Reader's Workshop provides students with a supportive environment that involves them in authentic reading experiences that focus on the strengths and needs of each individual student.

Reader's Workshop helps kids develop strong reading skills through the use of a mini-lesson, shared reading, read aloud, conferencing, independent reading, paired reading, literature response, and whole group gathering.

The basic philosophy behind the Reading Workshop is to allow students to spend an extended amount of time reading authentic texts that interest them on a daily basis and to provide opportunities to talk about literature. The ultimate goal of a Reading Workshop is always to develop life-long passionate readers.

The guiding principles: 

  • Readers have time to read just-right books independently every day.
  • Readers select their own appropriate books.
  • Readers respect each other's reading time and reading lives.
  • Readers have daily opportunities to talk about their books in genuine ways.
  • Readers don't just read the words but also understand the story.

INTO THE BOOK

Our math series, Saxon Math, provides an outstanding foundational program especially designed to align with how young children learn and build fluency with math skills. All new concepts are developed through hands-on activities and rich mathematical conversations that actively engage students in the learning process.

Concepts are developed, reviewed and practiced over time:

  •    Understanding follows doing and discussing.
  •    Mastery follows learning over time.
  •    Fluency follows practicing over time.

The Blest Are We series is based on the Four Pillars of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

   1. What Catholics Believe
   2. How Catholics Worship
   3. How Catholics Live
   4. How Catholics Pray

Your children's faith journey this year includes the sacraments of Reconciliation and First Eucharist. We will be preparing for these sacraments throughout the year by means of text and classroom discussion; however, nothing is more important than the family reinforcing the value of these sacraments at home.

Our writing curriculum focuses on required writing skills for second grade. These include a Personal Narrative, Friendly Letter, Stories, How to Report, Descriptive Paragraphs, and a Research Report.

 

Our Science expectations include the following themes and concepts:

  1. Earth Science – Space, and Earth’s Structure/Composition
  2. Physical Science – Forces, Motion, and Energy; Electricity and Magnetism; and Sound and Light
  3. Life Science – Animals, Plants, Environment, and Human Body

The following five elements of Social Studies are included in our exit expectations:

  1. History – Time, People and Events
  2. Geography – Location, Regions, Movement, Human Environment Interaction, and Map Skills
  3. Economics – Production/Consumption/Distribution, and Exchange
  4. Political Science – Citizenship, Laws, and Government
  5. Behavioral Science – Individual, Institution, and Society

We also learn map skills using Maps, Globes, and Graphs which includes the five themes of Geography; location, place, human/environment interaction, movement and regions.

 Government WEBQUEST

The first quarter we will continue our practice with D'Nealian Manuscript which will prepare us for Cursive in November.