Los Feliz Arts

Our current unit in Theatre Arts is Imagination Play.  Students have been, throughout the unit, collaborating and improvising a story and script.  The characters and stories come directly from their collective imagination.  Please print out a script for your child so that he or she can practice their lines at home. The First and Second Grade performance date will be announced shortly.

Ms. Levy’s Class: A Land Divided

Ms. Galli’s Class: Funky Farm

READERS:
Guiding Question: How do I retell a story verbally?
January has been all about retelling a story. The goal is that the students can retell a story they are reading without giving the whole book away while showing they have complete understanding of what the story is about.  A good way to walk through a book is to tell the main character’s goal, the problem that stops the main character from getting its goal and the solution the character uses to reach its goal.  Reading comprehension is essential to any good reader, and we are building this foundation.  This is another reason why students need to read on their “just right” reading level. While a student may be able to read every word on the page, it’s just as important that they can retell the story they are reading.

WRITERS:
Guiding Question: How can I create an “All About” book?

This month in Writers Workshop we have been teaching the children how to write an “All About” book. First the children chose a topic that they were interested in learning more about. After going on the field trip to the library, each child chose books to research. Each day in Writers Workshop we have been posing questions for the children to consider. Some examples are: What is research?  How do I summarize information from a text? How can I add personal touches in my writing style? What is the difference between facts and opinions? They are also starting to go online and explore for information from search engines. The next step is to edit their work with partners, and then transfer their rough copies into the bare books! All of your donations for the bare books were greatly appreciated.

MATH:

Guiding Questions: What is place value?
How do we solve problems with money and using money?
What are solid shapes?
How do solid shapes and plane shapes relate to each other?

Math in January has been moving along quickly!  We have covered the areas of place value, regrouping, money, time and shapes since early December.  Students learned how to count and use money in a variety of situations. They had to come up with riddles (I am 17 cents and 4 coins, which 4 coins am I?).  By this time in second grade, students should be able to tell time to the nearest quarter hour and should start to understand the idea of elapsed time (it’s 3:00am right now, what time will it be in 4 hours?).  We introduced the 6 most commonly seen solid shapes (cube, rectangular prism, cylinder, pyramid, cone and sphere) and the students are learning about their different attributes.

Next week, the students will take a multiple choice math assessment.  We will take the 30 question assessment over a two day period.  This assessment is purely to let the teachers know where the students are. We will be sharing the results from this assessment at our parent conferences. An assessment of this sort is just one part of a combination of many assessment techniques that we take into consideration. This type of multiple-choice assessment will also give the students some practice for the CST, which is in May.

The next unit in math will cover multiplication and division concepts and measurement using nonstandard forms (for example: the pencil is 10 ladybugs long).

DWOK
Guiding Question: What was life like for early colonial settlers?
This month in DWOK we have been studying early colonial times. We started the unit by learning all about the journey of the Mayflower. Then we looked at two colonial families and have been comparing everyday life of a pilgrim family to modern times. For the last few weeks we have been creating scripts to portray what a typical day in the life was like for colonial families. The children have been working in groups and collaborating in teams as they create and rehearse their plays. Starting in February, we will be beginning our next cluster in DWOK which will be studying African American Families.

SCIENCE
Guiding Question: What is balance and motion?
We have just finished our unit on Plants and Insects. The children are so excited that our second grade garden is in full bloom. We have recorded observations on how the plants have grown and change over time. We are now moving forward to our next unit on Balance and Motion. In this exciting unit the children will be learning all about magnets, rolling, pushing, pulling, and simple machines.

Our current theater arts unit of study is Fables and Fairy Tales. Each class will showcase a fable or fairy tale from around the world.  The second grade classes will showcase on Thursday, December 17 at 6:00pm.

Mrs. Levy’s class: Aesop’s Fables (PDF)

Ms. Galli’s class: Tiger, Brahman and Jackal (PDF)

It has been 35 glorious days of school!  All the students are working very hard and we see impressive improvements every single day.  The students are beginning to learn the meaning of being in second grade and the responsibilities that come with it.  We are constantly reminding them that we are a community working as a collaborative group to learn together, play together and grow together.  All for one and one for all in Second grade!

VISUAL ART:

The theme in art this month has been depth & perspective.  Can we draw what we can’t see?  Are objects the same size or different sizes depending on where we are looking?  Students are drawing still life exactly how they see it. They did this unit in 1st grade and it’s wonderful to see their skills develop.

DANCE:

October was Ballet month. Students (and teachers!) learned some key ballet steps.  At the end of the unit, students were able to perform these ballet steps independently with and without partners.

MUSIC:

Music has been very exciting this month and there has been a focus on Native American chants and melodies.  Students are even composing their own music with instruments and different Native American symbols.

READERS:

For readers this month, our students are learning about the elements of a story. Each day during Readers Workshop they learn different elements of a story such as goal, problem, solution, lesson and characters.  It is important for you to ask your child to identify these elements when they are reading their books at home.  Being able to identify these elements are part of reading comprehension standards. Next month in Readers Workshop, we will be teaching the students strategies of how to retell a story.  Understanding and being able to identify the elements of a story will help in being able to retell a story.

WRITERS:

This month we have been studying our mentor author Ezra Jack Keats. The students have begun looking to this author and studying his writing craft. We have asked questions such as, “Why do you think the author chose to add this to his stories?” or “How did the author paint a picture in your mind as you are reading his work?” They are now beginning to use their mentor author’s strategies in their own writing. We have begun to think of better ways to start and end stories, using adjectives, ellipses, onomatopoeias, and editing their work with a partner. They have added dialogue, thought of who their audience is, and had fun with new ways to write words to change the reader’s voice. It has been a successful unit. Our next unit will be all about realistic fiction!

DWoK:

The DWoK unit for October and November is Native American Family Stories.  So far, we have studied and built our own totem poles, have listened to legends about Gluskabe (a fictional Native American character), and we are currently learning about a Taino family from 1492.  At the end of the unit, we will have a celebration for all to attend!  Students will be writing scripts and creating puppets to perform an important scene from the book we are reading!  The date will be December 1st.  Times are TBA but we would love for everyone to attend!

SCIENCE:

Great news—Science will be starting in November! The first science unit is Life Science. We are going to connect this science unit with DWoK as we plant a garden and learn about being a self-sustaining community, just like Native Americans living in the 1500’s.  We will be putting on our Scientist hats in a couple weeks starting with planting the garden and making important observations.  Thank you again to all those who contributed to making our garden possible!

MATH:

This month in math we have a lot of new things happening. We are pleased to introduce that we have started our Jiji math computer program by the Mind Institute. Here the children play computer math games that are geared to the California Second Grade Content Standards. They play many games involving mathematical concepts including but not limited to addition, subtraction, and ordering numbers. Our goal is to have children play these games for about 45 minutes two times a week. Our students are very excited about playing on Jiji, and although it is a challenging game we feel as though it is a great addition to our regular math program. In addition to Jiji math, we have been further deepening the children’s learning about numbers. We have been exploring addition, subtraction, greater than, less than, place value, skip counting, and ordering numbers.   We are digging deep into estimating, grouping, and finding easier ways to count things. The children are excelling in the understanding that we all have various strategies to solve problems. Our goal is to equip them with the skills that they will need to solve any mathematical problem by honoring their thinking and asking questions to deepen the way their solve problems.
Thank you so much for all our magnificent volunteers!  It has been wonderful to have you come in and help out.  Special shout-out to our room parents who are keeping the communication going strong! It was great to see so many of you at the Halloween festival. We hope this Halloween is fun & safe for all your families.
Your inspired and energized teachers,
Miss Galli & Mrs. Levy

September Newsletter for Second Grade

Wow, what a great start to the year.  We are very excited to have a new group of intelligent, talented and creative students.  We will be sending a newsletter home at the end of every month to recap what we have learned and explored during the month as well as give you a preview of what’s to come.  Go ahead and talk to your children about the content of the newsletter and see if they can show what they know!

ART: Art classes have begun this week!  We are working closely with Miss Heather this year to even further enhance our school’s program by integrating classroom curriculum with the arts classes.  Heather started the year with the students doing self-portraits and she will hold on to these portraits throughout your child’s career at LFCSA!  Stay tuned for more in-depth information about what’s happening in arts classes.

READERS: For readers this month, our students are learning their jobs as readers. Each day during readers workshop they learn different elements of their jobs such as how to choose a reading spot, how to stay focused on a book, and how to read with partners. Our overarching theme in readers workshop is to allow readers to develop a deep love for and enjoyment of books. Next month we will be using an author as a mentor!

WRITERS: In September, the unit for writers workshop was Introduction to Writers Workshop. Here, students learned what it means to be a writer in second grade. One of our lessons was that good writers never stop writing, encouraging them to work independently and solve their own problems.  Students were assigned to think of a small moment (connection here with DWoK), and to zoom in on that small moment while also writing with lots of details.  In October, the unit will be “Authors as Mentors”.  We are certain students will learn lots of writing tricks and tips by following some of their favorite authors.

DWoK: In case you haven’t heard, DWOK stands for Different Ways of Knowing. DWoK is a project-based learning curriculum and uses a constructivist approach as an umbrella for integrating concepts, knowledge and skills through inquiry.  The students are learning through a research, project- based approach and we are establishing a framework that empowers students and teachers as lifelong learners. more…