Classroom News- I am excited to announce that Mrs. Snader will be taking over for me during my six week maternity leave. The students have already met Mrs. Snader and she knows the routines and expectations of our classroom. We are hoping that this will be a smooth transition for all of us. If you have any questions or would like to contact either of us, you can do so at our e-mail addresses. My e-mail address is lacey_henn@elanco.org. I will be checking my e-mail throughout my leave. You can contact Nicole at nicole_snader@elanco.org.

Language Arts- This week, we will be reviewing our first unit about exploration. Your child will be bringing home a spelling list that might look familiar. The spelling list this week consists of the 12 words that the most students spelled incorrectly on their spelling test during the first 5 weeks.

We will be focusing mostly on writing this week. The students are currently still working on writing in complete sentences and adding details to our writing. One thing we have been talking about the past few weeks is making sure we are using correct handwriting. A lot of the students have been adding random uppercase letters throughout their writing. Although we are trying to rectify the situation at school, it would help if you would work with your child on this skill at home as well.

Our district wide writing sample is coming up. The writing sample for the month of October will be a personal narrative. Students will be graded in the following categories: focus, content, organization, style and conventions. We have been discussing and working on personal narratives at school. We have also gone over the writing rubric and changed it into kid-friendly terms so the students know exactly what the teacher’s scoring the writing samples will be looking for.

Math- We are switching to unit 2 of math on Wednesday. Your child’s math teacher could be changing on this day. Please check their homework folder for a note containing the name of your child’s math teacher along with a unit 2 study guide. Unit 2 of math consists of time and measurement. We will mainly be focusing on telling time to the 5 minute mark using both analog and digital clocks. Students will also be expected to be able to differentiate between a.m. and p.m. After the students have a firm grasp of time, we will be moving onto measurement. In our measurement unit we will be discussing different tools we use to measure as well as word problems containing measurement.

Science- We will be starting our first science unit this month. I am excited to announce we will be starting our Life Cycles Unit. This is one of my favorite units in second grade! The students will be learning about life cycles in plants as well as animals. The students will get a chance to plant a seed and watch it grow. Our class will also be hatching chicks! We will have an incubator in our room so that the students are able to watch a chicken’s life cycle starting from an egg! The test will be around the end of October or beginning of November. Mrs. Snader will make sure to give at least a 1 week notice prior to the test. The study guide will be coming home sometime this week.