Grade 2 News
Thursday, September 24
Upcoming Events:
September 25: International Day
September 28: CCEP clubs starts
October 14 & 15: Parent-Teacher Conferences
October 19-30: Fall break (no school)
October 26 - 30 CCEP Vacation Program
November 2: School resumes
Note from Classroom Teachers
Students have been working hard and showing us what they know! We have spent the first few weeks getting to know the students, assessing their skills, reviewing and introducing skills in all areas.
We hope you enjoy our bi-weekly Smore flyer and find it packed with useful information. You will see upcoming events, topics covered and tips for helping out at home! Enjoy!
Unit 1: Role Models
Central Idea: Choices of role models reflect the beliefs and values of individuals and societies
Lines of Inquiry:
- What determines our beliefs and values
- How and why role models are chosen
- Influence of role models on our choices and actions
Unit related vocabulary:
During our first unit we are using many new words when discussing our role models, creating our bilingual word wall, and writing biographies and autobiographies. We encourage you to talk about the meaning of the following words with your child at home:
-beliefs
-values
-role model
-biography
-autobiography
-choices
We are also using a variety of adjectives when describing our role models. Some of these are:
-amazing
-principled
-open minded
-brilliant
-brave
Tips for home: Share any role models you have with your child! Did you have any growing up? Who is your role model now?
Please sign up to be a role model!!! Contact your classroom teacher if you would like to be a parent role model and present your profession to the class!
English
Language concepts:
· Review writing conventions (full stop, spacing, letter formation, capitalization)
· Review parts of speech (nouns, verbs and adjectives)
Tips for home:
Writing conventions: Help students use correct spelling and capital letters when writing in their homework folders. Also challenge students to write sentences with their spelling words or use them in a spoken sentence.
Parts of speech: Look for nouns and verbs in their take-home readers or RazKids books.
Spelling Investigations
- review sounds and blends
- short and long vowel sounds
Tips for home:
Encourage students to pick out short vowel words from their reader and create a list. Students may add these to lists in the classroom!
Math
· Determine, through investigation, the relationship between days and weeks and between months and years.
· Pose and answer questions to demonstrate understanding about class generated data in concrete graphs, pictographs, simple bar graphs, and tally charts (e.g., Which is the least favourite season?)
Number Skills this semester (outside of the unit):
- Place value to 1,000
- Add and subtract 1 and 2 digit numbers
- Skip counting by 2, 5, 10 and 100 (forward and backward)
- Begin to interpret word problems
Tips for home:
After assessing the students, we have discovered that many actually don't know the days of the week or the month of the years out of sequence or memorized order. When you have a moment ask your child some questions and let them use a real calendar to find the answers.
Examples of questions:
What month comes after March?
What comes before January?
What season is November in?
What day of the week does your birthday fall on this year?
What day of the week is 11 days after your birthday?
Working on place value with two digit numbers
Working on place value with two digit numbers
Working on place value with 3 digit numbers
Math Support
For those of you interested in hands on math activities to support your child's learning. Please follow our math coordinator on Pinterest at: http://www.pinterest.com/mizcormier
German
We reviewed many spelling patterns that were introduced in 1st grade:
- ei (das Eis), au (der Baum), eu (die Eule)
- pf (das Pferd)
- ch (das Buch, die Milch)
- sch (die Tasche)
- qu (der Quark)
- st/sp (spielen, stark)
Writing
We introduced the Korrekturkarte, which helps students to remind themselves of important aspects during writing (e.g. start sentences with a capital letter, end sentences with a period, capitalize nouns).
Reading
We have been very busy with reading our sight words (Kopfwörter). Students also have the opportunity to read books from a variety of reading levels (Lesestufe 1-3).
Ways to help at home
1. Please practice reading and writing sight words at home. A list of sight words was send home in the homework folder.
2. Encourage your child to read German books as often as possible.
CCEP
Dear Parents,
We would like to take the opportunity to give you some feedback about the beginning of this school year.
The first contact within the educators team and class has been successful. The children are getting used to their daily routines and the new CCEP structure. New students are becoming acquainted with the school and have made some new friends. The new after school room situation provides a clearly arranged, safe environment for students and the transition to the new afternoon structure has been well received by our students and parents! The students enjoy their new surrounding and can make self-determined choices between several offers in the rooms and playground in the afternoon.
We are looking forward to a good start with the Club Program, which is starting next week and will continue to do our best to maintain a pleasant afternoon program for your child!
With warm regards,
Your 2nd grade CCEP Team.
Meet the CCEP Educators!
Damjan Majkic
I grew up in a country that no longer exists: Yugoslavia! I have a Bachelor Degree in the Social Sciences. At the moment, I am studying to become a State Approved Educator.
I have various work experience, including experience working in a homeless shelter, youth center and a Kindergarten classroom. I feel that humor, dance and a good book should be part of each individual's everyday life.
I am fluent in four languages: Slovenian, Croat-Serbian, German and English. I have also recently begun learning German sign language.
Melanie Biolla
I am a state-approved educator and have specialized in the field of social integration. I have been working as a CCEP teacher at BMS since 2008. Before joining the BMS team, I worked for eight years for a NGO, specializing in children's multicultural integration as well as gender-related issues.
Mareike Menthe
After a successful social year at BMS in 2013-2014, I started my training as an educator in 2014. Now I'm in my third semester and work Monday through Wednesday in 2c. I come from a small village but moved to Berlin to have some new experiences in a bigger, multicultural city. My favorite sports are horse riding and rope skipping and I try to connect them to my work at BMS. I speak English fluently but my mother language is German.
Moses Shipunda
I was trained as a Youth Facilitator and worked in the UNICEF program "My Future is My Choice." I gave workshops on different social developmental topics in school around Namibia. I was also involved in organizing youth events and was responsible for a relief project in the township of Katutura. In 2009 I moved to Berlin and later took part in a continuing education program as an "Interkultureller Begleiter der Kinder und Jugendarbeit." I also worked for EPIZ where I offered social and cultural workshops to German pupils. I am fluent in English, both spoken and written. In addition, I am able to communicate in German.