Week of October 2

Dear Parents –

It’s hard to believe it’s already October!  We have a busy week ahead and much of our time will be spent preparing for conferences and finishing off some of our units of study. 

Here’s a peek at our week ahead:

Monday (Day 6) – Music and PE

Tuesday (Day 1) – Art and World Language

Wednesday (Day 2) – Music and PE

Thursday (Day 3) – World Language

Friday (Day 4) – Art and PE (Swimming)

Conferences

Our Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up October 9^th and 10^th. A letter went home Friday with the time and date for your conference.  In Grade 2, students take an active role in the conference.  Students will have a few minutes to share their learning and talk about their learning goals for the months to come.  The kids will be working hard this week to prepare for conferences so please make sure they can attend. 

Mini Academies

Our Mini Academies were a huge success!  Thank you to all the parents who volunteered.  The range of activities was incredible and the kids had so much fun learning from our parents.  Be sure to check out photos from the day on our Class Photos page.  Our next Mini Academies are scheduled for October 30.  Please sign up if you are interested in leading an activity. 

Home Learning

The October Home Learning menu has been posted on our blog.  As a reminder, these activities are optional, but we do encourage students to complete one activity per week.  It is expected that students read each night for at least 20 minutes. 

Reader’s Workshop

Our week will be spent with students reviewing what they’ve learned about small moments from the master authors.  We’ll revisit some of our favorite books and authors and practice retelling the events and looking at the craft moves the author’s made to help engage their readers.  

Writer’s Workshop

We’re ending our first unit on writing small moment stories.  To bring the unit to a close, students will begin planning for a new small moment story.  We’ll review strategies to hook our readers, elaborate our stories with dialogue, details and action, and how to write a powerful ending.  To help us plan, we’ll look at how comic strips can retell small moments through the use of dialogue and specific actions. 

Social Studies

This week we’ll begin putting the finishing touches on our communities.  Students will create a presentation to showcase the different features of their community including, goods and services, leaders, rules and laws, and resources. 

Math

Our first unit in math comes to a close this week.  We will continue to extend our learning by working through rich tasks – math story problems which have multiple answers and require careful planning and critical thinking to find a solution.  In addition, we will also continue to practice how to best explain our thinking in words, pictures, and with numbers.  Students will take their end of unit math assessment this week and the results will be shared at our conferences. 

Dinner Questions

What are some of your learning goals? 

What are your strengths as a reader?  Writer?

What is something you’re curious about and would like to explore more?  Why?