September Newsletter
Welcome Second Grade Families!
Wow, what a great start to the year. We are very excited to have a new group of intelligent, talented and creative students. We will be sending a newsletter home at the end of every month to recap what we have learned and explored during the month as well as give you a preview of what’s to come. Go ahead and talk to your children about the content of the newsletter and see if they can show what they know!
This year, we all walked into a new classroom space, filled with unique possibilities. For the first few weeks of school, the students and teachers in second grade have explored how to work together as one family unit under the same roof. Respect has played a large role in helping each interaction to be supportive and beneficial to the entire team. With “Cool Tools” and upcoming lessons in goals and positive self-talk, we will continue to build positive social skills and self confidence of every student.
COOL TOOLS:
Has your child come home saying that somebody gave them a put up that made them feel really good or maybe told you that they used their exit shoes to walk away from a conflict? If so, they are using the tools that we have practiced in the classroom called Cool Tools. Cool Tools vividly teaches strategies for handling different forms of conflict and promotes healthy conflict resolution from LFCSA to your home. Cool Tools was created to ensure a caring community in which all students feel safe to learn and play without threats of physical, verbal, or non-verbal harassment of any type. Our goal is to provide students with an internal “toolbox” they can choose from when conflict arises, not just now, but for the rest of their lives. Practice is essential not only for reinforcing the skills they are learning, but also for retention and transfer to new situations at school and at home.
READERS: For readers this month, the students learned what their jobs as a reader are. Each day during Reader’s Workshop they learned different elements of their jobs such as how to choose a reading spot, how to stay focused on a book, and how to read with a partner. Our overarching goal in Reader’s Workshop was to encourage readers to develop a deep love for and enjoyment of books.
WRITERS: Launching our Writer’s Workshop this first month, we have focused on our jobs as writers. Each student has entered second grade with a special toolbox of strategies from which to pull , and our writers have taken the time to remind themselves of how much they already know. Experienced writers use their skills to zoom in on “small moments,” capturing ideas and feelings with great detail. Our writers have done just that, working through the first cycle of the writing process, starting with brainstorming and progressing through drafts and editing. We are excited to be publishing our first piece very soon. In October, we will be looking at “Authors as Mentors,” just like in Reader’s Workshop. Students will gain tricks and tips by examining their favorite authors.
DWoK: DWoK stands for Different Ways of Knowing, a thematic, project-based curriculum that uses a constructivist approach to learning which serves as a framework for inquiry and lifelong learning.
Our overall theme for DWoK this year is “America’s Family Stories.” In September, our classes focused on family stories and how to turn family memories into stories. This gave the students an opportunity to tell authentic narrative stories about themselves. Telling family stories was also a great way to integrate DWoK into the other subject areas we are focusing on in second grade. For example, in Writer’s Workshop, the students were able to transfer their knowledge of their family memories into writing down their family stories. The students also had a great time telling their family stories through pictures and have created a time capsule using this information.
As we dive into the month of October, we will be exploring Native American family stories. This unit poses questions such as “What do we know about Native American family stories?” and “What questions do we have about Native American family stories?” Students will learn that the United States has been and continues to be populated by families, each of which can tell a uniquely personal story that is part of a larger story within the historical events of the time.
The unique part of the DWoK curriculum is that students will learn big ideas and concepts such as traditions, cultures and relationships that they can share with each other and with their own families. We encourage parents to have conversations throughout the year to share stories about grandparents and relatives with your children, allowing them to discover who their ancestors are, where they were from. and what unique customs and traditions they brought with them when they first came to America and/or to parts of the United States and then California. Our goal is to help our children develop a keen sense of respect and appreciation for each other so that they value what we each contribute to the story of America’s families.
MATH: Our first math unit this year is exploring strategies to understand number relationships. We have been deepening our understanding of essential big ideas such as inverse, commutative property, fact families, math vocabulary, and addition and subtraction facts. Developing these concepts about number relationships will lay the foundation for units to come. In our math program, we have a balance of using hands-on manipulatives and collaborating in small groups. Our children love exploring math further as they ask questions, learn from one another and solve problems together. The next unit we will be exploring is time and money. Ask your children to tell you the time and ask them to think about what time it will be in 5 minutes and 10 minutes. Additionally, 2nd grade is a great time for students to be filling up a piggy bank and counting up their coins.
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