1. 2 nd Grade Important Dates March 12 and 13 Student-Led Conferences March 25, 26, 27 No school for students - EARCOS Conference and Teachers’ Professional Days March 31 to April 3 No school - Spring Break March 16 to 20 Visiting Author Margariet Ruurs March 21 Spring Fair

2. Reading At School and At Home All second grade students have been working really hard to improve their reading skill level this year. Currently the children are working on a variety of skills: Using careful strategies to understand text Summarizing which includes the Beginning, Middle and End of the story Retelling with a focus on the most important event Read words carefully paying attention to endings like ed and ing Making personal connections to the text As you are signing your child’s reading response homework please remind your child to: use capital letters when writing the title of a book or character’s names use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and an ending mark at the end of a sentence Please encourage your child to do their best when writing reading responses.

3. Writing Our poetry unit is off to a great start. The second grade writers have been looking at the world around them with fresh new eyes, experimenting with line breaks in their poems, and hearing the music of poetry in their own work. They are getting ideas from their hearts, finding things to write about that really matter to them. Once again, mentor authors are helping them see how they can improve their own poems with new craft techniques.

4. Spelling Spelling continues to be a weekly work item. This month we have been learning about the Spelling rules for making plurals with s and es and adding the suffixes ed and ing.

5. Math The students are learning to add and subtract two-digit numbers using standard algorithms and mental arithmetic. Both are important strategies that strong mathematicians use to accurately find sums and differences. The children have also been very excited to begin learning about multiplication and division. For now, the children are using objects and drawings to help them understand and find answers to story problems. Please continue to help your child work on learning the basic addition facts. Quick recall of the facts makes adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing much easier!

6. Integrated Studies We are approaching the end of our FOSS Science kit. The students have accumulated a great deal of knowledge about pebbles, sand, silt and how they are formed. They have investigated the naturally formed and the man-made objects that surround them daily and have learned how these objects came to be. Their vocabulary and imaginations have grown throughout our research. This investigation has given them a greater sense of appreciation for the environment they live in.

7. ESL This month parents had a wonderful time learning about ‘genre’ at the ESL Parent Workshop. It was a great opportunity for parents to learn about what genre is and how students will learn about genre in the mainstream classroom. While exploring the many different types of genre their children will explore during their careers as students, parents had the opportunity to look at one type of genre more deeply, poetry. The second grade is working on poetry right now and our ESL students are loving the opportunity it has given them to express themselves. On Wednesday, March 4 we will host another ESL Parent Workshop. At this workshop, we will introduce parents to the format and purpose of the student-led conferences that will be taking place in March. This is a chance for all ESL parents to understand the expectations teachers have for students and parents at the conferences. Hopefully, we will have some time to practice some strategies you as a parent can utilize to help your child share their strengths and surpass their challenges. Bring your questions!