information that we already know about that fact, then put those two together and formulate an inference based upon these facts.  This is a great comprehension strategy and also is helpful in creating a dialogue about a story that your child may be reading at home.

Mathematics

We completed our initial investigations into solving addition and subtraction story problems. During our class lessons, the students learned strategies for understanding, representing, and solving word problems. We shared numerous ways to solve problems and had time to discuss how the different problem solving strategies each student came up with were related to each other. 

This week, we started a new investigation: attributes of 2-D and 3-D shapes. So far, the students have enjoyed describing and drawing, sorting, and studying these shapes and their attributes using the following vocabulary words: polygon, features, face, vertices, edges, congruent. This will set the foundation before moving on to learning all of the different polygons, arrays, and equal parts of a whole.

Friendly reminder: please encourage your child to continue working on his or her basic addition and subtraction skills 🙂

Working with Geoblocks and finding attributes of 3D shapes

Science 

We had fun and were able to create greenhouses in baggies, or “sprout houses,” where we placed lima beans with a wet paper towel inside a baggie and then hung them outside on the poles in the breezeway.  After about 2 days, a few of the seeds germinated (hey, ask your child what “germination” means!) and some even grew shoots…we’ll just have to wait and observe to see what happens next!  We understand that not all of our seeds will grow (variances in sunlight and how wet their paper towels were, etc.), but we know that science is at times not perfect and/or uniform! We plan to plant these sprouted beans in the planter outside of Mrs. Stalkfleet’s class and see how far we go in the plant life cycle! Warning: there is a rogue “church yard bunny” who ate all of our plants last year.

Grow, little seeds!

 

Social Studies 

We completed studying the differences between urban, suburban, and rural communities.  We are now discovering what a map is and we are learning to use its basic features.  We are becoming familiar with the compass rose and with map keys.  Through different activities and our social studies text book, we will discover the purpose of maps and we will apply our knowledge in a few processing activities by drawing our own maps. 

 

 

Teaching Time

We had many informational teaching times over the past few weeks! 

Ralph – rattlesnakes, the Grand Canyon

Hayden – black holes, caterpillars

Edrich – his brother Luke

Harper – different cloud types, sloths

Andrew – mountain boarding

Elena – Simone Biles, how to win toys at Round 1

Nora – horses, how Pop-its work

Hazel – how to play tennis, how to make rubber band bracelets

J.J. – how hoverboards work

Neelan – different types of skateboards

Caitlyn – caribou facts, the moon

Anukriti – Simone Biles, mimic octopus

Zayla – anime characters, mesquite tree facts

Quinn – Mt. Lemmon facts 

Kaden – how a polaroid camera works, Megalodons 

Great job to you all!

 

Important Dates

October 11-15: Fall Break

October 29th: Costume day at school/class party. Parade at 2:40 and will be live streamed on Facebook

 

Happy weekend, happy break!

Annie

 

Happy birthday, Elena!

Happy Birthday, Nora!

My new BFF

Hello Families and Friends!

It is finally beginning to feel more and more like Fall everyday!  We have had a great few weeks together here in 2B! 

It was a pleasure seeing everyone on our Curriculum Night Zoom.  Thank you for sharing part of your evening with me. Our meeting was recorded and Mr. Layer will post it on his Blog for your viewing pleasure if you were unable to attend.

Progress reports will be going home in a little over one week. We have been in school for over 30 days, so these grades are a snapshot from the collection of both formal and informal assessments to date. If you have any questions on your child’s progress reports, please email me. 

The class collectively earned the first homework party by reaching our goal of 250 homework tickets! Snacks were eaten, games were played, and fun was to be had by all. Great team effort, 2B! 🙂

Playing a fun game called Loose Caboose!

 

 

Spelling

We have been working on several consonant blends.  I already see a difference in the students’ spelling when they are writing – they are really remembering the spellings of long vowels and words!  They are also using syllables to more accurately sound out and spell longer words. We continue to review the high frequency words of the second grade.  These are words that constantly pop up in our reading and may contain unconventional spellings – like the words because, people, were, their, etc.  Have your child point out nouns and verbs during your nightly reading!

Writing

We had a lot of fun in our writing over the past 2 weeks! We started to write full paragraphs using a topic sentence, 3 supporting detail sentences, and one concluding sentence.  Paragraph writing will be our main focus for the next long while. The students  were able to pick any animal and write about its unique camouflaging abilities in paragraph form. We revised and edited our paragraphs, which is another process we will be working on all year.

We also worked on making inferences by doing a fun writing activity: we each drew a picture, then we showed the pictures to our neighbor, then we used our inference-making skills to write a sentence  stating what we thought was was going on in the picture. This was a great activity, though I should admit that I basically ripped this idea off from the super-fun party game called “Scribblish” 😉

Reading

“What does it take to survive?” That’s the big question we are exploring in this unit. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about animal adaptations and how they help animals get what they need to survive. In our small reading groups, we worked on leveled readers.  We focused on using character voices when we come across quotation marks in our reading.  We worked on locating action and helping verbs in our reading and in our workbooks.  We took a test today which checked comprehension, writing, spelling, and vocabulary skills. A few stories we read were: “Twilight Hunt” by Norelle Oliver where animals use camouflage to hide as a Screech Owl hunts for food, and “Hide and Seek” which is a science article that tells how animals use color, shape, and size to hide in their habitats. Some new vocabulary words that have popped up in our reading are: adaptation, defend, habitat, insects, safe, and survive.

Mathematics

Over the last two weeks, we started and completed a new math investigation: comparing quantities and counting by groups. We worked in a large group setting, partners/small group settings, and independently on the following skills and activities: 

Solving “enough for the class” problems where the students discussed strategies for finding the difference between two quantities.

Subtraction facts and investigations into whether order matters within this operation.

Coin equivalencies combined with addition. Ask your child about the “Collect 25/50 cents” game where  partners rolled dice, added the dice roll numbers together, and then collected that many cents. The first partner to collect 25/50 cents wins! They would also try to make that amount with fewest coins. Great game which can be played at home! 

Grouping a set number of cubes into towers of 2s, 5s, and 10s, charting the numbers of whole towers that can be made, while focusing on remainders when different quantities of towers were made. This was challenging but led to some great discussions!

Next up in math: attributes of 2-D and 3-D polygons!

 

Bonus Science with Ms. O 

We continued learning about the life cycle of plants!   We dissected a lima bean to see what was on the inside of a seed (have your child tell you his or her discoveries!).  We learned the stages of seed growth from seed to germination to shoot to flower. Make sure to ask your child to see his or her flipbook showing their seed knowledge. 

September 26th is Johnny Appleseed Day, so what better time of year is there to have an apple taste test with different types of apples? We discussed and charted color, texture, and taste differences and talked about how cross-pollination (more to come on that) leads to different variations of fruits.

Seed dissection 

 

Social Studies 

We have also been focusing on three different types of communities: urban, suburban, and rural. We are discovering the similarities and differences between all of these different places. 

We had a guest speaker from Tucson Water come to talk to us about being “water smart” in our desert community. We learned that Tucson’s main sources of water are groundwater, the Central Arizona Project, and reclaimed water. We learned about aquifers and groundwater as well as the value and importance of water. We completed some writing activities on how we can be Water Smart kids and brainstormed different ideas on how and why to conserve water.

Thank you, Tucson Water!

Renaissance Testing

Our “standardized” Renaissance testing was completed this past week. Students in the 2nd grade take both a literacy and a math test.  We use these initial assessments to identify student competency and to guide instruction. Renaissance is a computer adaptive test, which means the test adapts the level of rigor according to each answer a student provides. Students will be taking these tests three times this year – September, January, and May. The students get a kick out of taking these standardized tests because they are done on the ipads…unlike the days of  yore 😉 I sent you each an email with your child’s reading level (ZPD: zone of proximal development) attached with a wonderful website with reading suggestions according to your child’s level. It is a wonderful resource and I have found it to be so helpful with my own child.

 

Teaching Time

Great job on the first week of Teaching Time presentations! Here is what we learned about from our friends:

Ralph – his turtle Speedo

Hayden – acorn facts

Edrich – played AC/DC on his guitar

Harper – cats and kittens

Andrew – scooter tricks

Elena – bunny facts

Nora – her cat Donut

Hazel – beaver facts

J.J. – Sparky the sun devil

Neelan – how his bike works

Caitlyn – giraffe facts

Anukriti – living rock plant

Zayla – her anime drawings

Quinn – Beta fish facts

Kaden – hamster facts

Great job to everyone! The students are working on speaking loudly and they all engaged their peers with cool facts. I learned a ton and I hope this loaned itself to some fun conversations at home!

 

Important Dates

October 11-15: Fall break!

Thank you and have a nice weekend!

Annie

Happy birthday, Zayla!

Ready for our group picture!

The lineup!

Lookin’ sharp for our individual picture day!

Hello Families and Friends!

We have had a busy couple of weeks here in 2B! Since we are talking about communities and what communities need in order to function, if anybody knows a doctor, police officer, business owner, etc. who can host some sort of online field trip/Zoom presentation to talk to us about how they help the community, please let me know! Thank you!

Reading

In a large group setting, we studied several non-fiction stories which spoke about how communities work together in order to achieve a goal that will make life better for everyone around. “Be My Neighbor,” by Maya Ajmera and John D. Ivanko, is a photo-essay which shows neighborhoods around the world and how people live together in them. “My Favorite Place”  is  an Internet bulletin board story where different students from around the country wrote in to tell about their favorite places in their communities. In our small reading groups, we worked on trying to make our diction more clear when reading aloud.  We also worked on locating possessive and proper nouns in our reading and in our workbooks. Some of the vocabulary words that we worked into our reading and writing lessons over the past few weeks were: area, building, identify, library, locate, and population.

 

Spelling

We have been working hard on several different vowel sounds.  As we know, these many vowel sounds are spelled in a variety of ways (English is crazy!)  One way to remember the long vowel spelling pattern when two vowels are together (as in ‘ai’),  I always say, “when two vowels are together, the first one does the talking, and the second one does the walking,” meaning that you hear the long A sound and the I is silent. Please continue to encourage your child to use his or her sounding out and proofreading skills when completing his or her homework! 

Writing

We worked on several different writing strategies during the past two weeks.  One strategy focused on using more adjectives in our sentences.   We also have been challenging ourselves by writing stories using random words from phonics word sorts in our reading workbooks. We have been writing a lot of reflections on our community, the places we like to visit, and jobs that we may find interesting. We had a “snowball fight” with some descriptive writing we did…ask your child about the details of that! And last, please ask your child to sing you the song I came up with about nouns and verbs. It is titled “Every Sentence Has a Noun and a Verb” and I DO own the rights to the song, but you may use it 😉

Mathematics

The past couple of weeks have been busy mathematically, but FUN! We have been working on developing addition and subtraction fluency with numbers 0-20 by using “number strings” (ask your child what those are), and by grouping addends in different ways to make adding easier (i.e. making a 10, adding doubles, breaking down numbers into smaller addends, etc.). A fun math game we have been playing on our white boards to develop number sense within 100 is called “Guess my number.” Ask your child how we play that and what types of math questions they ask in order to decipher the teacher’s secret number. Another game we played was called “How Many Pockets.” This game showed us that we can count quantities in numerous ways and represent that counting data in various forms such as charts, tallies, pictures, number strings, etc. Another game was an addition and subtraction game which involved students rolling number cubes, dice, and creating their own number strings to either add or subtract. And the favorite game: “Beat the Calculator!” One partner was figuring out a flashcard with a number string while the other partner figured out the problem on a calculator: whoever figured out the answer first got a point! Working under pressure = such a great skill to practice for LIFE! Also, we are learning that there is always more than one way to arrive at answers in math; being able to explain how an answer was achieved is the key to mathematical success! 

Lots and lots of hands-on learning in math!

 

Social Studies 

We are working on learning and using the cardinal directions (NSEW)! We also have been discovering different parts of a map and what maps are in the first place. The students created some pretty cool maps called “Noun towns.” Not only did they have to create individual maps, but they also had to label all the nouns on their maps. I love it when lessons/activities are cross curricular! We are working on memorizing our home addresses and at least one parent’s phone number…many students already know these!

Bonus Science with Ms. O

We have been discussing how all living things consist of many parts that serve different functions vital for survival such as the different parts of a plant that are consumable by humans and animals: seeds, roots, and leaves. This lead to some wonderful studies about about fruits and vegetables and how we should “eat a rainbow” of foods in order to obtain all of the nutrients we need to benefit our health. We created a list of different colored foods and then learned about what vitamins and health benefits each color of food has to offer. What colors did YOU eat today??

Social Skills

We read an excellent Scholastic Newspaper about kindness vs. bullying which led to wonderful idea sharing and discussions on our treatment of those around us. We have had several talks so far this year about exclusion and how that feels. We have come up with many great ways of being inclusive in class and especially out on the playground. Also, with 2A, we had a 2nd grade meeting about being respectful. We discussed how others want to be treated and how treating them that way helps US to be respectful. We also talked about how being respectful helps children to learn. 

All 2nd graders discussing respectful behavior

 

Important Announcements/Dates

Wednesday, Sept. 15th: noon dismissal, aftercare available.

Thursday, Sept. 16:  Back-To-School Night via Zoom.  I will email you a zoom link.

Tuesday, Sept. 21: Class pictures.  Students must wear khaki pants/skirts and red St. Michael’s shirts.

Wednesday, Sept. 22: Individual pictures/sibling pictures – free dress.

 

Happy weekend!

Annie

Happy Birthday, Kaden!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

2B enjoying sweet birthday treats

Enjoying our lesson in chapel on faithfulness

Hello Everyone!

This is our first class blog of the 2021-2022 school year. Blog updates will be done every two weeks and will include all of the different curriculum items we have covered during the week, accompanied with many cute pictures of my adorable class 🙂 

First Day!

We have had a very nice first 2 full weeks here at St. Michael’s in the second grade! It was wonderful to meet you all during our intake conferences. I can already tell that we have a great group of involved parents on our team.

Thank you to all of my students and parents for making my birthday so special! What lovely surprises were waiting for me that morning 🙂 

What a surprise!

Reading

“What is a community?” That is the big question we are exploring in this language arts unit. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about the people and places that make our neighborhoods special. In a large group setting, we have studied several short stories regarding our community and what makes a community thrive.“Quinito’s Neighborhood,” by Ina Cumpiano,” is a realistic fiction story where the main character, Quinito, tells about his family and friends and the jobs they do. “Working Her Way Around the World” is a photo-essay by Explorer Annie Griffiths Belt which shows people around the world working at their jobs. These stories created much room for personal connections, discussion, and reflective writing. In our small reading groups, we worked on leveled readers which reinforced the topic of life in a community. Also in small groups, we reinforced the reading and spelling of the weekly vocabulary and spelling words which were also practiced in the workbooks and then tested through a comprehension and vocabulary test.

Spelling

We have been reviewing all of the short vowels.  We continue to reinforce spelling patterns by making rhymes with same-vowel spellings and completing word sorts.  We are still practicing our sounding-out skills and we will be working on locating words in the dictionary (which can be practiced at home too!). Be sure to check out your child’s green folder for Friday spelling tests (and many other items worked on throughout the week)! We practice our spelling lists in various ways including word and sentence dictation with self-editing work, ABC order, and simple spelling word projects and games. It has been lots of fun for us in class while yielding some pretty great results!

Writing

We have done some reflective writing on the topic of community. Also, we are continuing to practice our proofreading skills – a skill that even adults have to do (or should do!) on an everyday basis. We are working on creating longer, more descriptive and interesting sentences rather than simple 4-5 word sentences. We are learning the difference between nouns and verbs and are realizing that all sentences need to consist of each type of word in order to be a full and complete sentence.

Extra Science Fun with Ms. O

In addition to our wonderful science classes with Mrs. Bowen, in our class we will also be using our scientific method skills of making predictions, testing, analyzing, and synthesizing results as we venture into the exciting topic of plants!  We will start this unit by finding something in your home that comes from a plant.  There will be lots of fun ahead while we study the life cycle of plants!

Mathematics

Our big focus during the past couple of weeks has been understanding and extending the counting sequence and fluency within 20 (basic facts). Our class sessions have included using number lines and hundreds charts, counting sets of 100 objects, counting quantities in more than one way (grouping), identifying coins and dollar bills and understanding their values, combining coins to equal certain amounts, skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s, developing and analyzing visual images for quantities up to 20, telling time to the half hour, basic fact fluency, and using known facts to add two or more numbers. I have been extremely proud of the math discussions that have taken place during our sessions. One important fact that has become clear to all of us is: there is always more than one way to solve a math problem! If you have some good old fashioned flashcards to solidify those 0-12 addition and subtraction math facts and would like to practice at home, that would be a welcome idea! 

Working together in small math groups and also playing fun math games together!

Social Studies 

We have been studying the topic of “community.”  Through reading multiple texts and discussing our community, we are becoming more aware of our surroundings and what is necessary in order for a community to function properly.  We have been working on identifying details about our own smaller neighborhoods and communities. Soon, in the spirit of acknowledging that there are many different cultures within a single community, I will be sending home a family heritage project packet.  I always found it fascinating as a child to sit down with my parents and learn more about my ancestors; my hope is the students of 2B will love these special family discussions too.  This is a long-term project, so the due date will not be until the end of September/beginning of October.

Important Announcements/Dates

Monday, Sept. 6th:  no school
Thursday, Sept. 16th: virtual Back to School Night for lower school via Zoom 6pm

Thank you all for a great beginning of a successful year! As always, please feel free to contact me via email or by phone if you have any questions or concerns. Have a pleasant weekend!

Best,

Annie O’Meara 🙂

 

Happy birthday, Hazel!

Getting together with 2A to learn chapel songs and read/learn about the pillars of character!

First fire drill of the year PLUS Ladder 9 doing palm tree rescue training at the same time!