welcome to 2nd grade

Welcome to second grade! My name is Miss Stich and I am very excited to be a second grade teacher here at Berkley School. Second grade is a wonderful year in school. We will become writers, mathematicians, scientists, explorers, and excellent readers! The second graders have been very busy learning lots of new things already this year!

The students have begun listening to The Trumpet of The Swan by E.B. White. They are enjoying hearing another E.B.White classic after hearing Charlotte’s Web last year. We are discussing the story and falling in love with Louis the swan!

In math we are working on adding and subtracting single digit numbers to get us ready for double digit addition and subtraction. Please be sure to practice basic math facts at home. This will help with problem solving and higher level thinking questions. In reading we have begun our unit on Relationships. We are working on reading comprehension and sequencing and discussing how to be a good friend. We are focusing on the elements that make up a good story. In writing we are using various authors as our mentors and focusing on good writing craft.

In Social Studies we will begin a unit on our families and communities. We will be discussing family traditions and working on our own family trees. In Science we are discovering the characteristics of living things. Overall, this school year is off to a great start!

Ms. Friscia’s 2^nd grade class has started off the new school year strong, meeting new friends and getting used to our classroom. We are off to a running start as we review our addition and subtraction skills in math using hands on activities. We started off our year by reading a favorite story, Chrysanthemum. We enjoyed discussing and completing many activities about the book. One of our favorites was creating a graph showing the number of letters in our names, which ranged from three to eleven. Our 2^nd grade reading series promises to be both entertaining and fun. Students discovered in our first story, David’s New Friends, that they weren’t the only ones feeling nervous about the first day of school.

We are excited to start our family unit in Social Studies where we are going to create several graphs from information we collect about our families. We will also be making family trees displaying the members of our families. In Science we will be exploring living and nonliving things. We will be scientists making many observations of things in and around our school building.

In October, the 2^nd grade will be taking a trip to Abma’s Farm. At the farm the children will have the opportunity to pick their own pumpkins, go on a hay ride, and observe farm animals. The fun doesn’t stop there when we return to school we will weigh, measure, and describe our pumpkins. Ms. Friscia’s class is looking forward to a fun and exciting school year together.

What a wonderful way to begin the year ~ greeting the happy children on a bright and sunny morning! We expect to have a year filled with the brightness and the luck that hard work brings! We reach for the stars!! We aim high!

September finds us learning that we really are able to control our bodies including our voices. This is challenging for seven year olds. Now we are responsible for our actions! The good feeling of success is a great reward! (A few stickers along the way are also very nice!) Learning about each other and our different families has been a pleasure. We like to study the “Family Album” made by our classmates! It is always a pleasure to meet the parents and guardians on Back to School Night. We hope that all of the families will be represented then!

Families and friends are included in our reading stories, as well as our social studies and writing activities! Science will find us searching alone and with family and friends for living/once living and non-living objects.

The second grade teachers have planned a visit to Abma’s Farm where we will ride on a farm wagon, see how crops grow, observe farm animals, learn about and see composting, select pumpkins from the pumpkin patch and shop in a country store. This is always a happy learning experience! And, the learning doesn’t stop there for we weigh and measure our pumpkin treasure, write about it and plan for future pumpkins with the seeds found inside the one we carve together!

The aroma of apples cooking will soon be wafting through the hallways announcing to Berkley students, “Thanksgiving is just around the bend and

2-Me is preparing applesauce!” We hope that we are fortunate to have parents working diligently to help the students graph the number of each kind of apple that we bring to school. We’ll share our recipe with you so that you, too, may enjoy the aroma at home! It is fun to learn Science, Math, Social Studies and Language Arts by creating special things with the same excitement of the first day!

SUPPLIES FOR SECOND GRADE

· 3 hard covered marble composition books – red, blue, and black. Be sure your child’s name is printed on each.

· 2 large glue sticks and one box of crayons (any size)

· One pencil case (with zipper) with 6 sharpened pencils and a large pink eraser

· One package of thin markers

· 4 solid color paper folders with pockets on the bottom, and child’s name on them.

· An old shirt or smock for art with child’s name printed on it

· One package of antibacterial wipes & one box of tissues

· One yellow highlighter

· One dry-erase marker

· One inch graph (grid) paper

· Please bring in a lunch-size bag filled with objects that tell about the things you did this summer. Be sure to bring it on the first day of school. Don’t forget a snack!

· One backpack – without wheels