Mrs. Pike’s 2nd Grade Newsletter
	Volume  4- September 25th-29th

This Week in Grade 2
We had a fun and busy week in grade 2! The students loved their first Mini Academies in grade 2! They were busy having fun and participating in everything from the Science of bottle flipping and cooking Thai dessert to making Gak and Batik painting. THANK YOU to all the parents who volunteered their time and creativity to make Mini Academies enjoyable and successful for everyone.   There are still plenty of opportunities to sign up for upcoming mini academies each month. On Friday we also had our annual birthday bash celebrating all of our September birthdays.         Please make sure you look in your child’s take home folder for your conference time notice letter. Read the letter and sign and return it in your child’s folder this week so that we can ensure you are able to attend the conference time listed.          On Monday we will have a new Home Learning Menu. Please remember your child must read for 20 minutes each night but the home learning menu items are optional. If an activity is completed, students may bring finished work into class or you can email us a photo and or video. The kids really enjoy sharing and celebrating home learning with the class during our morning meeting time.

Language Arts
Our readers have been noticing and naming powerful craft moves that writers are using in their own books and how to try these out in their own writing. We also explored how books have a way of “clicking together” in predictable ways and student again practiced the important skill of retelling stories in order with details. We reviewed the importance of monitoring our own reading and now that we are more grown up, we reread and fix our own mistakes. Students read in their partnerships this week and saw the usefulness of having a buddy to help remind them of mistakes or give tips on how to decode a tricky word. Our writers have been busily writing narrative stories with interesting beginnings, powerful words and interesting details and punctuation that they are finding in during reading time. It is fun to watch them try out different ways of making their writing more fun to read and feel the power of mimicking famous authors.

Math
This week we continued to review math skills such as skip counting, comparing numbers, modeling numbers in different ways and fact fluency as we wrap up this unit next week. Students were challenged further with some rich tasks, problem solving activities and riddles utilizing their knowledge of Base Ten in new ways. Continuing to support students at home with skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s from various numbers up and down orally will help them improve these skills. Also, finding fun ways to weave in addition and subtraction practice into games and activities at home will help students become more fluent.

Social Studies
This week in our communities unit students discussed qualities in a good leader as well as important laws or rules of a community. Our own school leaders will soon be interviewed by our students as they continue to explore what it takes to be successful and fair leaders and responsible citizens. Students continue to work on designing their own communities with their ideal leaders and laws as well as services their community provides.

Important Dates

Important dates

Important Dates October 2nd -New Home Learning Posted October 9th and 10th- No School Parent and Student  3 way conferences

Dinner Questions
1 - What are the most important qualities in a good and fair leader? 2- What laws do you think are the most important in a community? Why? 3- What is something that you are curious about that you would like to explore more?