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A Note From Your
Second Grade Teachers
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Second Grade Connections
November 3rd, 2016
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Dear Second Grade Families,
We hope you had a
spooktacular Halloween! A huge shout out to our Room Parents and volunteers for making our Halloween activities so festive, active, and fun!!! We are in full swing and quite busy working on a lot of different projects. Read on to find out what we've been up to and keep scrolling to the very bottom to see some more photos of our second graders in Halloween action!
Sincerely,
Your Second Grade Team
Rosalie Simrock, Debra Christian, Sherri Trigueiro & Vienna Klingele
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We have been reading suspenseful stories during Read Aloud time and discussing how the main characters overcome obstacles they may encounter. We are also been talking about plot, or the sequence of events that occur in a good story. We are meeting with students for eacher-led reading circles. Students also choose ‘Just Right Books’ from a wide range of genres during independent reading time. We also have been reading about The Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos, a holiday celebrated in Mexico and other Latino cultures. November 1st and 2nd are the days when loved ones are honored and remembered through stories, cooking and eating of their favorite foods, visits to their grave sites or small altars created in their memory. Please visit the altars created by our Spanish teachers and students in the middle school hallway.
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Our spooky stories are the main focus of our Writer's Workshop. We are in different stages of revising, editing and finally publishing our original stories. We can't wait to share the fruits of our labor with our parents at a Spooky Story Read Aloud and breakfast on November 16. All families are invited. Please stay tuned for details. We are also using lessons from Words Their Way (WTW), the spelling/phonics/vocabulary program adopted by Sea Crest this year, to help our second graders move from 'best guess spelling' to correct dictionary spelling.
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During class, we have continued playing math games that help build both cooperation skills and reinforce number sense. The skills being practiced include, one to one correspondence, building and comparing larger numbers using place value blocks, ordering numbers, accurately building 100, trading from ones to groups of ten and skip counting by 2's, 5's, 10’s and 100's. We are also practicing 2 and 3 digit addition without regrouping. We have started working on regrouping with in depth discussions about why we do it, concrete practice building the problems with blocks and some groups have moved on to drawing and/or writing the problems. We have moved from doing whole class lessons and games into more of a workshop style math time. During this time we place students into small groups to do differentiated tasks. One group is working with a teacher while the other two groups are assigned to different work stations which might be an iPad app, a game, a puzzle, an investigation or a word problem. The groups rotate on a daily basis.
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Our science unit is keeping us busy as we explore and build simple machines. We are discovering that simple machines are part of bigger, more complex machines that make our work easier. We are testing different ways to move loads more easily using less force. We just finished some work in the iLab making our own sets of wheels and axles using recycled paper towel rolls, foam board, wooden skewers, and straws. We have a lot of inventors in this group! We will finish this unit of study with a day in the iLab buildilng our own creations using recycled/scrap objects. Please send us your junk!!!!! Egg cartons, yarn, fabric scraps, beads, buttons, sequins, different sized boxes, wood scraps, cork bottles, pipe cleaners, masking tape, bendable wire, etc.. We have two boxes near our cubbies where you can drop off these items. Thanks for your help!
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- What kind of invention do you plan to make?
- Can you name some simple machines?
- How do simple machines help us?
- What is a good way to show cooperation?
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Seymour Marine Discovery Center in Santa Cruz: Wednesday, November 9th.
Invention Convention in iLab: Parents are invited to attend and assist the children in creating their inventions.
- Mrs. Christian's Class Thursday, November 10th, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
- Ms. Simrock's Class Friday, November 11th, 8:30 - 10:00 a.m.
Spooky Story Breakfast and Publishing Party: Wednesday, November 16th, 8:15 - 9:30 a.m. Parents are invited to attend and enjoy our spooky publishing party. Individual emails will be sent about both events. Please RSVP to your teacher by reponding to the email.
California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park: Thursday, January 5th, 2017.
Elkus Ranch: Wednesday, March 15th, 2017.
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*** Severe Food Allergies ***
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During this time of the year when there are many classroom or school-wide events and celebrations it is important to remember the critical medical challenges food-borne allergies can pose to students. It is especially crucial to be mindful of the potentially life-threatening impact of peanuts and tree nuts. As you send food items to school for group consumption, please review our guidelines from our Family Handbook below.
Some students at Sea Crest have severe food allergies including dairy, gluten, soy, shellfish, tree nuts and peanuts. These allergies can be life threatening and many times can be triggered by contact alone and not only by ingestion of the food. By far the largest category of severe life threatening allergies comes from nuts.
We ask that the entire Sea Crest community become informed and sensitive to this issue. When preparing food for potlucks, bake sales, celebrations, or community gatherings, please avoid peanuts and tree nuts and clearly mark any dishes that may include them.
"We are each other's keepers"
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- If questions ever arise, please do not hesitate to reach out! We are available by email at: [email protected] and/or [email protected]. Email is our preferred method of communication. We will check our email after school daily.
- If there is an emergency, please call Cathy at the front desk, at 650.712.9892.
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Do you have photos you'd be willing to share with the school?
Please upload them here, or email them at [email protected].
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