Friday, October 2nd

 Happy Friday Families!!

It has been another great week in our virtual learning environment! This week many of our students completed their iReady Diagnostic in Reading. I will be looking over the results and figuring out a way to send those home electronically in the next week! We are still under the impression that our cut scores from last year remain the same in second grade. Students with an iReady score falling below the cut score in Reading will be eligible to receive special intervention time with our reading specialist and will be placed onto an Individualized Reading Improvement Plan (IRIP). We will set up a time in the next few weeks to meet over Zoom if your child has qualified for this intervention.

Phonics

This week in Phonics we only had one lesson. We took a look on Thursday at the many sounds of -ear in words. Students were sent off to use books or any other source of print around their learning location to look for words with an “-ear” in them. Then we came back to the group and shared to see which sounded the same and which sounded different. We all agreed that it can be tricky to figure out what sound the -ear makes in new words!

Readers’ Workshop

In Readers’ Workshop this week we took a look back at a familiar book and did some work digging deeper. Re-reading a story can be so beneficial for digging deeper about a main character and noticing things about them you may not have noticed originally. Rereading also helps us to notice how the sequence of the story is constructed and how one page lends itself to the next page. Readers’ had time to re-read a familiar book and go back to notice if they found anything new or interesting the second time around!

Please remember that our Literacy Footprints website is up and running. Each child has their own custom book shelf on this awesome web page filled with books at their just-right reading level. As I continue to read with each child, I modify the levels of books that they are presented with on Literacy Footprints - it’s simply amazing! Next week I will begin assigning books for your child to read on here, usually 2-3 a week. There is a link daily to Literacy Footprints on our Class Bitmoji on our Google Classroom post. To login simply type for the class code: Dublin204 and then each child’s password is: 1234. This is a great site you can also bookmark for your child on their internet browser.  https://www.literacyfootprints.com/digital/login 

Writers’ Workshop

This week in Writers’ Workshop we celebrated our hard work these last few weeks in writing with a big share! We went to breakout sessions to share our writing, and then each child shared a writing piece for our class on Flipgrid! The kids had to make a video reading their piece and then could leave compliment videos back to their friends. Please make sure your child has uploaded a photo of their finished work to our Seesaw journal. A completed writing piece was posted as an activity last Friday but many are still missing this post. I want to be able to see their writing and monitor their progress as a writer. On Friday we wrapped up the week filling in our “Heart of a Writer” page with different things that are important to us so we can always return to this heart for writing idea inspiration!

A sneak peek from our Flip Grid Share (above) and our Breakout Session Share (below).

Math Workshop

In Math Workshop this week we have been working with combinations of 10. We introduced the game “Fishing for 10” and this is something you can be playing at home with your child! You will need a deck of numbered cards 0-10 (a couple copies of each number). Each player is dealt 5 cards and the rest remain face down in the middle. The objective is to use your cards to make combinations of 10. Just like “Go Fish” you ask each other for numbered cards you need to make 10 and when your partner does not have the card, you fish for a new card. The person with the most combinations of 10 wins!

We also spent time this week starting to discuss coins! Coins are tricky for second graders but something we need them to learn! Please make sure you have a coin baggie for them nearby with: 8 quarters, 12 dimes, 10 nickels and 20 pennies. We will use these throughout the year to work on coin practice. 

Second Step

This week in our Social Emotional Learning we spent time talking about “Self-Talk” and how we can use self-talk when faced with distractions during our learning. The kids had great ideas to share as we talked about ways to solve tricky situations when someone is distracting us from our learning. We were torn whether we have more distractions at school or at home right now with our learning! It’s definitely a great time to use self-talk to help keep ourselves on task and focused during the school day virtually. Self talk might look totally different in the classroom with the temptation to be distracted by our classmates.