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! 

Week of September 5th

Happy Tuesday! I don't know about you, but I'm going to have to remind myself that it's NOT MONDAY all day. :) I hope many of you were able to enjoy an extra day off AND the beautiful weather God provided! We had a great time at the Klug house. 

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedules last week to come to the class and learn about second grade. The children really enjoyed having guests!  

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER FORMATION PROJECT

For our Christian Character Formation Project this week we study the story of young David facing Goliath (1 Samuel 17:25-50) to learn about how we can overcome a giant in our life. We focus on the virtue of COURAGE, which is “God’s power for you to overcome fear.” This week we explore how we can have courage and faith like David, able to face our giants with confidence. You are encouraged to have conversations regarding David’s courage and faith, God’s protection, and how we can live with this same courage and confidence in our daily lives.

PHONICS and SPELLING

Well, we did it! We made it through our first spelling test! After much thought and research, I decided to have the kiddos take their tests using an app called SpellingCity. Each week I will import YOUR Child's list to their account. This allows them to play games with their words throughout the week, and then on Thursdays the app actually gives each child a test. It reads their words, and puts the words in a sentence. Besides some basic log-in confusion, week one went pretty well! 

This week's word study will focus on "short a" and "long a" with the "a-consonant-e" spelling pattern. We will still have the test on Thursday even with the shortened week.

READING SKILLS and STRATEGIES 

We are learning so much about "what good readers do" and learning from each other is the best! Last week many children made Text to Self connections during their reading...

This week we will continue to discuss the connections we have with books, and how that helps our comprehension. We'll look at other ways to connect called "text to text" and "text to world", and we will study how understanding the characters feelings can also aid in connecting and comprehending.

GRAMMAR

This week's mentor sentence comes from the book Officer Buckle and Gloria. We'll look further at punctuation and common verses proper nouns. 

Here's a link to the story if you'd like to hear it with your child this week! It's a good one! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmViPSWwbPY

WRITING 

Your young authors have really taken off with their personal narratives. This week we will notice more about author's craft with the book Owl Moon, and we'll try writing in more powerful ways. This is Charlie in "share chair" showing everyone how he stretched out his small moment story.

NEWS and NOTES 

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

And for more from last week... 

odd OR even?

 Mouse Paint Art Project

Week of August 28th

Wow!

What a great first full week of school!

Amazing things were happening as we continued to learn about each other as well as the rituals and routines of second grade.
This is vital as your child learns, grows and takes risks this year!  
Here's a look back on some fun times last week...

We know from Scripture that God uses signs and wonders in heaven to communicate with His people. That includes our rare TOTAL solar eclipse!! God is indeed a GREAT artist! 

During Readers Workshop, students learned different ways to read... 
buddy reading...

And listening to reading... 

Several of the children were very eager to practice using "Epic" (my personal favorite reading app). Epic allows students to choose from a vast assortment of books online. Some books are audio, some are read to the child, and some the child reads independently. 

I can enable access of Epic for your child at HOME! 

Please e-mail me if you're interested, and I can send you the invite.

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER FORMATION

This week we look at the story of Saul becoming King over Israel (1 Samuel 8-11) with focus on the virtue of responsibility. We define responsibility as God's power for you to be accountable to God and others. This week you are encouraged to have conversations with your family about how God’s Spirit blesses others through the responsibilities He has given to us. 

PHONICS and SPELLING

This year in spelling we are trying an approach that allows students to learn words at their individual level of instruction and teach them how words work. At the beginning of each week we will focus on a certain word study skill. Your child will take a pretest based on that skill. Any words missed will be on their individual list. To complete their list of ten words, your child will choose from a list generated in the classroom. A paper copy of these words will be sent home every MONDAY. You can also look for this list in your child’s planner and on Seesaw. Every Thursday the students will take their spelling test. Spelling homework is also DUE Thursday. 

The word study skill this week is short vowels. 

READING SKILLS and STRATEGIES
As we build our reading community this week, our reading targets will include making text- to-self connections, and answering questions to understand the story's details.  Ask your child about making connections with what they are reading at home! 

 

We will also start vocabulary this week! 

WRITING 

I am thrilled to announce that we are launching writers' workshop this week! In our first sessions we will study from the masters for inspiration and ideas as we capture and write about small moments. I can't wait to see your young authors hard at work!

GRAMMAR 

Mentor sentences are the perfect way to teach grammar and author's craft through examples of excellent sentences from our favorite read-aloud books! This week we'll focus on capital letters and periods, and common and proper nouns through a mentor sentence from the book, First Day Jitters. 

NEWS AND NOTES

• Curriculum Night (for parents) August 29th 7:00pm
• No School Labor Day - September 4th 
• Did your child complete the "CCLS Summer Reading Challenge?" You will be receiving information about that free dress day soon, but please feel free to send in whatever your child used to track their summer reading at any point. 

BLESSINGS ON YOUR WEEK!

Week of August 21st

Well, we did it! We survived the first week!
Other than a lock-down on THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL... I'd say we did pretty well!
Really, though, your children had a FABULOUS week!
As a child, the first week of school was always one of my favorites! Starting back up with regular routines at home and learning new ones at school. Buying fresh, new school supplies and organizing my desk, checking the class list to see so many friends in my class, and of course, meeting my new teacher, which was never a disappointment. 
Through the excitement, I also had nerves. I had anxiety about all the uncertainties, but there was one thing that I could always count on...
God's love.

I'm absolutely thrilled to begin this new year with you all and your precious second graders. As a CCLS graduate, I feel extremely blessed to be back in this loving community as an educator. I can't wait to start growing together and sharing the gift of God's love with one another.
I pray that we live each day knowing God is our MIGHTY fortress!

Here's a look back at last week. Be sure to read the weekly objectives after the pictures to find out this week's happenings.
What an awesome beginning of the year chapel!
Thanks, Pastor King! Can't wait to study more about Martin Luther this year!

 We read the book How Full is Your Bucket and discussed how to keep our "buckets full" every day.  Each one of us signed our list of classroom expectations.

 In reading, we started learning about what we call "readers workshop." 
My goal is for each child to view reading as a purposeful and important part of their lives. Part of that is making their own decisions about their reading. Here we are practicing reading independently... They were so excited to "book shop" and snuggle up to some "just right" books! Wow! They are already exceeding my expectations!

 

 What a great looking group! Can't wait to see where they go this year!!

THE ECLIPSE

We're super excited to observe this very rare event today! I'm hoping we will get to communicate with you all on Seesaw about the things we are learning! Stay tuned!

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

As you may have heard, our school is piloting a curriculum called Christian Character Formation Project. Christian Character Formation is a life-long process. The starting point is to understand how character is acquired and held. Through this study, each week we will discuss that when character is acquired and held internally, it leads to a virtuous life of greater purpose. As we study the character formation process it will be represented through a trademarked Character Formation Triangle which illustrates the connections between our identity, our purpose and our performance. 

A person’s character is the answer to three foundational questions: 

Identity: Who am I? 

Purpose: Why am I?

Actions: How shall I act? 

This week the virtue we will examine is diligence. We define diligence as God's power to help us focus on our work. As we read about Samuel in Samuel 3:1-21 we will ask ourselves this "Big Question" How can you focus on listening to God and doing what He wants, even when He's asking you to do something hard?

READING 

Last week your second graders learned about a structure for teaching reading called readers workshop. The purpose for teaching readers workshop is to teach students useful strategies to use as they read, and then give them practice applying those strategies.

As you know, children learn to read by... you guessed it... reading! 

This week we will continue to review readers workshop expectations, focus a lot on how to choose "just right" books to read independently, and learn a few specific ways to help ourselves comprehend what we are reading.

I hope you found your child's RED folder in his/her backpack. Micah and Malorie already have their reading log hung in a place they can easily track their minutes. I encourage your child to use what we're learning at school, at home, and find "just right" books to read while reading independently. And don't forget, you reading to your child is also SO great!!

WRITING

This week in writing we will be working on our summer poster stories. Our focus will be brainstorming topic sentences, a body with details about our summers, and a concluding sentence. This first writing piece helps me get to know and assess everyone's various writing talents. I can't wait for our little authors to take off! 

NEWS AND NOTES

• Curriculum Night (for parents) August 29th 7:00pm
• No School Labor Day - September 4th 
• If you haven't downloaded the Seesaw app yet, please do so ASAP. The kiddos are so excited to share their learned with you! Please let me know if you have any questions or difficulties.
• Did your child complete the "CCLS Summer Reading Challenge?" You will be receiving information about that free dress day soon, but please feel free to send in whatever your child used to track their summer reading at any point. 

I'm so excited for this school year!

Please contact me if you have questions or concerns.

My e-mail is rklug@ccls-stlouis.org.

BLESSINGS ON YOUR WEEK!