Magnet Newsletter

Please remember to arrive on time for your scheduled conference, as conference times are scheduled back-to-back. This will help ensure that every family has their full scheduled time.

This year, our Magnet students will be focusing on Social Emotional Learning (SEL). This simply means we are helping students build the skills to understand and manage their emotions, set positive goals, show empathy, build strong friendships, and make responsible decisions. We want to tailor our lessons to what matters most to your students, so please keep an eye out for a survey soon where you can share your thoughts on what topics we should cover.

November 2nd - 2 hour early dismissal. School day ends at 12:55 pm. Parent Teacher Conferences

November 3rd - No school. Parent Teacher Conferences.

November 5th - PTO Meeting

November 9th - 2nd grade field trip forms due

November 17th - 2nd grade Aquarium field trip

November 19th - Multicultural Night - Springfield Middle School - 5 - 6 pm

November 25 - 27th - No School. Thanksgiving Break.

Welcome to Marking Period 2!

➕ Math

We will be wrapping up LearnZillion Unit 2: Adding and Subtracting Within 100. Students are developing strategies for adding and subtracting two-digit numbers, including using place value, drawings, models, and equations to solve problems. Students are also practicing how to explain their thinking and determine whether their answers make sense.

We will then begin Unit 3: Measuring Length. Students will learn how to measure objects using standard units such as inches, feet, centimeters, and meters. They will practice choosing appropriate measuring tools, comparing lengths, and solving problems involving measurement. Students will also work on representing and interpreting measurement data.

📖 ELA — Skills

In CKLA Skills Unit 3, students will continue developing their foundational reading and writing skills. We will work on decoding and reading words accurately and fluently, recognizing spelling patterns, building vocabulary, and applying phonics skills when reading and writing. Students will also continue practicing reading comprehension and written responses as they become more independent readers and writers.

🏛️ ELA — Knowledge

In CKLA Knowledge Unit 3: The Ancient Greek Civilization, students will travel back in time to learn about Ancient Greece and its influence on the world today. Students will explore topics such as Greek mythology, important historical figures and places, government, architecture, art, and the Olympic Games. As they learn, students will build background knowledge, learn new vocabulary, make connections between ideas, and use evidence from texts to demonstrate their understanding.

🔬 Science

In Science Unit 3: Structure and Properties of Matter, students will investigate what matter is and how different materials can have different properties. They will explore and describe properties such as color, texture, hardness, flexibility, and whether a material is a solid, liquid, or gas.

Students will participate in ADI (Argument-Driven Inquiry) investigations, where they will ask questions, conduct investigations, collect evidence, and use their evidence to develop and communicate explanations. We will also use schema boards to help students connect what they already know to new scientific learning and deepen their understanding.

🧪 STEM & Team Projects

During our STEM Days, students will have opportunities to work collaboratively on hands-on challenges and projects. They will practice problem-solving, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and teamwork while applying concepts they have learned in class. Students will be encouraged to share their ideas, listen to others, make changes when needed, and explain their thinking.

October will be a busy month of learning! Here’s a look at what our second graders will be exploring in each subject:

Science: Structure and Properties of Matter

Students will investigate different types of matter and explore their observable properties, such as color, texture, hardness, and flexibility. They will also learn how heating, cooling, and other changes can affect matter.

Math: LearnZillion Unit 2 – Adding and Subtracting Within 100

Students will build fluency with addition and subtraction within 100 using strategies such as making a ten, using place value, and breaking numbers apart. They will apply these strategies to solve equations and word problems.

CKLA Knowledge Unit 2 – Early Asian Civilizations

Students will learn about early Asian civilizations, exploring their geography, cultures, traditions, and contributions to history. They will build background knowledge and vocabulary while reading and discussing informational texts about these ancient societies.

CKLA Skills Unit 2

Students will continue developing their foundational reading skills through phonics, spelling, and decoding practice. They will work with vowel sounds, syllable patterns, and common spelling patterns to become more accurate and fluent readers.

Enrichment Focus

In enrichment, students will continue becoming comfortable with our weekly communication routines and using web organizers to capture and organize their thinking. We will also practice thinking beyond the stories and texts in CKLA by exploring details, thoughts, questions, concepts, connections, and contexts.

Welcome to a new school year! 🌟 We are excited to begin a year filled with learning, curiosity, and lots of BIG thinking! September is all about building our Magnet classroom community and introducing students to tools that will help them become deeper thinkers.

This month, we are introducing four Depth and Complexity icons: Big Idea, Details, Language of the Discipline, and Unanswered Questions. In second grade, students will learn to look beyond the basic answer by thinking about the big idea, noticing important details, learning and using subject-specific vocabulary, and asking questions that make them wonder and want to learn more.

We will practice using these thinking tools in both ELA and Math! Students will use the icons to dig deeper into stories, explore new vocabulary, explain their mathematical thinking, and look closely at math problems. 💡

Language Arts- This month students will continue to use the depth and complexity icons in order to be “System Specialists” in our human body unit. As part of the unit, students will choose one of the body systems or parts that they studied to write an opinion essay on why their choice is the most important part or system of the body. Students will also use a shortened version of the Engineering Design process in order to create a visual model of their system or part that will enhance their presentation.

Math- Last month students learned about the Weekly Communication Process. For students who had Mrs. Gelwick’s last year this was a review and an extension on what was learned in second grade magnet. This month, as we begin unit 3, we will be continuing to use the process in order to practice math reasoning and modeling. Unit 3 focuses on transferring knowledge of place value strategies to add and subtract to using algorithms. It will be critical for students to use math vocabulary in order to explain the steps of the algorithms, identify errors in math and offer constructive feedback.

Science: This month students will focus on force and motion. Students will be able to investigate the relationship between force and motion to determine how objects start, stop, or change direction. They will use patterns of motion to make evidence-based predictions about an object's future position and explain how the balance of forces dictates whether an object moves or stays still.

iSTEAM: Students will be introduced to the marking period two iSTEAM project: Roman Chariot Races. This project marries concepts in our Unit 4 CKLA unit and our November learning in science. Students are stepping into the boots of ancient engineers to master core science and history concepts! Inspired by the famous chariot races of antiquity—a key piece of Roman and Greek history—students are applying the Engineering Design Process to construct and test their very own miniature chariots using materials like wood, cardboard, string, and Spheros.

Language Arts - We are in our second CKLA unit. Our focus during this unit will be on Animal Classification. We will be introduced to Rattenborough. Rattenborough is the narrator who will lead us through our adventures with different animal encounters. We will begin the week learning how scientists use characteristics of organisms in order to classify them. Students will go on a virtual field trip to the Smithsonian Zoo in order to make their own observations of animals. As the week goes on, we will learn that animals are classified into Kingdoms and each Kingdom is broken down into even smaller categories. We will only focus on the Plant and Animal Kingdom in third grade. Students will learn that some of the ways we classify animals is by vertebrate or invertebrate and warm or cold-blooded. Students will focus mainly on vertebrates this week. We classify vertebrates in five animal groups: Amphibians, Mammals, Birds, Fish and Reptiles. Students will review text features and Author’s Purpose during this unit. Many authors use text features to highlight or call attention to important information. Authors write to explain, describe or answer questions about a topic.

Math: This month students will be relating area to multiplication. Students will engage in the Weekly Communication process. For our new families, this is a week long writing process where students have the opportunity to solve a specific math problem and share their reasoning through writing. Students will also get quality boosters from their peers before publishing a final copy.

Science: We will begin science this month! By the end of this unit, students will be able to analyze and represent weather patterns to distinguish between daily weather and long-term climate. They will use data to predict seasonal conditions and evaluate the effectiveness of engineering solutions designed to protect people and property from hazardous weather events.

iSTEAM: Students will be working on their first iSTEAM project of the school year during October. This is a project that incorporates cross-curricular learning and concepts. In this STEM project, students will explore how weather-related hazards impact animals and their habitats. They will design a solution to lessen these impacts, focusing on a specific animal group. Students will learn about various weather-related hazards, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, and blizzards. They should understand how these hazards can affect animals and their habitats. Students will brainstorm and design a solution to help reduce the impact of the chosen hazard. This could be a physical structure, a change in habitat management, or a new technology. Students will create a model or diagram of their solution using STEM supplies or digital tools. Students will write an informative text explaining their chosen animal group, the weather-related hazard, and their design solution.

During the month of September, our third-grade Magnet students will become familiar with or review the Depth and Complexity icons. These icons help students dig deeper into concepts, analyze themes from multiple angles, and develop critical thinking skills across all subjects.

Using The Wind in the Willows, our scholars will apply these prompts to analyze characters and big ideas:

• Rules & Guidelines: Exploring Mole's rules for adventure—such as staying with a friend and trusting instincts—alongside Rat's rules for living peacefully by the river.

• The Big Idea of Friendship: Analyzing how companionship provides strength, security, and mutual empathy during life's journeys.

• The Big Idea of Home: Investigating the concept of home as a source of stability, personal identity, and emotional belonging.

Students will also engage in the Six-Thinking Hats protocol in order to conclude whether or not “Toad will learn from his mistakes”. The Six Thinking Hats is a structured technique that's often used for problem-solving, but it also works well for generating and exploring ideas.

CONTENT

Happy October! We just finished the first part of our learning pathway for iSTEAM. We now have all the information we need to make our puppets & stage historically accurate for our puppet show to fully capture the Indigenous Culture of Maryland tribes. We are excited to dive into SCIENCE and discover energy, how it transfers, and transforms! Then we will put it all together to engineer a POWERful device that adds to the puppet show later this month.

In ELA, we will be starting our new CKLA unit about Energy! Thank you again to who purchased our Renewable Energy STEM kit off of our Amazon wishlist. We will be utilizing that along with our research to determine the Fuel of the Future. Be on the lookout for our Fuel of the Future Podcasts!

In Math, We are working with fractions. Students are connecting their knowledge of multiples to help them find equivalent fractions. We will use the idea of comparing fractions by using benchmarks of 0, ½, and 1, along with making equivalent fractions.

Please continue to encourage kiddos to complete their Reading Bingo Calendars, complete their math homework, and look for connections to Power & Systems around them.

Welcome back! We are off to a great start. This marking period, we are focusing on "Power and Systems," which helps students understand how things work together to solve real-world problems. We are also beginning our first iSTEAM unit, where we connect science, technology, engineering, arts, and math to explore Native American history, explorers, and energy. Students will even build their own energy-powered devices to bring stories to life!

In math, we are practicing multiplication facts, factors, and multiples to help us solve problems quickly. Homework is assigned weekly and due on Fridays. Each morning, students have time to review their work and correct any mistakes. By staying on top of their homework, students earn "Willie bucks" as a reward for their effort.

We are excited to launch our Marking Period 2 I-STEAM! This marking period, our 5th graders are stepping into the role of STEM Innovators working alongside Chef Twigg, the Culinary Director at Tech High. Chef Twigg needs our students' help to design an immersive multi-course tasting menu paired with poetry for a special event: The Reconstruction Poetry Slam.

Here is how our subjects connect to solve this challenge:

• Science (Matter & Its Interactions): Students will explore how matter transforms. Through hands-on lab investigations with dissolving, evaporating, and chemical reactions, students will test physical properties, prove that matter is made of microscopic particles, and demonstrate that weight is conserved even when substances seem to vanish.

• Social Studies (A Growing Divide & Reconstruction): Each course on the tasting menu must visually and conceptually represent a key era in American History. Students will investigate how regional economies pulled the North and South apart (and left Maryland in the middle), how individual resistance and laws sparked the Civil War, and how freedom, constitutional amendments, and education (including Maryland's HBCUs) reshaped society during Reconstruction.

• Math (Fraction Operations): As students scale ingredients, analyze proportions, and measure data for their culinary concepts, they will dig deeper into multiplying and dividing fractions in real-world contexts.

Reading & Writing

We are continuing our big-picture theme of systems and relationships! Right now, students are diving into personal narratives and learning powerful "show, don't tell" writing techniques. Next, we will dive into learning all about the systems of Ancient Civilizations: Aztec, Maya, and Inca. We will investigate cause & effect relationships that led to the rise & fall of these systems. Then we will put our research skills together to compose a Codex of our very own.

Math

Fraction power is right around the corner! Students will get a whole new perspective on what the division sign actually means and build their confidence with deeper fraction calculations.

ISTEAM

Our young political scientists recently stepped back in time to experience the Constitutional Convention and explore how the branches of government work together. Up next, we’re switching gears to Earth science! Students will investigate Earth's different "spheres" and how they interact.

The Big Picture

By connecting what they learn about government systems and Earth systems, our goal is to help students think critically about how to improve our world—starting with real-world challenges like the global water crisis!

Welcome back! We are off to a fantastic start this school year! During this marking period, students will explore how different systems work together and influence one another. In our first iSTEAM unit, students will look at how Earth’s natural systems interact and use science and civic principles to discover ways to protect our environment. They will even step into the role of an environmental protection team to see how these ideas connect to our government. It is going to be a fun, hands-on, multi-subject learning experience!

In math, we are establishing our classroom routines while diving into key concepts like order of operations and volume. Students will receive weekly homework assignments that are due every Friday. Each morning, students will have time to review their work and learn from any mistakes. Completing their homework earns them extra Willie bucks as a reward for their hard work!

📅Important dates: Outdoor school will be September 14, 15, 16. Our extended day will be the 16th.