Goodbye September ~ Hello October

Dear 2B Families,

It's almost October! Can you believe it? I hope you enjoy the long weekend ahead.

Scholar Shout-Outs:

Congratulations to Paige! She was our virtue award winner for September (Citizenship).

Happy Birthday to our three September boys: Tristen (9/3), Micah (9/4), and Aria (9/24)! We enjoyed a fun birthday lunch on Wednesday.

Sign-Ups:
Friday Volunteering: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4ea8af2e5-2bfriday
Parent/Teacher Conferences:10/15-10/18: Coming soon!
Reading Groups: Starting 10/22 *Coming soon! Stay tuned!
Math Groups: Starting 10/24 *Coming soon! Stay tuned!

Next Week in 2B...

Literature: We are all done with Charlotte's Web and plan on finishing up work in our literature folders next week. We will also watch the movie and enjoy popcorn with our friends!

Poetry: We will introduce our new poem ~ Merry Autumn Days by Charles Dickens.

Grammar and Writing: Our story next week is from Pippi Longstocking. We will focus on commas in a series. During grammar time we will classify sentences and review the adverb and adjective questions.

Spalding Words Next Week:
Monday: indeed, four, herself, power, wish, because, cause, world, country, meet (see), meat (eat)
Tuesday: another, tripped, trip, list, people, ever, held, church
Wednesday: once, one, own, before, know, no, were, where, there, here, dead

Math: This week we are measuring up to success! Encourage your child to start looking at different items around the house for comparisons. "How many paper clips long do you think this book is? How many pencils long do you think your door frame is?" We will have a lot of fun beginning our Length Unit!

History: This week we will begin our studies of ancient cultures with Ancient India. Your student will be able to locate India on a map and explain why the Indus River was important for the civilization to form. We will also learn about Hinduism as a world religion by discussing the three most important Hindu gods and the caste system.

Science: We are fluttering into our next life cycle study ~ can you guess what it is? It's the life cycle of a butterfly! Ask your child if they can identify the stages of life in the animals we've learned about so far: a chicken, a frog, and now a butterfly.

With Grateful Hearts,

Mrs. D and Miss Monk

Happy Grandparent's Day

Dear 2B Families,

What a beautiful week we had in 2B! Thank you for making me feel extra special on my birthday Tuesday. On Wednesday, we enjoyed a plant presentation from the Farm Bureau. Miss Tori taught us SO much!

Grandparent's Day was also super sweet!

Please read this post about Recommended Reading: https://bdombrowskiarete.blogspot.com/2017/09/recommended-reading-list.html *Please e-mail me if you would like to know your child's Lexile level!

Scholar Shout-Outs:

More Beautiful Island Projects:

Next Week in 2B...

Poetry: We will recite Something Told the Wild Geese by Rachel Field. Thank you for practicing with your child at home.

Literature: Charlotte's Web will come to a close next week (insert tears here)! We have LOVED reading this beautiful novel with your children and learning about the virtue of friendship. We will also finish up some work in our literature folders. The week before fall break we will enjoy the movie and complete a compare/contrast activity.

Only 20 words next week due to no school on Friday 9/28:
Monday: express, turn, lesson, half, father, anything, table, high, June
Tuesday: right, write, wrote, date, road, rode, ride, March, march, next

Writing and Grammar: We will solidify our understanding of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and article adjectives. Our sentence classification experts are hard at work identifying these parts of speech. We will also be reading an excerpt from The Jungle Book!

Math: We will end our renaming unit. Encourage your child to take their time on the homework this week, every step counts. Our next unit we will go through great "lengths" sharpen our skills!

History: Next week your children will review for and take the test over Modern Japan. The study guide will be sent home on Monday. Please help them study for this test by quizzing them, making flashcards, or having them teach you about Japan. The test will be on Wednesday.

Science: We will continue the botany unit. Ask your child about the life cycle of plants and about our lima bean lab experiment!

Love,

Mrs. Dombrowski

Week Six

Dear 2B Families,

Happy weekend! Next week we have two important events:

Thursday, September 20th: Picture Day

Friday, September 21st: Grandparent's Day! Please send me pictures of your child's grandparents (preferably by Monday 9/17) for a special project next Friday!

Archway Arete's third annual Grandparent's Day is Friday, September 21st. The morning will begin in the gym with refreshments and a brief assembly. Following that, grandparents will be escorted by their grandchild to the classroom for a lesson/activity. RSVP times are separated by grades K-2 and 3-5. Overflow parking is available at The Falls Event Center just east of the campus.

Island Projects: It was SO much fun seeing the creativity of our scholars. Rubrics are in your child's Friday folder.

Second Grade Homework Survey: Thank you for taking the homework survey. We have received the data and comments and would like to share some feedback.

We had a 36% response rate (from all three sections).

In response to the question, "On average, how much time does your child spend on homework each night?" From our 36% of parents who responded we have this data to share:

• 22% spend 15-30 minutes on homework
• 41% spend 30-45 minutes on homework
• 19% spend 45-60 minutes on homework
• 19% spend 60-75 minutes on homework

You have our permission to "sign off" on homework if it is exceeding the dedicated minutes of actively sitting down and working. Reading/Studying/Projects (these are interchangeable): 20 minutes, Math & Spalding 20-30 minutes. If your child is consistently going over the time suggested, please reach out to us! You can e-mail us or write a note in your child's math workbook or planner. We are here to help and want homework to be a fruitful time for your child. Thank you!

Leveled Readers: These will come home on Monday. Please let us know if you feel your child's book needs adjustment at all. I encourage you reread the book for fluency, have your child retell you the story, and if there are discussion questions at the end to talk about please do those :-).

Poetry: We will learn the last stanza of Something Told the Wild Geese. Thank you for practicing this poem at home with your child. We watched this video of a chorus SINGING the poem and the children LOVED it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5KVIi_kqyU

Literature: We will read chapters 18-20 in Charlotte's Web. Ask your child to retell the story events they read in class. Ask them what is happening at the fair and how Templeton has played a role in saving Wilbur's life.

Writing and Grammar: We will continue to classify sentences and will add a new jingle to our repertoire: The Adjective Jingle! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFJHOrTvXjQ We will also learn about article adjectives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJbqt-LImEE. Ask your grammar professional to sing you their favorite jingle this week!

Spalding Words Next Week:
Monday: began, begin, beginning, able, gone, go, done, do, suit, track
Tuesday: watch, dash, fell, fight, buy, by, stopping, stop, walk, talk, chalk
Wednesday: grant, soap, news, new, small, smaller, smallest, war, summer, above

Math: We are finishing up renaming with addition and introducing renaming with subtraction. This unit requires a lot of observation (and patience) so encourage your child to take their time and go through problems step by step with the homework practice. Slow and steady equals a successful solution! 

History: We are continuing our study of Japan! Students will be able to identify the kimono as traditional Japanese clothing, and explain the importance of nature in Japanese traditional crafts. Your child will be able to discuss how Japanese school differs from American school.

Science: This will be an exciting week of botany (the study of plants)! We are very lucky to be borrowing resources from the AZ Farm Bureau this week! On Wednesday, your children will be treated to a presentation on the parts of a plant. We also have some wonderful books and lessons on flowers and agriculture in Arizona. Be sure to ask them about the parts of a plant and about what they learned from our special presentation!

With Grateful Hearts,

Mrs. Dombrowski & Miss Monk

Wrapping Up Week 5

Dear 2B Families,

Happy Friday! We had an awesome four day week!

I hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. Mr. Dombrowski and I adopted a puppy on Monday! This is Miss Piper Marie Dombrowski...

As you can tell big sister Paisley is quite excited :-).

Scholar Shout Outs...

Happy Birthday to Tristen (9/3)! Thank you for donating a book to our classroom.

Happy Birthday to Micah (9/4)!

Uniform and Dress Code: Shoes
In the spirit of unity of purpose, Great Hearts has standardized the shoe requirements across all of the academies. In order to ease into the new standard, during the 2018-2019 school year, we will accept shoes with a colored sole and small white details on the the shoe. The rest of the shoe, including laces, must be solid black and the style athletic by Tuesday, September 4, 2018. Please reach out to Dean of Students, Stephanie Kaye, with questions. View the uniform policy here in the Family Handbook.

Next Week in 2B...

Literature: We will read Chapters 15-17 as we learn how Wilbur gets ready to go to the fair! What kinds of things are at the fair? Please have a discussion about the fair with your child. Especially if they've never been to a fair before! This will help us a great deal leading into an activity next week.

Spalding Words Next Week:
Monday: cloud, draw, drink, garden, goose, hopping, hop, knife, mouth, oak
Tuesday: peach, pole, queen, rope, season, sign, space, wagon, wheat (eat), window
Wednesday: catch, catcher, kitchen, butcher, black, warm, unless, clothing, clothes, clothe

Writing & Grammar: Your children will hear a familiar poem next week (My Shadow) and identify the central theme. We will continue to work on sentence dictation. We will review topics learned in grammar so far which includes nouns, verbs, adverbs, how to classify a simple sentence, the five parts of a complete sentence, and capitalization rules.

Poetry: We will learn Stanza 3 of Something Told the Wild Geese.

Math: We are continuing our renaming unit! This week we will slowly be adding the tens, and hundreds. It is extremely important that your child is practicing those math facts! A fun little car ride game can be random "fast facts" or adding and subtracting items when out shopping (six oranges plus 7 apples, etc.)!

Science: Next week we will HOP into our next animal life cycle: a frog! We will learn about how the frog experiences metamorphosis through these stages: egg, tadpole, froglet, and adult frog. Did you know that there are thousands of different kinds of frogs in the world and they don't all look alike? See if your 2nd grader can answer these to questions: Do you know what a group of frogs is called? Frogs live on every continent in the world except _____.

History: We will take our quiz over Geography of the Americas on Wednesday. Your child will be coming home with a study guide on Monday. Please help them study the guide and map to be prepared for Wednesday's quiz. Everything they need to know will be on the study guide. We will also begin our lessons on Modern Japan. This is a short unit, so please be asking your child about how Japan is different from America.

With Grateful Hearts,

Mrs. Dombrowski and Miss Monk