Long Break!

I hope everyone is enjoying this long weekend and watching all of the history that has been made in just a short time this week. I know I have loved watching every minute of the inauguration today and can't wait to see what a new president brings to our country. I know I feel a new sense of hope and purpose in what I do each day. Together we can all make a difference. On that note let's see what we are going to be discussing this week.

Reading - We are going to be finishing our m-class testing by the end of the week. I am so impressed with the progress so many of our students have made. Some students have increased their reading by 6 or more levels. That just goes to show how much hard work they are putting in each day we are at school. Please keep reading even when we have these long weekends. A simple activity could be to put out a newspaper and let your child circle all the words they know with a crayon. Not only will they be practicing sight words it will keep them busy for a while!!! Anyway back to the week at hand. We are going to focusing more on vocabulary as we head toward the down slope of the year. It is a school focus that we increase our students' vocabulary skills and ability to understand new words, so we are going to get a head start on that in second grade. We are going to focus on the words "segregation and integration" from our scholastic news that we will be using this week. Students will continue to use the strategies of using picture clues and reading sentences around the word to figure out it's meaning. I will be using strategies that our reading specialist Ms. Baldoni shared with staff at our last meeting. In small reading groups we will be reading stories that all have to do with team work. It is going to be our theme for the week. Students will be reading and answering questions about characters and how they act in a story. The actions of characters in a story affect the events that take place so we are going to start to have more discussions about it. In writing we are going to be discussing complete sentences. As we move from just writing simple sentences to paragraphs some students forget to put in those periods and capital letters, so we are going to work on reading paragraphs and identifying complete and fragmented sentences. This will also be a skill required for TN2 our testing coming up in the spring. Some students will also be finishing up their final writing pieces for the quarter. In spelling we will be working on the short u sound for the next two weeks. I look forward to working with students to identify diagraphs and blends as well so we can move on to more multisyllabic words. Don't forget that the quarter ends this week and report cards are going to coming home soon. Please be sure to let me know about any concerns or questions you have about our curriculum or what your child brings home in their report card envelope. My goal is to always have an open line of communication with you and the students so no question is too small to ask. I miss you all and can't wait to get started on a new week tomorrow, even if it is a short one!

Hugs,
Mrs. Del Balzo