2nd Grade Newsletter

Here is a link to a sideline store which has all of the imaginable mountaineer gear, if you or someone you know is interested in buying some. You can pick the item you like and then choose the logo and design that goes on it.

We finished reading Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," so on Monday we will be watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). Students can bring one item for the party (blanket, stuffy, or pillow).

Last week students struggled to understand the schwa concept, so we will be repeating that again this week.Schwa is the most common vowel sound in the English language. It can be spelled with any of the 5 vowels. It typically sounds like /u/ or /i/. For example, the "o" makes a schwa sound in the word bacon.

This is one of the toughest weeks for second graders because it is not something they can just sound out because the schwa sound can be made by any of the 5 vowels. This means that it needs extra spelling practice!

On our spelling test, we have 10 words that follow the pattern that we are focusing on. These are our ten words for next week:

adopt

banana

bottom

collect

emblem

medal

tuna

complain

asleep

problem

Then, we have 5 "red" words. These are words that cannot be sounded out because they do not follow our learned spelling rules. Because they do not follow rules, they can be a bit trickier and take a lot more memorization, so they usually repeat for a couple of weeks before we get new ones. These are our 5 red words for next week:

after

few

many

other

our

Finally, they will dictate two sentences that I say out loud. I do not send these home for memorization because I want to see their skills in action!

This week in math, we are adding and subtracting within 20, practicing counting by 2s, odd and even numbers, and trying a new strategy called doubles and near doubles to help us add more quickly (I know 8+8=16, so 8+9=17 because 9 is one more than 8).

Students have gotten a lot stronger at telling time to the closest five minutes on an analog clock this month! We have been practicing the difference between the hour and the minute hand and collecting 60 minutes a day. We also know there are 24 hours in a day and the difference between AM and PM.

This week, we discovered how frogs don’t just say “ribbit”; in fact, each kind of frog has a unique call! In our activity, students learned to identify frog calls and used this skill to investigate which of two locations, a pond or a lake, had more kinds of frogs.

You can encourage your child’s curiosity at home! Together, watch this video about one of the frogs we studied in class this week, Wood Frogs: http://video.link/w/W3Lc Scientists are studying Wood Frogs’ amazing ability to freeze solid in winter, then “come back to life” in spring!

We also learned about the different kinds of birds that are attracted to bird feeders. In our activity, the students designed their own bird feeders to attract seed-eating birds!

Here’s something fun you can do together with your child at home: try looking for birds around your neighborhood! Consider downloading the free bird app “Merlin” (http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/) for your smartphone, so you and your child can easily identify any bird you find!

Thursday, October 22nd - Quarter 1 Ends

Monday, October 26th - Individual Picture Retakes and Class Picture

Thursday, October 29th - Student Led Conferences

Thank you for those that signed up for snacks for the classroom! I will send an email out to you the week before to remind you of the month. I still have December, February, April, and May open if anyone else is able to sign up.