Week 24

                                                        

                                                           Grade 2 Weekly Newsletter

Important Dates

• Feb. 13 - ES Assembly - 2R (7:55 am - 8:25 am, ES Hall)
  
• Feb. 18 - ASA Session 2 Ends
  
• Feb. 22 - Lego Creativity Celebration
  
• Feb. 22 - ES Trimester 2 Ends
  
• Feb. 22 - ES After School Activities Session 2 Ends
  
• Mar. 4 - ASA Session 3 Sign up begins
  
• Mar. 18 - May 17 - ASA Session 3
  

Math Challenge

Every week we will have a rich math task that challenges students’ thinking and help them transfer their learning of concepts. We encourage students to have a growth mindset and give it a try.

Read the problem and highlight the important information. Draw a visual. Solve using the arrow way strategy. Check your answer using a different strategy you’ve learned in class. Write your statement.

Ronaldo and Messi are riding their bicycles to meet between Barcelona and Madrid. The 2 cities are 632 kilometers (km) apart from each other. Ronaldo rides 47 km every day. If they meet after 8 days, how far from each city do they meet? How many kilometers does Messi have to ride his bike everyday? 

Family Math Night

Thank you for joining us on Family Math Night. The children enjoyed the opportunity to play games with you. These games are available for check out in the library.

Core Value Books

The core value for February  is CREATIVITY. We will be sending home the core value book with the theme of creativity: The Almost Terrible Playdate. Please read it with your child, then return it to school for the next student to take home. 

Exercises for Boosting Creativity: When facing a problem, define the issue clearly and then practice divergent thinking (ex: developing multiple solutions/outcomes rather than just one solution). Set time aside each day for creative thinking or creative activities (such as: writing poems or using an everyday household object in a new way).

From the Counseling Corner

Dear CAC Parents,

In guidance we are working on emotional management and discussing strong emotions, how they make our bodies feel and calming down strategies. It is important for kids to understand that everyone gets upset but that we are all still responsible for our behaviors.

We discussed the concept of “flipping our lids” and how to calm down when our emotions take over our thinking.  We are sharing calming down strategies and practicing different ways to calm ourselves down when upset.  Please share with your children strategies that you use when you have a strong emotion.

This month’s Core Value is Creativity.  The elementary school defines creativity as ‘being inspired to imagine and explore’.  A lot of the time when we think of creativity we think of the arts.  However, creativity is more complex and fascinating.  In elementary, will be spending the month exploring the idea of creativity and have shared this article with the teachers. You can help support our efforts at home by investigating the concept with your child.  

How do you define creativity?  Is there anything that might block creativity?  

Attached is a thought-provoking article in the New York Times about developing creativity.  

How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off

Mathletics

Students have customized lessons on Mathletics, please encourage your children to go on Mathletics to complete activities. Do not hesitate to send an email to your kid’s teacher if they have any problem working in the website.

What’s Going on This Week in Grade 2

Readers’ Workshop

In the Series Book Club unit, students compare and contrast characters across texts. This week students will think about the characters they read about in different series. They will discuss characters traits, feelings, the theme, the problem and the solution.

Essential Question:

• How do the patterns I notice help me understand the series?
  
• How can I work together in helpful and meaningful ways with my reading partner?
  

Some suggested discussions to do at home:

• Read texts closely to determine what it says explicitly and make logical inferences from it.
  
• Cite specific textual evidence to support conclusions drawn from the text.
  
• Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters.
  
• Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
  
• Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
  

Writers’ Workshop

In the Reading About Writing unit, writers write opinion pieces about the books they read in which they introduce the book, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement. This week students will review their previous goals and use their opinion writing checklist to set new goals. Students will also complete their on-demand opinion writing assessment.

Essential Question:

• What makes opinion writing more persuasive?
  

Some suggested activities you can do at home:

• Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.
  
• Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.
  

Math- Module 5: Addition and Subtraction Within 1,000 with Word Problems up to 100 In Module 5, students build upon their mastery of renaming place value units and extend their work with conceptual understanding of the addition and subtraction algorithms to numbers within 1,000, always with the option of modeling with materials or drawings. Throughout the module, students continue to focus on strengthening and deepening conceptual understanding and fluency. 

Some of the objectives are:

• Share and critique solution strategies for varied addition and subtraction problems within 1,000.
  
• Relate manipulative representations to the addition algorithm.
  
• Use math drawings to represent additions with up to two compositions and relate drawings to the addition algorithm.
  

Essential Questions

• How can strategies help me to quickly add and subtract?
  
• How do I explain my mathematical thinking and why is that important?
  

Key understandings of Module 5:

1. I can add and subtract numbers from 0 to 1000 using different strategies based on place value and regrouping.
   
2. I can mentally add or subtract 10 and 100 from any number from 100 to 900
   
3. I can explain why various addition or subtraction strategies work using numbers, drawings, or objects.
   

*Don’t forget to check out Eureka Math at https://greatminds.org/

*Module 5: Topic A, Lesson 1-7 Parent Tips Letter 

Science 

Students will reflect on the previous unit and explore our new unit Forces, Motion, and Simple Machines. 

Essential Questions: 

• How do objects move?
  
• How does force and motion help me understand the world around me?
  

Some suggested discussions you can have at home:

• Discuss how simple machines help us in everyday living using unit vocabulary:
  

direction, slide, back/forth, pulley, movement, push/pull force, gravity

simple machine - any of the basic mechanical devices for applying a force, such as an inclined plane, wedge, or lever, wheel and axle, pulley

Force - energy that moves something

Effort x distance = work

• Discuss motion and forces.
  

Circles

Focus: Displaying creativity especially when working with others, in the classroom, at school, at home, and in the community.