The 2A Express
The Weekly Roundup
Week Twenty....
Greetings, Parents and Caregivers,
I hope this newsletter finds you and your family well.
This week flew by very quickly!
Tuesday was a very fun day as we celebrated our annual ASD Sports Day prior to next weeks national Sports Day. This was a great time to look closely at ensuring that we make positive decisions to look after our heart and in turn enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Below is the Healthy Heart slideshow presentation and photographs from the Sports Day.
The 2A mathematicians have began to consolidate their understanding of addition and subtraction and are using these strategies to answer multistep word problems. These type of word problems will be addressed regularly as we move through the remaining weeks of the unit.
In our reading and writing units, each student continues to write and refine their realistic fiction story. As authors we are taking the time to incorporate action to highlight the dialogue of our characters in relation to their setting. This both stretches our stories moment and allows the reader a better visual representation of what is happening.
Even though we completed our Weather unit last week, we were pleased to have two US military meteorologists visit second grade and discuss their roles, the equipment they use and further information about weather. It was a very informative session.
We started our new Social Studies unit this week; Qatar Then and Now. This is a unit that will highlight the main events within the history of this nation, as well as looking at the traditions of the past, the people and the development of the country.
Please take the time to look through the newsletter as there is some important information regarding the next few weeks, click on the images of your child engaged in learning and feel free to contact me with any queries or issues that may arise.
The Twentieth Week
The Subjects
Math
This week the mathematicians of 2A continued to rigorously review their addition and subtraction strategies.
We used this week's lessons to apply our new addition and subtraction strategies to a range of word problems. It proved at times to be challenging, ensuring that we had work through our "How to Work Out Word Problem" guide. These were six steps that we needed to follow to come to an answer. The slideshow that we have used for the previous two lessons can be found below.
We still took the time to double check our methods and are trying to eliminate miscalculations and misrepresentations of numbers when using the vertical method and place value model.
Next week we look at exchanging tens for hundreds and unbundling hundreds for tens. This is the next logical step for a second grade mathematician.
Also, our Math Coordinator, Mrs. Carol Little will be holding a Lower Elementary parent drop in / office hour every Wednesday from 2:00 – 3:00pm. Mrs. Little will be available at this time every week to assist parents who need further information about our Math program or who would like help and/or suggestions with how to support their children at home. It will be held in Ms. Mindy Martin’s office.
Below is the unit link by Eureka Math housed on YouTube embedded in the newsletter. This is a cluster of short videos that provides parents, students and teachers with an overview of the strategies that are being taught this unit lesson by lesson, and how to solve some of the questions that students are exposed to.
IXL Second Grade Resources
Reader's Workshop
This week 2A continues their study of realistic fiction stories and ‘Following Our Character’s Footsteps’.
Readers have been inferring about the characters in our books. We know that a writer gives us clues to infer by showing not telling us how the character or characters think, act, and feel.
We have read so many great examples of show not tell, and it’s been great to see how student writers are able to do what their mentors do. Many students are working to learn how to correctly punctuate dialogue and the mentor texts that we have been reading have modeled this for students.
Writer's Workshop
In this Realistic Fiction genre students continue to investigate the structure of stories and the conventions that an author incorporates into their stories to show the reader what the character is feeling, rather than telling the reader.
As the authors of 2A continue to write our realistic fiction stories we are constantly rereading and revising parts of our stories, adding dialogue to show a thought or feeling, and applying action between dialogue to create a better 'visual' experience for our audience.
This week we will continue to craft strong endings and aim to publish our stories so that they can be shared with our audience.
Science
This week was our last week of our Weather Unit.
Students visited the science lab to compete in a Meteorologist Marathon where they practiced reading thermometers and rain gauges. They also practiced identifying clouds, weather situations, and wind damage using the Beaufort scale.
The week ended with our weather assessment.
We look forward to our next social studies unit which will be Qatar: Then and Now.
Visiting Meteorologists
Social Studies
This week we listed as many things as we knew about Qatar, including it's past and wrote questions regarding aspects of this country that we were unsure about or wanted to know.
We used a fantastic tourism video which I have linked below to start the unit, which seamlessly incorporates the then and now aspects of Qatar. Please make sure you check it out. Scroll down from the top to the heading 'An Invitation to Explore'. The video is embedded there.
We took a tour of the country in relation to the rest of the world through the Google Earth application, investigating it's geography along the way and looked at the beginnings of Qatar as a British protectorate in 1916 and it's move to independence in 1971.
We will be looking back 100 years and contrasting 1916 to 2016, and noticing the changes that have occurred within the decades.
If you, or you know someone who is familiar with Qatar's history, and would like to take the time to impart and share your knowledge with our class please contact me and we can organize a time to present. I feel it would be great for someone who has lived here longer than I have and who has developed a stronger relationship with the country than a person who has only lived here for seven months!
Exploratory Time
Although their were no successes this time around it did give us a chance to look carefully at what we could do when we redesign, such as the way we folded the paper to support the structure, the shape of our paper, halving our paper to create platforms to build upon further and many other little ideas that can be used when designing or redesigning their next project.
We have an exciting individual science, design and art project coming up next week sponsored by QSTec.
More details will be coming.
Stay tuned!
Phase Five: Reflecting and Redesigning
In Other News.....
ASD's Annual Sports Day
It was a great feeling to watch them excitedly talk among themselves about what activities they would be participating in, and exhibited a wonderful sense of camaraderie and a passion for being active.
We started the day discussing the range of sports people participate in, talking about the benefits of playing different sports to attain new skills and then quickly moved on to maintaining a healthy lifestyle to look after the only muscle in our body that never rests; our heart. Below is the slideshow presentation that was used.
After snack and recess it was time to go to the gym and enjoy each other's company and be active while participating in a range of activities.
The smiles and laughter displayed showed how much fun they had that day!
ASD Sport's Day
Things To Know:
Valentine's Days Cards and Celebration
We will be celebrating this day on Sunday, 14th February at 2:20PM.
Please find attached the letter that will also be emailed as well at the beginning of the week.
A Gently Used Book Party!
I thought it would be a fantastic idea if the students could exchange gently used books earlier that day.
For this activity to be a success we need your help.
Each child needs to find an already used book at home that is in good shape and bring it to school. Each book will be wrapped individually and, prior to the party, each child will receive a book to take home.
Please make sure the books are age appropriate and ideally gender neutral.
Your child may begin bringing in a book on Sunday 7th February.
Please contact me with any issues or concerns.
Gate 5 Entry Update
Parents picking up sick students can enter through Gate 5, the ES Nurses will leave the parents name with the Guard House for easy and quick access.
Friendship Festival T-Shirt Orders
T-Shirts will be sold at Gate 5 and Gate 8 the week of February 21st - 25th.
This year's Friendship Festival T-Shirt gives you free entrance to this year's Friendship Festival which will be on February 26th.
National Foreign Language Week, March 7 – 13, 2016
Below are some of the activities that our language students will be involved in;
Pass it Forward: World language students will teach the community a word they have learned from their classes
- Selected students will say hello in different languages each day over the intercom
Arab Mothers Association Fundraising Activities
February Dates At A Glance
- 9 February - No School
- 10 February - Photo Retakes
- 11 February - Elementary Swim Championships
- 11 February - AMA Bake Sale
- 14 February - Class Valentine Party/Book Party
Mr Craig Campbell
Email: ccampbell@asd.edu.qa
Location: American School of Doha, Al Bustan Street, Doha, Qatar
Mrs. Danijela Delic-Domazet
Email: ddelic@asd.edu.qa
Location: American School of Doha, Al Bustan Street, Doha, Qatar