Art: We are halfway through the school year and these students have earned the privilege to use hot glue guns. Even with our supervision they quickly learned that the glue was, well, actually HOT. With this tool they are able to use an infinite number of materials in their sculptures and this delightful benefit is worth the sore fingers. Soon they will get their hands in clay. They are busy painting, drawing on big paper with friends, and caring for supplies and each other. Second graders are prolific artists and love to talk about their work. Ask your child what they have created. Students are excited about using the Artsonia app to store images of their work in their digital portfolios.
Faith Studies: We started the New Year reviewing our Faith Studies Covenant in second grade. The covenant is a list of promises and guidelines we created at the beginning of the school year to guide our behavior during Faith Studies. The guidelines include respecting others, listening to the teacher, and keeping our hands to ourselves. I think the students took the conversation to heart, as both groups have been doing an excellent job in 2017. We moved from the book of Joshua into the book of Judges during our Bible story time in January. The students have learned that judges can be boys and girls, as we heard the story of Deborah and Barak. Then we heard the story of Gideon and the miracle of the fleece. Ask your child about the “science experiment” we did during Faith Studies last week. We also read the story, My Daddy, Martin Luther King Jr. this month, by Martin Luther King III. Your students were very interested in this book and talking about the ways our world has changed since the Civil Rights movement, and the ways we can continue to help his dream today. We will welcome Mrs. Williams to lead a hymn study next week and then we will continue with the book of Ruth. Your students are a joy to teach and I enjoy seeing them each week.
Grace and peace,
Rev. Lindsey Wells Peery
PE: We have been really focusing on our fitness this trimester. We are using our yoga mats on a regular basis, practicing yoga poses, pilates exercises, and strengthening our core. We are moving into a short unit on basic volleyball skills, focusing on proper positioning (“ready”, hand position, proper bump form) and movement. We will finish the trimester with an introduction to kickball.
Spanish: Second graders are working on unit 2 of level B in the Descubre program. In this unit, children are learning culture and exploring some places in Nicaragua. We have been using the student books every week, following and practicing short conversations about types of homes, such as casa (house), apartamento (apartment), and a few vocabulary words related to animal homes such as nido (nest), and telaraña (spiderweb). Students are also studying clothing and foods at the market. We do quick reviews of the practice done in unit 1 about greeting and good byes. Children continue practicing some family members in the conversations such as abuelos (grandparents), and niños (children). Your child's online account is a great tool to repeat the dialogs, vocabulary words, reading, comprehension and pronunciation.
Wellness: This month, the 2nd graders will learn about the difference between tattling and telling/reporting. We will begin with a discussion around the difference between “child-sized” problems and “adult-sized” problems. We will then read a book called “Don’t Squeal Unless It’s a Big Deal” by Jeanie Franz Ransom. This book tells the story of a teacher teaching her students when it is important to tell or report to a teacher what is going on and when it is OK to try and solve the problem on your own first. The teacher in this book really focuses on the point that it is important to let an adult know what is going on when someone is hurt or in danger, hurting you, hurting a pet, or hurting something that does not belong to them. In addition, I will reinforce that if you try and solve the problem on your own first and the student that you asked to stop bothering you keeps bothering you over and over again then this becomes a situation where it is also important to tell an adult. The teacher in the book also discusses that sometimes it can be hard to learn the difference between tattling and telling and that is why it is important for adults to remind children of the difference as well as important for children to practice, practice, practice this new skill! Try talking to your children at home about the difference between tattling and telling.
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