Week of September 11th

Another great week! I'm amazed at the way your children have latched on to the idea of "Reader's Workshop." They do a fabulous job self-assessing their book choices, and have worked hard on building independent reading stamina. 

They're also learning about what "good readers do," focusing on THINKING about READING. To aid in that, everyone started using reader's notebooks! Ask your second grader about what they have inside their reader's notebook!

 Second graders also read ANY sized book! 

#lovebigbooks

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER FORMATION 
Our virtue this week is self-sacrifice. We define self-sacrifice as God's power for you to give up something to help others. As we explore this virtue, we will read about David and Jonathan from 1 Samuel. Immediately following Goliath’s death, something remarkable happened–David encountered Saul’s son, Jonathan. As Saul’s son, Jonathan was to inherit Saul’s crown, but God had another plan. Instead, God chose David as king, ending Saul’s royal line. Consider this Big Question this week: What can give you the power to sacrifice for someone else?

PHONICS and SPELLING 
This week we will review, read, and sort words with "short I" and "long I" (specifically with the i-consonant-e rule). We also began dictation sentences last week. Those sentences will be a review of grammar skills, spelling patterns, and sight words. I plan on mixing some commonly incorrectly spelled sight words into our pre-test spelling lists.

READING SKILLS and STRATEGIES 
This week we will continue to learn about characters and make connections. One of our read-aloud books is a Historical Fictional called, Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings. This book demonstrates an excellent lesson on diligence and courage! Can't wait for our book talks! 

Learning to use context clues while studying vocabulary is another way your kiddos are practicing comprehension. Be on the lookout for a vocab practice page to come home every week. I'm hopeful that your second graders vocabulary will begin to surprise you!

My first round of benchmark reading assessments is almost complete, which means guided reading groups will begin soon. Some of us couldn't wait... 🙂

GRAMMAR
Our mentor sentence this week will come from the book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin. We will continue to discuss common nouns and proper nouns, and punctuation. We will also learn about how to write a friendly letter... Read the book and find out why... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbHoZUZf8RI

WRITING 
Last week the kiddos discovered how challenging self-evaluating their writing can be! As students write this week, they'll be focusing on the plot. Thanks to all the brave kiddos that allow us to learn so much from each other...

NEWS and NOTES 

• Friday, September 15th NO SCHOOL - teacher professional development 
• Tuesday, September 19th - apple farm field trip 
• September 29th - September reading log due 
• September 29th and 30th - CCLS Carnival 
• Sunday, October 1st - CCLS Sunday at Webster Gardens 

BLESSINGS ON YOUR WEEK!