Second Grade News

September 29th, 2017

Important dates!
October 2-6 is Homecoming Week/School Spirit Week:
Monday Hallway Pride wear all BLUE to show pride for Blue Hall!
Tuesday NA Pride Maroon & Gold or New Albany Spirit wear
Wednesday Wacky Wednesday crazy hair/socks/hats/clothes
Thursday Decade Day I think Im going with the good old 80s, but you can pick any decade
Friday Day of Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness

Current Learning
Classroom Technology: Everyone has now had a chance to login in and explore Big Universe. Most kids
have added 5 or more books to their personal bookshelf. If you want to use Big Universe at
home: username is last name.# (the number is assigned by the school district and is not their mailbox
number in class, they have been practicing it in class and in technology), password is eagles2!, and the
group name is newalbany. We are now working to get everyone started in Moby Max. The username and
password are the same and there should not be a group name. If it asks for your school name, look for
New Albany, OH and Primary School all the buildings are listed separately, so keep scrolling. Moby Max
has a variety of games in different subject areas and I can see how they are doing with my teacher
account. Feel free to help them get started at home, even if theyve not had a chance to get on at school
yet. They are excited to get on, but it takes a lot of time to help them log on to the school computers
and then the site, so it can be slow going for everyone to learn the process. Any help at home is greatly
appreciated!

Language Arts: In writing, we continue our unit on Personal Narratives, which goes along with our Genre
Study on realistic fiction. We are building on what we learned about making paragraphs, so well be
looking at writing about small moments, using emotional hooks, and starting with a strong lead
(emotion/feeling, action, dialogue, or description). This week, well also work on show dont tell and
painting a picture using descriptive writing. Im challenging the kids to make their writing less of a list
of what happened and to remember to add feelings, emotions, and details that help the reader picture
what happened it their mind.

Fundations: Im so proud that the kids are listening and learning so much! Unit 3 was a short unit on the
exceptions to the closed syllable rule, where the vowel makes the long sound instead of the short
sound. This happens with these glued/welded sounds: ild, ind, olt, old, and ost (wild, find, bolt, cold,
post). We are testing today, since it is only a week long unit. This week, well start working on Unit 4
with a focus on suffixes (s, es, ed, ing, er, est). Well also introduce the vowel teams: oa, oe, ow, ou, oo,
ue, ew. Please work on these trick words at home with your child: again, please, animal, sure, use,
used. This is a two week unit. I will send home the practice spelling packet mid-week after the new unit
is introduced.
Math: Unit 2 is going well and keeping us busy! Weve found some fun ways to practice estimating and
used Jack & the Bean Stalk as our story starter for estimation. Weve worked on place value and had
some fun place value riddles to solve. Some of the challenge problems really stump the kids, but we
worked hard and persevered to solve them! The skills in this unit include: place and value of 3-digit
numbers; read, write, model, and compare 2- and 3- digit numbers; measure and compare lengths
of objects; model problem solving strategies on a number line; and strategies to fluently add and
subtract. See Home Folders for optional practice sheets and some past pages. We are going to start
sending home our in class work book pages every week or two, so you can see more of what weve been up
to. I might need some of our classroom volunteers to help rip pages out, as the kids tend to tear
them. When you include the at home practice pages, there are three separate workbooks for each child,
so adult help for getting everyones home in one piece would be wonderful!

Social Studies/Science: We continue our Atmosphere and Weather Unit. Our Big Idea Question
was: How does weather change? We began observing weather and will compare/contrast the various
changes we see from day to day (temperature, wind speed, wet/dry, cloud cover). We also found out we
will be getting new supplies to help us measure weather. Thanks to Bill Resch for getting us what we need
(wind sock, weather vane, thermometer with humidity gauge). Well be mini-meteorologists in no
time! Well also have a design challenge to make our own weather measurement tools soon! Needless to
say, the kids are very excited about our Science Unit!

Specialist Newsletter Information, September edition

Library News:
Great things are happening in the Primary Library! Books have been circulating for
several weeks. As routines are being established, please continue to assist your child to bring
his/her book back on library day.
Second Grade: Students took a virtual tour of the library at the start of the school year. We
reviewed library terminology and are now beginning to learn about the organization of the
collection. Classes are looking at picture books in the collection to see where to find them and
how they are organized. We have been reading Little i by Michael Hall and Creepy Underwear by
Aaron Reynolds.

WELLNESS
We have been off to a great start to the school year. Students have been developing loco-motor
movements, changing levels and pathways in space. Our manipulative unit has emphasized
catching, throwing, and striking objects in space. We had an introduction to jumping rope,
dance/rhythmic movement and fitness activities. A focus on TEAM cooperatives and
Sportsmanship has helped us move into invasion games with much success.

You can receive weekly updates on Wellness class by checking out their twitter page
(@na13wellness). The updates will include the different activities that will be used to practice
our skills. We wanted to highlight students that are active outside of wellness. We are asking
parents, students, and staff members to follow these four steps: 1. Exercise with your family! 2.
Snap a pic! 3. Share on social media (twitter) with #napsfitfam (Optional) 4. Send a hard or digital
copy to Coach Todd or Coach Reichard to be printed and placed on the wall.

ART
Second grade classes are learning about Vincent Van Gogh for the first half of the year. Vincent
painted a lot of landscapes, which are pictures of large outdoor natural spaces. His most famous
landscape is Starry Night. Most landscapes have a horizon, the line where the sky and earth
meet. In Starry Night we drew a tree in the foreground, houses in the middleground, and stars
and swirls in the background. We also worked on blending colors and giving our houses a sense
of 3D form.

Music
In 2nd grade music this month, students sang songs like I Love the Mountains and My Bonnie Lies
Over the Ocean and played the game Jump In, Jump Out to get to know each other and get
comfortable moving and playing in the music room. In honor of its birthday (9/14/1814), we
have talked about the Star-Spangled Banner and its history and practiced singing it. Were
reviewing music skills with a fun song and game called Doggie, Doggie. Students even practiced
writing out music notation in a Write the Room activity! Were having a great time making
music!

Technology
Second Grade: Second graders have learned how to log into the Chromebook and are learning
how to effectively use the keyboard and mouse. We started using an online typing program
called Typing Club. The students are able to use this at home as well and are trying to earn
badges while increasing speed and accuracy typing the right way. They can log in through
Google using their school username and password. We are also currently learning how to use
Google Docs, a cloud based word processing program.

Have a GREAT week!