Dear Parents and Guardians, 

I cannot believe another week has come and gone and we are left with just one week left of second grade! This week in math we continued to learn about graphs! This week we focused on bar graphs, picture graphs, and learned how to draw conclusions from information that the graphs provided for us. In reading, this week, we exchanged our independent reading books. We then got into our last mini unit of the year which is a fun one! It is based on fairy tales, folk tales, and fables! This mini unit allows students to compare stories they know and well and compare them to new stories written that change the plot, setting, and characters. This week we read the story of Cinderella and then read Dinorella! We also read The Three Little Pigs and then The Three Little Aliens! In phonics, we continued to learn how to decode and encode long a words, decode and encode long o words, and listened to a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we began our last mini unit which is fictional narrative writing! Just as we started at the beginning of the year, students brainstorm fictional topics and use what they have learned on nonfiction narrative writing and created stories. Some students began writing and finishing more than three of these stories! Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our June Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued to practice our spelling words with spelling activities to help us memorize how to spell our words for our last spelling test on Tuesday! In religion we also continued to read about different days of Advent in our second grade religion books and finished our 2nd grade religion books for the year! In science, we learned how glass is made from our friend Mystery Doug! We continued our topic on Investigating Birds! This week we continued to talk about how specific birds build nests, what different bird eggs look like, and how birds take care of their chicks. 

• 6/7: K-7 Walk to Dairy Queen Field Trip
• 6/10: Closing Mass (Dress Uniforms Required
• 6/10: Last Day of School (No Aftercare)

Dear Parent and Guardians,

What another great week here in second grade! We said our first goodbye to our friend Ice! We wish him all the best as he moves down to Florida! This week we continued our unit called “Step Up To 3rd Grade.” Again, this allows students to be introduced to some of the topics they will be getting more in depth with next year. This week we continued how to find unknown measurements by adding and subtracting. We reviewed how to add and subtract two and three-digit numbers on an open number line. We also problem solved by figuring out what tools would be appropriate for finding the length and measurement of different objects. We then jumped into the graphing portion of this unit! We began by learning what a line plot is and how to make one! In reading, this week, we began by continuing our class book club book which is Elmer and the Dragon! These books continued to be used as a model for what I want students to learn and incorporate into their own book clubs and activities that go along with them. We also exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. For book clubs, we focused on using everything we learned in our book club unit because we are wrapping up our book clubs and discussion journals! We then began our last mini unit of the year which is fairytales, fables, and folktales! This is a fun unit that allows us to look at stories we all know and look at books other authors have written which changes the story as we know it! We began by reading Cinderella and then read Dinorella! In phonics, we continued to learn how to decode and encode long e words, decode and encode long a words, and listened to a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we continued with our poetry unit! This week we continued to learn about simile poems and how they need to include the words “like” or “as” to be considered one, and finished our final copies of them! We then moved on to haiku poems! Haiku poems are a three line poem that asks students to make their first line have five syllables, then seven syllables, then another line of five syllables. These poems could be about anything! After brainstorming topics for our haiku poems, students began making rough drafts, and then once they were checked, made final copies! Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our May Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued to practice our spelling words with spelling activities to help us memorize how to spell our words, and then we took our spelling test! We then got our last sort of the year, and began to practice our spelling words with spelling activities to help us memorize how to spell our last set of words. In religion, our Youth Minister Dan came in and talked to us about memories, and why they become so special to us. We also continued to read about different days of Advent in our second grade religion books. In science, we learned how bridges are built to last hundreds of years from our friend Mystery Doug! We continued our topic on Investigating Birds! This week we continued to talk about how specific birds build nests, what different bird eggs look like, and how birds take care of their chicks. In social studies, we learned all about Memorial Day, and why we celebrate it!

• 5/30: No School- Memorial Day
• 5/31: New Britain Bees Game

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

I cannot believe how fast the end of the year is approaching! We have finished our last unit of our second grade curriculum, reviewed, and took our math test! Our math curriculum does something really great by giving a few preparation units called “Step Up To 3rd Grade.” This allows students to be introduced to some of the topics they will be getting more in depth with next year. For this portion of the curriculum, we began by learning how to add and subtract lengths and measurements. We also learned how to find the perimeter of shapes, and even find measurements of unknown sides of shapes. In reading, this week, we began by continuing our class book club book which is Elmer and the Dragon! These books continued to be used as a model for what I want students to learn and incorporate into their own book clubs and activities that go along with them. We also exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. For book clubs, we focused on learning about descriptive words and details, and how and why authors use them. We then looked for descriptive words and details in our own book club books and wrote them down on our stop and jots! In phonics, we learned about singular and plural pronouns, decoded and encoded long e words, learned what typographical clues are and how to use them, and listened to a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we continued with our poetry unit! This week we continued to learn about why poets use repetitions in their poems and made final copies of our own repetition poems. We also learned about simile poems and how they need to include the words “like” or “as” to be considered one! We then brainstormed a list of ideas about things we could write simile poems about. Then, we made rough drafts of them, and some of us even started our final copies of them! Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our May Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued to practice our spelling words with spelling activities to help us memorize how to spell our new words! In religion, we The Reign of Uzziah, and God’s Sign to Ahaz, and The Messiah. We also read about different days of Advent in our second grade religion books. In science, we learned if animals of different species could be friends from our friend Mystery Doug! We continued our topic on Investigating Birds! This week we continued to talk about different parts of a bird's body, how birds make sounds, and how to tell what birds eat by their bills. Lastly, we had a gorgeous and fun day outside for Field Day! 

• 5/20: Mother Son Magic Show
• 5/25: 4th Grade Lemonade Stand
• 5/26: All School Mass

Dear Parents and Guardians,

What a BEAUTIFUL week we had in second grade! We tried to get outside and learn as much as possible in the warm weather! In math this week, we began by learning the difference between 2D shapes and 3D shapes. One shape we spent a lot of time discussing was the cube. We discussed how a cube differs from a square and how many sides, edges, and vertices it has versus a square. This week, we also discussed equal shares, partition shapes, different shares with partition shapes, and identified shapes, and justified why we thought so by using reasoning and explanations. In reading this week, we began by continuing our class book club book which is My Father’s Dragon and began book two Elmer and the Dragon! These books continued to be used as a model for what I want students to learn and incorporate into their own book clubs and activities that go along with them. We also exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. For book clubs, we focused on learning about our characters from the relationships that they have with other characters throughout their books. We also learned how authors paint pictures with the words that they use, and how it helps us imagine what is going on in our minds as we read. Lastly, we read all about sharks, and answered questions all about what we read. In phonics, we learned about tricky words that include “w”, prefixes that begin with “mis” and “dis”, compound words, and listened to a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we continued with our poetry unit! This week we learned about why poets use repetitions in their poems. We also began poetry about people, places and things. When doing this type of poetry, we brainstormed a list of things we could write about, and then began writing our own people, places, and thing poems. In these poems, to have our readers visualize our poems in their minds we included repetitions as well as comparisons. Then, we used what we know about comparisons in poems, and began writing simile poems which included the words “like” and “as”. Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our May Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued to practice our spelling words that deal with how to sort long and short a words into different categories such as CVC, CVVC, and CVCe (C and V stands for consonants and vowels) and took our spelling test! We then got new spelling sorts and began spelling activities to help us memorize how to spell our new words! In religion, our Youth Minister, Dan came in and talked to us about the Parable of the Buried Treasure. We also learned about Micah’s Call for Justice, Jonah’s Story, The Reign of Uzziah, and God’s Sign to Ahaz. We also read about how the church celebrates God’s love in our second grade religion books. In science, we learned if killer whales are actually dangerous from our friend Mystery Doug! We also started our new science topic on Investigating Birds! This week we talked about what we already know about birds, different parts of a bird's body, and then labeled a bird based upon their body parts. 

• 5/14: Auction 
• 5/20: Field Day

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

Yet another week has come and gone in second grade! I am so excited to get our kids outside with some of the warm weather we have been having, it's finally starting to feel like spring! In math this week, we wrapped up length and measurement, and moved on to the second half of the unit which is geometry! With this part of the unit, we began by learning what dimensional shapes are and the differences between 2D shapes and 3D shapes. We then learned some vocabulary words that helped us identify and discuss why a shape is what it is. We used the words, sides, vertices, as well as angles. We learned that shapes that have three or more sides classify as polygons as long as the shapes are closed and do not have any curved lines in them. We also learned how to draw 2D shapes when given descriptions such as how many sides, angles, or vertices it has. Lastly, we practiced all of these lessons with some worksheets! We continued our class book club book which is My Father’s Dragon! This book continued to be used as a model for what I want students to learn and incorporate into their own book clubs and activities that go along with them. We also exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. For book clubs, we focused on how to understand our characters as they grow throughout the book. We also took what we know about our characters and made predictions about what will happen next! Many of us were able to finish our book club books, and start our discussion journals for them! In phonics, we learned about words that have open syllable patterns, irregular plurals, and listened to a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we continued with our poetry unit! This week we learned how to edit our poems, make sure that we’re choosing careful words throughout them, and even added some repetition into them. We also made a special poem for a certain holiday that is on Sunday! Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our May Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued to practice our spelling words that deal with how to sort long and short a words into different categories such as CVC, CVVC, and CVCe (C and V stands for consonants and vowels) with spelling activities. In religion, we attended our May Crowning Mass and celebrated our third graders who made their First Holy Communion last Saturday! We also learned about the stories of Elisha the Prophet and how he cured leprosy. In our second grade religion books, we continued to discuss how we share God’s love with others. In science, we learned why butterflies are different colors from our friend Mystery Doug! In social studies, we learned about the history behind Cinco De Mayo, and also created some Mother’s Day crafts!

• 5/6: Frozen Musical at BHS @ 7:00pm
• 5/7: Frozen Musical at BHS @ 2:00pm
• 5/11: Early Dismissal @ 12:30 due to teacher PD
• 5/14: Auction 

Dear Parents and Guardians,

It’s hard to believe another week has come and gone here in second grade! I feel like time has been flying! In math this week, we continued with our length and measurement unit! This week we focused on estimating using centimeters, meters, and millimeters. We also learned how to use a ruler and tape measure to get the exact measure of objects using these units of measurement. Students also learned how to compare the lengths of different objects, and discussed why some measurement tools should be used to measure different units of measurement. Students again practiced measuring using these units by getting up and recording the measurement of classroom items around the room. In reading, to go along with our book club unit, we began our class book club book which is My Father’s Dragon! This book will be used to model what I want students to learn and incorporate into their own book clubs and activities that go along with them. We also exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. This week for book clubs, we focused on our characters and how they respond to problems that arise. In addition, we also began to make connections with our characters whether those connections be text to text, text to self, or a text to world connection. In phonics, we continued to decode and encode long e words, ed and ing endings, and listened to a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we continued with our new unit of poetry and finished up making final copies of our object poems! We then talked about how poets can write poetry about feelings as well. We began by brainstorming a list of feelings, and began writing our own feeling poems. Once we had at least two feelings poems completed, students learned how to edit poetry and identified how it differs from other styles of writing. Next, after our poems were checked for editing, we were able to make final copies of them! Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our April Nothing Books. In spelling, we got new spelling sorts that dealt with how to sort long and short a words into different categories such as CVC, CVVC, and CVCe (C and V stands for consonants and vowels). We then began practicing our spelling words with spelling activities. In religion, our Youth Minister came in and discussed how we need to adapt our lives to choose the best path no matter how hard it may be. We also learned about the stories of Amos the Prophet and A Prophecy of Restoration. In our second grade religion books, we discussed how we share God’s love with others. In science, we learned why snakes shed their skin from our friend Mystery Doug! In social studies, we celebrated National Penguin Day by learning about the Macaroni Penguin.

Reminders:

• 4/29: Mother Son Magic Show
• 5/4: May Crowning Mass (All Grades)
• 5/6: Frozen Musical at BHS @ 7:00pm
• 5/7: Frozen Musical at BHS @ 2:00pm

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome back from spring break! I hope everyone was able to relax and enjoy some well deserved time off! In math this week, we began our brand new unit! Our new unit is length and measurement. We started off our week by learning how to estimate length using the inch, the foot, and the yard. Next, we learned how to measure exact measurement using inches, feet, and yards. Then, we practiced exact measurement by measuring the length of different customary units. Lastly, we used a worksheet to practice measuring different items using different customary measurements around our classroom!  In reading, we exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from before break. We also began our brand new reading unit which is book clubs! Students were split into reading groups and assigned different books to read for our book clubs. We talked about what a book club is and how it should look as second grade readers. We then began to discuss and collect information about our book club's main characters. In phonics we learned how to decode words with ey, ie, and ine. We also discussed what conjunctions are, and practiced using them. Lastly, we learned how to encode ey, ie, and ine.  Lastly, we read a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing, we also began our new unit, which is poetry! We began by discussing what poetry is and what it might include. We then tried to see different items through a poet's eye. We did so by taking out four items from our desk and describing them. Then, we began to write object poems about them. We then learned how to write these poems using line breaks, and adding thoughts within those poems. Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our April Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued practicing our spelling words with spelling activities for our ck, ke, and k endings sort and took our spelling test! In religion, we learned about the stories of King Jehosphaphat of Judah, Elisha the Prophet, Elisha Heals the Water, The Widow's Oil, Elisha Restores the Boys Life, and Naaman the Leper.  In our second grade religion books, we discussed how we share God’s love with others. In science, we learned how to differentiate if mushrooms are poisonous or not, and also about coral reefs from our friend Mystery Doug! In social studies, we read a reading about Earth Day, and completed an activity by using the information that we learned from the reading! 

• 4/22: Father Daughter Dance
• 4/28: K-2 Mass (Dress Uniforms Required)
• 4/29: K-2 Field Trip
• 4/29: Mother Son Magic Show

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

I want to begin by saying thank you all so much for participating, and filling eggs for the student egg hunt! The students had a great time! We had a great week here in second grade, and wrapped up units in math, reading, and writing as well! In math, we reviewed all of our strategies for three-digit addition and subtraction! We also completed our test review to get ready for our test. Then, we took our test to show all that we knew about three-digit addition and subtraction equations, and how to solve each using a multitude of strategies. We also completed Easter themed math activities, one of them being an Easter Egg Math Fact Hunt! In reading, we exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. We continued to focus on figures of speech. This week, we began by reviewing what hyperboles were, and moved on to onomatopoeia and symbolism! In phonics, we learned about what contractions, pronouns, and adverbs are. We also learned how to spell words with long a. Lastly, we read a Superkids Reader Story, and answered comprehension questions all about it! In writing we continued to work on our opinion writing. This week we focused on editing our opinion pieces and also started revising them to make final copies because this week is the end of our opinion unit! We also wrote one more new opinion piece that had us choose two foods and describe why one food was better than the other using reasons and examples to provide evidence as to why that one food was better. Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our April Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued practicing our spelling words with spelling activities for our ck, ke, and k endings sort! In religion, our Youth Minister Dan came in! We also discussed the stories of King Asa of Judah, The Next Kings of Israel, Elijah Confronts Baal, and Elijah in the Cave. In our second grade religion books, we discussed how we share God’s love with others. In science, we learned how bicycles were invented from our friend Mystery Doug! In social studies, we read a reading about a CottonTail Rabbit, and completed a fact or opinion worksheet about it!

• 4/11- 4/15: Spring Break
• 4/22: Father Daughter Dance

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Hello April! We had a wonderful week here in second grade! In math this week, we continued learning how to use models to subtract three-digit numbers.. Remember with models, we only model the bigger number in the equation. We begin in the ones place to see if we need to regroup. If we don't, we show we are subtracting by crossing out the place value blocks by subtracting the place value of the smaller number. We then continue by doing the same thing in the tens place and then hundreds place until we have our final answer. We also learned how to use the regrouping strategy with magic boxes to help us subtract three-digit numbers. Remember, this strategy is the same thing as models, but instead of using place value blocks to model the bigger numbers to regroup, we are just using the numbers and their place values to determine if we can subtract the place value as is, or if we need another place value to help us regroup. We also learned how to solve three-digit numbers using any of the three-digit subtraction strategies we learned so far, and explained why our answer is correct by explaining what we did to solve the problem using our chosen strategy. Lastly, we practiced our three-digit addition and subtraction strategies by creating a spring math craft that will be hung up in our classroom. In reading, we exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. We continued to focus on figures of speech. This week, we began by reviewing what alliteration is, and then moved on to personification and hyperboles! In phonics, we learned about spelling words with ff, ll, ss, and dd. We also learned how to decode these words that have these doubled consonant sounds. Lastly, we learned to decode words with long a, en, and on. In writing this week, we continued to work on our opinion writing. This week we focused on editing our opinion pieces and also started revising them. We also wrote a new opinion piece that had us choose two book characters and decide who was the better book character and why using reasons and examples. Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our April Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued practicing our spelling words with spelling activities for our short e and long e sort, and took our spelling test! We then got our new sort! In religion, we discussed the stories of Solomon Rejects God’s Ways, The Kingdom Divides, King Asa of Judah, and The Next Kings of Israel . In our second grade religion books, we discussed how Jesus offers himself. In science, we learned how and why hair grows from our friend Mystery Doug! In social studies, for Women’s History Month, we learned about Selena, and then worked on our Women’s History Month Project by using all of the worksheets on women that we have discussed in class! 

• 4/6: Color Day: Wear Red
• 4/8: Living Stations of the Cross 

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

What a wonderful spring week here in second grade! I am so happy the weather is finally warming us for us to get outside more! In math this week, jumped into the subtraction portion of our 3-digit unit! We began by learning how to subtract ten and one hundred from three- digit numbers. Next, we learned how to subtract three-digit numbers on an open number line. For this strategy, we began by putting the bigger number in the equation on the right hand side. We then looked at the smaller number in the equation and subtracted the hundreds, tens, and then finally ones. With this strategy, you land on your answer. Lastly, we learned how to subtract by using models. With models, we only model the bigger number in the equation. We begin in the ones place to see if we need to regroup. If we don't, we show we are subtracting by crossing out the place value blocks by subtracting the place value of the smaller number. We then continue by doing the same thing in the tens place and then hundreds place until we have our final answer. In reading, we exchanged our independent reading books that we have finished, and caught up on any reading work that we had not yet finished from last week. We continued to focus on figures of speech. This week, we began by reviewing what similes are, and then moved on to metaphors. We then got to discuss how similes and metaphors are similar and different. In addition, we also learned about hyperboles! In phonics, we learned about compound words. We also read a Superkids Reader Story, and completed a comprehension worksheet that went along with the story. Next, we discussed tion and ture endings to words and learned about words with short and long e to go along with our spelling sorts. In writing this week, we continued to work on our opinion writing. This week we focused on endings and how we wrap up the end of our opinion pieces. In addition, we also learned how to edit our opinion pieces and also started revising them! Lastly, we wrote all about our week in our March Nothing Books. In spelling, we continued practicing our spelling words with spelling activities for our short e and long e sort. In religion, we discussed the stories of Solomon’s Temple, Bringing the Ark to the Temple, The Covenant with Solomon, A Queen Visits Solomon, Solomon Rejects God’s Ways, and The Kingdom Divides. In our second grade religion books, we discussed how we prepare our gifts. In science, we learned why people have allergies from our friend Mystery Doug! In social studies, for Women’s History Month, we learned about Oprah Winfrey as well as Diane Fossey. 

Reminders:
3/29: K-2 Mass (Dress Uniforms Required)