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A Note From Your
Second Grade Teachers
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Second Grade Connections
November 17th, 2016
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Dear Second Grade Families,
What a tumultuous few weeks it has been with our national elections occurring on November 8th. We want to emphasize more than ever the importance of continuing to model kindness and empathy. Luckily, our children are good at it.
The second graders have enjoyed a few learning highlights- finishing up our unit on Simple Machines with an Invention Convention in the I-Lab, and a kick off to study our local beaches with a visit to a hands-on shark lab at Seymour Discovery Lab in Santa Cruz.
We also published our very own Spooky Stories! Thank you so much to those of you who were able to attend our Spooky Story Breakfast on Wednesday. The students were so proud to gather in small groups to read their original stories to an audience of their peers and parents.
Another shout out to the parent volunteers who helped make our Invention Convention a success by helping out with glue guns, foam cutters and more. Read on to find out what else we've been up to in second grade.
Sincerely,
Your Second Grade Team
Rosalie Simrock, Debra Christian, Sherri Trigueiro & Vienna Klingele
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We had such fun reading our suspenseful Spooky Stories at our publishing party. The children were so proud to share the fruits of their labor. Hopefully you had a chance to peek at their wiritng folders where you can see evidence of the writing process in action. We will be keeping their spooky stories for a while longer so we can read them to the first graders. The themes of our current read alouds are gratitude and giving thanks. We will read about the first Thanksgiviing from both the Pilgrims' and the Native Americans' perspective. We will also read different verions of the folktale Stone Soup; one set in Europe and one set in China, and discuss the differences and similarities in both. We continue to meet in reading circles in addition to reading independently daily.
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Now that we have completed and published our spooky stories, we will reflect on appreciating those who show us kindness and think of ways we can show kindness to others. We will take time to write down these reflections in our journals. 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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In science we discovered that simple machines are part of bigger, more complex machines that make our work easier. We tested different ways to move loads more easily, using less force. We finished our physical science study of simple machines with a day in the iLab buildilng our own creations using recycled/scrap objects. The students designed, sketched and built their own inventions. They shared them with their classmates and took them home last week. We have a lot of inventors in this group! Parents, thanks again for your help gathering materials and for the extra hands in the I-Lab. The students also participated in a handy dandy gadget scavenger hunt, where they needed to identify the types of simple machines found in household items like scissors, can openers, nut crackers, etc. Switching gears, we learned all about sharks on our recent field trip and can't wait to delve more deeply into earth and life science with a study of our local beaches.
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- What did you like or dislike about reading your spooky story out loud?
- What are shark babies called?
- Can you think of something kind you did for someone else today?
- How did you show cooperation today?
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Friendship Soup: Friday, November 18th (don't forget to send your child to school with a half cup of diced veggies, thanks.)
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: rsimrock@seacrestschool.org and/or dchristian@seacrestschool.org. 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?
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