Dear Grade 2 Families,Things are moving right along in second grade. Students are getting accustomed to our classroom and are starting to remember the many steps of the morning routine and the packing-up routine, as well as all the routines in between. Reading Workshop is running smoothly, and students have already built quite a lot of reading stamina. This week, we have been focusing our work on strategies for being Word Detectives-- that is, for figuring out words we don't know. After reviewing the strategies students remembered from last year, we've discussed some new things that good readers do:
Readers often use two strategies at the same time!
Readers read common prefixes and suffixes "in a snap!"
Readers try both sounds when they see two vowels together. (We may remember the rule as "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking," but since that rule isn't always true, we try to push readers to be flexible.)
Students practiced these strategies and others during their independent reading time and their partner reading time. This week, we also introduced "book shopping," which students can do in the mornings, or during snack or quiet time. When they book shop, they browse through our classroom library to borrow "just-right" books to put in their book bins. We also (drumroll, please!) launched our Grade 2 Writing Workshop this week! I was very excited about this, and apparently, so were the kids! We are beginning the year working on narrative stories, a.k.a. "Small Moments," and students dove right into some great starts. The very first day, I asked students to try to sustain writing for ten minutes, and when the timer went off, there was a collective groan from the class, which of course was music to my ears. (Edited to add, when we had Writing Workshop today, many students requested permission if they could KEEP WRITING DURING CHOICE TIME! Ahh!!! It's like my dream come true!) I can tell this is a class of writers, and I am excited to read their stories as the year goes on. In math, we have been continuing to introduce the materials, routines, games, and tools, and in general, teaching students to "take charge of math." They have a lot of responsibility in math: they frequently choose their activities; they find and clean up their own materials; they often find others to work with; they decide at what pace to work; and finally, they get to choose which strategies will help them solve problems. Because of all this, we have been spending a lot of time making sure the expectations are clear so that the most learning can happen. Finally, we have been continuing our Social Studies work on understanding how we feel and understanding how others feel. After finishing up our portraits of our Best Selves (the calm, happy version of ourselves that is able to do our best work) and our Beasts (the version of ourselves that is overwhelmed with anger or sadness or frustration, etc.), we discussed some strategies for how to calm ourselves down when we "meet the beast." We came up with quite a lot (though not all of these are possible at school):
take deep breaths
find a quiet place
be alone
squeeze some putty
watch the mindfulness jar
rest
go outside
run
listen to music
count backwards
talk to yourself
Reminder: SES Open House is next Wednesday, September 26 from 6:00 to 7:00. The first 30 minutes is for you to explore your child's classroom and some of the rest of the school, and then there will be a presentation in the gym at 6:30. I look forward to seeing many of you there!
Take care!