Looking back at last week, we hope you had the opportunity to speak with your children about classroom happenings. Perhaps the most exciting part of our week came on Friday when we met Mrs. Rudisill outside to plant radishes and collard greens. We've started learning about soil in Science, so put our knowledge to test as we planted tiny seeds into gardening cells that held rich soil. We were impressed with the class inquiries to ensure we weren't using sandy or clay soil. Our class worked in partnerships and then independently to plant seeds and we met back together in class to predict when we would see sprouts. Four classmates predicted Monday, the 21st, and they were correct! The light cart outside our classroom houses these tiny sprouts and we will be keeping a close, observational eye on the vegetables until it is time to transfer them to the raised beds outside.
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| Destiny and Katie filling up the "cells" for collard greens. |
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| Passing around water for our radishes! Mrs. Rudisill told us that the soil should be "heavy and dark" after being watered. |
Speaking of gardening, we need your help! You may have already heard from Addie Holzman about signing up to help us with the Little Sugar Creek Community Garden. We will need a few parent volunteers to walk with us to the garden and to help us during out time of service learning. Please take a moment to look at your calendars and see if you can join us. You may sign up using THIS LINK.
This week we will begin revising and editing our "Small Moment Stories" in Writer's Workshop. Let us take a moment to compliment your writers! My goodness. Their stories are wonderful and we are impressed each day with their creativity and excitement around writing. We have been working on adding details to setting, incorporating internal thinking, using dialogue and juicy words. Publishing will begin towards the end of this week and our work will be celebrated soon thereafter. You will have the opportunity to read and celebrate your child's work over conferences in just a few weeks. Writer's has greatly tied into Reader's lately, as we are finding the strategies we use as writer's in the books we are reading. It's a wonderful thing when subjects start to mix! This week we will be emphasizing the importance of good partnerships within Reader's Workshop. Ask your child who their reading partner is! In line with reading partners, we had our first afternoon of Book Buddies last Friday! Mr. Merritt and Mrs. Landess' class visited and we partnered up, got cozy, and enjoyed an afternoon of reading with Fifth Grade friends. We look forward to this continuing this partnership all year long!
We hope that you enjoyed and put the "Blind Sort" video to use as you helped us practice Word Study at home. We are turning a new leaf in Word Study this week and will begin working in small groups. This will provide more direct instruction for everyone. Our focus for the next two weeks will vary across groups but routines will remain the same. Thank you for your assistance at home!
Unit One of Investigations is coming to a close this week and we will have our final assessment on Thursday. During this unit, we have strengthened our skills with money, time, number sense, and are learning to solve story problems via multiple strategies. We will send home the final assessment for you to review with your child and ask that you please sign and return it. Be on the lookout for these next week. Our next unit will focus on geometry. Please remember to continue practicing math combinations at home as these will remain important for our young mathematicians throughout the year! You may have noticed that we've started having "Mad Minutes" weekly and this will continue on throughout the year and is a new part of our routine.
Lastly, let us touch on Science and Social Studies. Two exciting subjects that we do not have every day, but enjoy when they pop up on our schedule! In Social Studies, we've been learning about communities -- something Trinity students know quite well! We have talked about the difference between rural, urban, and suburban communities and are also discussing how people live, work, and play differently based on the community they live in. In Science, we're digging into conversation, observation, and investigation of soil. This week we will be investigating some soil samples and noticing the differences between the samples we collected outside last week. Science ties in quite nicely with our service learning, and it is wonderful to see our learning come alive outside as we garden each week.
A few reminders for the upcoming weeks:
- With Music only once a week, it is important for your children to be practicing their songs for the production of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Mrs. Postle has reminded Second Grade that learning songs takes work! Please help us and Mrs. Postle by encouraging your children to practice songs at home.
- We will be taking a trip to ImaginOn THIS FRIDAY, September 25th. Please check your bookshelves and make sure your library books are brought back to school so they can be returned on time!
- Wednesday, September 30th is a half day for students. Dismissal will be at 11:30.
- Our first field trip is Tuesday, October 6th to Reedy Creek from 8:15 - 12:15. We will be touching base about volunteer drivers soon.
- Please remember to sign up for conferences, which will be Thursday/Friday, October 8/9th. The sign up link can be found on Good News. We look forward to meeting with you!
