Mrs. Aepli’s Second Grade

Dates to Remember:

Sept. 30: Gift Wrap Orders Due

Oct. 2: No School, Staff Work Day

Oct. 5 – 9: Conference Week (All students attend 8:40 – 12:25)

Oct. 5 – 9:  SHARING WEEK

Oct. 9 – 16:  Book Fair

Oct. 16:  Fall Festival, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Oct. 26 – 30: Red Ribbon Week

Oct. 30: Halloween Parade (usually 9:00), Class Party 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

It’s hard to believe October is upon us!  Our class has adjusted to the longer school day, and learned the routines and schedules.  The students are eager to learn and it’s a pleasure getting to know them.  I look forward to watching them grow as we work through our second grade year together.

Program Highlights:

In Reading, we have finished the stories from Theme 1: Silly Stories, and have begun Theme 2: Nature Walk.  We will work on long and short vowels, the two sounds for “g” and “c”, consonant clusters, and double consonants.  We will be exploring reading strategies such as comparing/contrasting, story structure, predicting, and drawing conclusions.

Our Spelling groups are working on various spelling patterns and are learning the routines of word study.  Your assistance at home helping them to sort and study their word patterns is greatly appreciated!

Writer’s Workshop has focused on reviewing writing about small moments in their lives.  They have “published” their first piece of writing and enjoyed sharing it with each other.  Our Author Study for September focused on the works of Dav Pilkey who often writes in comic book form.  The children very much enjoyed writing their own Comics, which they will share with you later.  We are now moving on to study Tomie dePaola and see what we can learn from this award-winning author and illustrator!

Our new Math program is very “hands-on” and stresses understanding of concepts and strategies.  We have covered addition and subtraction strategies such as seeing the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction (related facts).  We will move on to work on Place Value to 100, Geometry, and Mental Addition.  Your assistance helping your child memorize their math facts is critical to helping them master the important second grade standard of immediate recall of addition/subtraction facts to 20.

We have completed a unit in Social Studies on “Long Ago and Yesterday” where we learned about ancestors, artifacts, primary/secondary sources of information, and time lines.  We have begun a unit on “Map Skills” and will learn about the different elements of a map, how to locate places on a map, and will focus on the continent of North America. 

Our first Science unit has focused on leaves, plants, and seeds. We’ve examined the inside of a seed, learned about how seeds travel, and will watch avocado seeds sprout and grow.  (Please send in as many avocado seeds as you can so all students will have one for this activity!). We will also be learning about bees and how they help plants, as well as studying bats.

Thanks for your help in getting your child off to a good start with their Homework. Please check your child’s work and have them correct any mistakes.  All work should be done in pencil and completed neatly.  (It is okay to trace over writing on the Star of the Week letter with pen or sharpie.)

Thanks, also, for helping children remember to return their Monday Folders, and library books.  If your child wishes to renew his/her library book, please put a sticky note inside the front cover (sticking out slightly), requesting renewal with their name and room number on it.

I’m looking forward to meeting with each of you during conferences!  Please come prepared with any questions you might have about our curriculum or procedures.

Have a great month!

Brenda Aepli