St. Walter - 2nd Grade at 11741 S. Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60643 US - Welcome

Blessed Mother Mary

Welcome to second grade. I am looking forward to a wonderful school year filled with new and exciting learning experiences. As you may know, it takes time for the students to learn the routine for the new school year. Independent work, organization skills, responsibility, prayer and faith experience are stressed in second grade. I would expect that you look for and sign your child’s assignment notebook each night. I will send newsletter once a month to let you know what is going on in the classroom and what skills to work on. If your child doesn’t have their homework, they will receive a warning and then a demerit. I strongly suggest that the children attend Holy Mass weekly. This is a very important year in their life because they are going to receive two Sacraments. It also helps the children to understand what is being taught in class. Every day the children will be tested on the math facts. I strongly encourage daily practice. The children will be learning a lot about the world. They will identify the different landforms, continents, ocean, and all 50 states. We will discuss about people, places, and holidays. The children will learn about how the government works. In science they will learn about plants, animals, earth, matter, space and technology. The children will do some experiments where they will be recording the data and drawing conclusions on evidence they have gathered from their work. This year the children are required to read every day for minimum 15 - 20 minutes. They will have a book report for the “Book It” program starting in October. For the Book It program every month I set a goal (like: reading five books and submitting its report at the end of every month). Those who meet the goal get pizza coupon. We have the Accelerated reader program in the media center to test the children’s reading level. The points they earn will be counted for their Reading bonus points. The children will be doing a lot of writing. We will be focusing on writing complete sentences, nouns, verbs, adjectives, outline, and writing a complete paragraph and letter writing. Your child will be learning the different types of writing including reports. The children are assigned 10 spelling words each week. Students desiring a greater challenge may be assigned 15 spelling words. Two of the words are “high frequency words” and two are challenge words. The test will be given on Friday. A Spelling Bee is conducted toward the end of each unit.

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