Learning Update :-) Friday, Dec. 11

 Friday, December 11, 2020

Hello Weckie Families!!

I wanted to provide a good Friday update on ALLLLL we have been up to in 2nd Grade - both virtually and in person! What a great week of transition and learning we have had. We began the week on Zoom and ended the week in person. Thank you for all of your continued support at home with virtual learning, at home with packing your kids back up and in sending in encouraging words, cleaning supply donations and happy kids on Wednesday!

 We have really been working on new routines at school now that we are back in person. Staggering the kids coming in first thing, learning what to bring in to the classroom and put at tables vs. what goes in our mailboxes. We have been working on our cleanliness with reminders about good handwashing, using sanitizer and continually wiping down our learning spaces. In a typical day we wipe down our tables 3-4x a day! Our custodians are only doing a limited job of this, so the pressure is on for us to keep our space clean and safe.

Thank you for following district protocol with Covid exposure and Covid like symptoms. It is important that we are all working together on this and that we continually err on the side of caution so that we can work to keep everyone healthy and safe. Our learners are getting better each day with their mask routines, their abilities to social distance and their willingness to follow these new procedures. It is work, but work that is totally worth it! When in doubt, either reach out to me or to the office, and we can help you decide what's best to do!

Your Weckie will be bringing home their yellow "Friday Packet" folder today! In there you will see work from our first math unit test as well as some fact review sheets we worked on for morning work this week. The unit 1 test gave us a great foundation for knowing what our kids know and what they still need to learn when reviewing first grade concepts. Please take time with this assessment at home to work through anything your child missed. The second unit test came home with your child a few weeks back when we took our pause in face to face learning. You can use that unit 2 test at home to continue to practice math skills with your child. The yellow slip on the front of the Friday packet needs to be signed and returned. Unless specified on your child's work that it needs to be fixed and returned, the rest of the work in the packet can remain at home.

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop we have been wrapping up an awesome unit on different reading strategies for tricky words. We have really taken time to slow down and break words apart to try to piece together the sounds. We have looked for familiar sight words in our reading to help us read more fluently. We have taken time to work with blends and digraphs to also use our knowledge about the sounds they make to help us when faced with words using these features. Students have had time this week to shop for new books for their book bins and are encouraged to shop for a mix of just-right books and books that interest them from our classroom library. Often times the just-right books may seem more simple to a student, but that means it's a good fit and a just-right book! Harder, "thicker" books at times look appealing to many but are often just too tricky for them to read. As the Weckies get more comfortable shopping in our classroom library, they'll learn more to often to stick with those just-right books to get the most out of their reading time. We have done some limited partner reading time in person, with partners meeting for just about 7-10 minutes. Remember, most kids already sit at the same table and most likely, next to, their reading partners. 

Writers' Workshop

In Writers' Workshop this week we have been working on their realistic fiction book series. Each child has created a character and a book or two or more about their character featuring real-life problems a child may face. Writers had time this week to do some editing and revising of their work. Our focus was on adding realistic details to our pieces and to "show" the story in their writing instead of just "telling" the story. Most of our students have shared one of their realistic fiction pieces on Flipgrid and it has been great to hear their entire stories. When I pull them to do conferences I most often just hear a little segment of their story. You should ask your child to show you their video on Flipgrid. You can find them by going to a post from last week on Google Classroom with the Flipgrid link.

Phonics

Our work in Phonics this week we have been digging deeper with vowel teams. This is when two vowels work together in a word (such as the "ea" in team). The saying we use is: When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. This helps readers and writers to understand in a vowel team, the vowel sound is typically long and typically the sound of the first vowel in the team. We spent time finding vowel teams in books and in our own writing to explore with. We took time to practice reading the teams and noticing similarities and differences. For instance the "oo" vowel team sounds different in moon and look. Last we reviewed earlier work with the "r" controlled vowel and looked at words that have a changed vowel sound when an "r" is added, such as the "a" sound in had vs. hard.

Math Workshop

In Math we are working on strategies for solving subtraction facts right now. We have reviewed strategies for -0 and -1. We have spent a lot of time practicing counting up and counting back with story problems. Subtraction will be one of those skills we will be working on all year! If your child still has their fact triangles at home, you can use these this weekend to review subtraction but please send them back to school for math next week!

Science

We continue to work on our New Plants unit in Science. This week we wrote the results and conclusions for our lab reports. We have spent time watching the grass and alfalfa grow together while also watching our wheat seed succeed in growing in a straw (for most of us). You can continue to watch the growth at home as these will not need to be sent back to school. We also watched an experiment this week that Mrs. Weckstein did with growing new plants from an old plant... these botanists were pretty amazed! :-)

Important Info:

Progress Profile Reports (aka our fall report cards) are now posted on Skyward Family Access. Once you log in to Family Access click on Report Cards and you will find this important document there. Please let me know if you need help accessing this.