Week at a Glance

Week of October 20-24, 2025

Math: We will move into our next chapter, which focuses on subtraction of 2-digit numbers. In addition to the book lessons, we will supplement with other resources to help your children learn a variety of strategies, including: subtracting on a hundreds chart and on an open number line, subtracting using expanded form, and subtraction using the standard algorithm. A great way to help your child at home is to practice his/her subtraction facts so that s/he becomes more fluent with those facts!

Phonics (FUNdations): We will finish up our unit on adding suffixes to base words, and we will take an assessment on Tuesday. Our next unit focuses on decoding and spelling multisyllabic words, so we’ll learn strategies for breaking words into syllables and combining previous strategies to form new (longer!) words. Please see the informational packet that will go home next Wednesday with ideas of how to practice, examples of words to use, and the new trick words (against, knew, know).

Reading and Writing (Wit & Wisdom): Students will continue to work on varying their sentence length, and they will use conjunctions (e.g., and, but, because, so, etc.) to form compound sentences. As we read a new text (Why Do Leaves Change Color?) we will compare and contrast texts about Fall. Students will also identify main topics and details in a paragraph.

Science/Social Studies: We learned about maps over the past two weeks, with students working in groups to make their own maps with a compass rose, map key, and symbols. This upcoming week we will apply their map skills to learning about geography. We will describe geographic features and be able to identify them on a map. We will also listen to a catchy tune about the 7 continents (and be able to list them from largest to smallest).

Religion: As we return to our textbook, we will review the session called “Jesus Is Faithful.” In this session we will review the 10 Commandments and how they focus on our relationship with God (#1-3) and each other (#4-10). We will also discuss how we can use the 10 commandments to shape our choices, and we will be able to give examples of both good and bad choices. Finally we will explain what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Tests and Quizzes: 

• Phonics Unit 4 Assessment = Tuesday, 10/21
• Spell base words with suffixes s, es, ed, ing, er, est
• Write trick words: please, again, animal, use, used, sure

Additional Reminders:

• Please try to take your children to Mass over the weekend.
• Gym uniforms = Mondays and Tuesdays
• Mass = Tuesday
• Library books = due Friday

• Mass = Tuesday
• $1 Dress Down = Wednesday --> Please send in $1 (or more) with your child if s/he wants to dress down. Proceeds will go to Condell Hospital to support Breast Cancer research and awareness. Thanks for your generosity! This dress down day is sponsored by Student Council.
• Conferences = Thursday --> I look forward to speaking with you then!
• No School = Friday
• If your child is missing any days surrounding the long weekend, please email me and Mrs. Lentino. Thank you!
• i-Ready scores --> Your child is bringing home his/her i-Ready Diagnostic 1 scores today. Please check his/her Home folder. Also, please keep in mind these assessments were at the very beginning of school, and your children are already making progress in second grade.

• Thank you for your donations to the food pantry!
• Library Books = due Friday
• No School = Thursday and Friday, October 16 and 17
  • Thursday, 10/16 = Conferences → Please see the email about how to sign up.
  • Friday, 10/17 = Teacher PD Day
• With the October Prime Day Deals here (soon), I am including our updated class wish list link - Donations are never expected, and they're always appreciated. :) Thanks for all you do to support your children each and every day!
  • Thank you to the people responsible for the wish list gifts "from your 2nd grade class"! What a sweet surprise!

• take turns where your child reads a paragraph/page and then you read a paragraph/page
• audiobooks
• reread favorites :)

• Practice words with closed syllable exceptions (ild, ind, old, olt, ost)
• Practice trick words: goes, done, pretty

• take turns where your child reads a paragraph/page and then you read a paragraph/page
• audiobooks
• reread favorites :)

• Practice words with closed syllable exceptions (ild, ind, old, olt, ost)
• Practice trick words: goes, done, pretty

Week at a Glance

Week of September 29, 2025 - October (!) 3, 2025

Math: We are continuing to practice our addition fact fluency with our daily “Flight Fluency” practice on i-Ready. This is hopefully helping to prepare us for our new chapter on multi-digit addition. We will explore different strategies for how to add (in addition to the traditional algorithm with regrouping). We do not expect students to use all of the strategies that we learn. The goal is for each student to experiment and to figure out what works best for him/her. We will add using place value, count on to add, and use tools like open number lines and hundreds charts next week.

Phonics (FUNdations): We will continue learning about closed syllable exceptions (see the note below under “tests and quizzes”). Then on Thursday we will spend time reviewing what suffixes are (e.g., -ed, -ing, -s, etc.) and how to spell common suffixes before we move on to our next unit the following week.

Reading and Writing (Wit & Wisdom): Students will use the evidence they have collected this week to write an informational paragraph about how the Little Yellow Leaf changes throughout the story. Students will write a topic sentence and support their topic sentence with evidence from the text. Students will also try to take what they have learned about adjectives (describing words) and include them in their paragraphs.

Science/Social Studies: We will continue our geography chapter as we learn about three types of communities: rural, suburban, and urban. Students will compare and contrast these types of communities and work to identify advantages and disadvantages of living in each of the communities.

Religion: We have looked at the parts of the Trinity of God the Father and Jesus the Son, so now we will turn our focus to the Holy Spirit. We will learn about symbols of the Holy Spirit (fire, wind, dove) and read about how the Holy Spirit came to the disciples at Pentecost.

Tests and Quizzes: 

• Phonics Unit 3 Assessment = Wednesday, 10/1/25
• Closed syllable exceptions: ild, ind, old, olt, ost
• Trick words: pretty, goes, done

Additional Reminders:

• Please try to take your children to Mass over the weekend. 🙂
• All School Mass = Tuesday
• Send back Library books on Wednesday so students can exchange them next week (due to no class on Friday).
• No School = Friday - Teacher training day