Week 30

Welcome to the Grade 2 Newsletter

Important Dates

• March 27 - Cairo Challenge Series - Long Jump
• March 28 - Principal’s coffee (2 - 3pm) 
• March 28 - Grades 2 & 3 Music Concert (5:30-6:30)
• March 29 - February/March Birthday Lunch 
• March 30 - April 9 - Spring break
• April 10 - School resumes
• April 10 - Annual ES Book Parade Assembly. 
• April 19 - Egypt Festival
• April 30 - Talent Show

Service Learning

Part of our mission is that  we want our students to positively contribute to their community. Having a positive purpose in life means understanding, believing in and serving something greater than yourself and deliberately engaging in activities for the benefits of others.

Thank you to our Grade 2 team and students for hosting Man Ahyaha on Tuesday for our first service learning activity. Watch the following video for a sneak peak of the experience. We can't wait for our next experience with Man Ahyaha!!!

Egypt Festival is coming………. on April 19!!!

More Information coming next blog

Talent Show Date revised to April 30

Due to a request to support our PTO gala our ES talent show date has been moved to 5:00 PM on April 30 and our rehearsal will be on Sunday 29, from 3:15 to 5:15 PM. More details to come.

After School Activities

Starting this week, grades 1-5 students will be going independently to their ASA classes. KG students wait in their classes to be picked up for their ASA teacher.

From the library

Mark your calendars! The annual ES Book Parade Assembly is on April 10, the day we get back from the April break. This year, the ES Library Council has declared the theme to be GRAPHIC NOVELS! Stay tuned for more details.

Cairo Challenge Series - Long Jump

Next Tuesday March 27 Grade 2 students will have the Long Jump for CCS during lunch time. Don't forget to remind your child.

Core Value Books

The core value for March is PERSEVERANCE. We will be sending home the core value book about perseverance: Emmanuel’s Dream. Please read it with your child, then return it to school for the next student to take home.

What is the definition of perseverance? The core value definition of perseverance is “never give up and work toward a goal.” What would your students add to this? What does this mean to them?

Discuss with your kids how perseverance...

• Is used by adults in the workplace, 
• Is used by students outside of school, 
• Applies to school situations, 
• Benefits when mastered, 
• consequences of not possessing it. 

What’s Going on This Week in Grade 2

Readers’ Workshop

Grade 2 continues to work in our 5th unit Reading About Science Topics to Become Experts. In the first bend, we will focus on reading as scientists to build up a base of knowledge on a topic by reading deeply about the topic. Readers will choose what they want to learn about, read about it, and integrate ideas from the science unit forces and motion. Students will learn to analyze text in parts in relation to the whole by using non-fiction features. Readers of nonfiction texts will learn to use all the sentences on the page to think about what’s most important—the big, main idea of that section. We often say our main idea not just as a word but instead as a phrase and back up this idea with details.

The students will focus on the following essential questions:

• How do readers read non-fiction differently from fiction? 
• How can I read non-fiction books to become an expert on a topic? 

Some suggested discussions to do at home:
Discuss non-fiction features and how these features help us as readers understand even more about a topic. Also, determine the main idea and supporting details of any think non-fiction such as articles, pamphlets, and books.

Writers’ Workshop

We will be continuing our new unit titled, Lab Reports and Science Books. This week the students will start Bend III where they will plan and draft information books. Students will use non-fictions features to help them express their knowledge. They will use features such as table of contents, illustrations, captions, and labels. They will be teaching others about their chosen topic by authoring a non-fiction book. They will be using the write process to write, illustrate, and publish their expert books.

The students will focus on the following essential questions:

• How do I find out information about a topic?
• Why do I need to revise my writing?
• How do I present my findings to the world?

Some suggested activities you can do at home:
Brainstorming topics your child knows a lot about would be most helpful. Help your child think about what information books could they write while incorporate what they have learned about force and motion. Topics that include how things move or work are most helpful. For example, the book I will model for students will be about cleaning and the most effective cleaning tools you can use. In the past students found it helpful to write books about cooking, riding a bike or horse and physical games they play.

Math

Module 7 presents an opportunity for students to practice addition and subtraction strategies within 100 and problem-solving skills as they learn to work with various types of units within the contexts of length, money, and data. Students represent categorical and measurement data using picture graphs, bar graphs, and line plots. They revisit measuring and estimating length from Module 2, though now using both metric and customary units. Students build upon this understanding by drawing both picture and bar graphs. First, they record category counts in a table, solving problems based on the information in the table. Next, they draw picture graphs in which each picture represents one object. Finally, they represent the same data set in the form of a bar graph where one axis names the categories and the other shows a single-unit count scale.

Some of the objectives are:

• Choose the best unit (e.g., inch, foot, yard) to measure a given object.
• Estimate the length of a given item by using a mental benchmark; then measure the item by using inches, feet, or yards.
• Measure a line by using both centimeters and inches. Compare the measurements and relate the difference to the sizes of the length units.
• Measure and compare two lengths and use addition or subtraction to determine the difference.

Key understandings of Module 7:

• I can use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract.
• I can measure and estimate lengths in standard units.
• I can relate addition and subtraction to length.
• I can represent and interpret data.

*Don’t forget to check out Eureka Math.

*Tips for parents: Module 7, Topic D, Topic E and Topic F.

Science

This week we will explore Screws and Wedges and we will review all the simple machines, since after Spring break we will be starting our end of unit project. How does a screw help us to do a work easier? Check out our Grade 2 Science site for more information.

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 perseverance especially when working with others, in the classroom, at school, at home, and in the community.