End of the Year Newsletter 2020

Dear Room 4 Families,

I have so many feelings about the end of this school year. This group has truly been very special to me. I appreciate all of your support and understanding this year as we moved to distance learning. I apologize for all of the many tech issues from our last Zoom meeting on Thursday. I know it was source of frustration to myself and to many other families. Here is the link to the digital end of the year memory book with all of the 2^nd grade classes combined: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UMbeSokrCgVDUll_LYVyE6BxJQ5O-F-tGWkmZhz5FHY/edit?usp=sharing

Here are some suggestions for getting your child ready for 3^rd grade:

• It would greatly benefit your child to start memorizing the multiplication times table. The pacing for 3^rd grade does not allow for a lot of time to memorize them during the unit and in order to understand division, they need to be able to recall the multiplication table quickly.
• It’s always beneficial to read every single day! Help your child pick different genres of books and help keep them accountable by asking about what they read and dig deeper into themes that occur in their books so they are thinking about the story. If you’d like to help your child practice the type of work and comprehension questions, you can look at a guided reading group breakdown HERE. The types of comprehension questions that you can ask your child about their reading can be found HERE.
• Help encourage your child to write. Since we moved to distance learning, there were fewer opportunities for writing and building the muscles in the hand to sustain writing longer pieces. If your child would like to continue being my penpal, they can write e-mails to me and I will try to reply weekly. Don’t worry about bothering me, I love having penpals!
• Continue to work on retaining Mandarin vocabulary, reading, and writing sentences/paragraphs. Have your child read along and listen to books on Level Chinese. All of the sets are available here: https://quizlet.com/graceyou – Make sure your child knows their Chinese name and can write it.
• Use the online accounts! Most of them will be available all summer and some are adaptive which allows your child to progress at their own pace.
• The next school year starts on August 24^th. The district is still working out what the hybrid model looks like. There is a chance we will start the next school year with distance learning, or a mix of at school and distance learning. It would benefit your child if you set aside a quiet space with a table for your child to attend Zoom classes. It is important to be able to monitor your child. Some students are not being attentive, playing, or walking away/hanging up the Zoom call in order to avoid assignments.
• This article provides good information about what will be expected of your child academically in 3rd grade: http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/what-to-expect-grade/preparing-3rd-grade

If you would like to purchase workbooks for the summer so your child has a break from screen time, here are some suggestions:

• Summer Bridge Activities Grade 2-3
• Summer Express Between 2nd and 3rd Grade
• Summer Fit Second to Third Grade: Math, Reading, Writing, Language Arts + Fitness, Nutrition and Values
• Summer Bridge Math Grades 2-3
• Summer Bridge Reading Grades 2-3

Have a very wonderful summer and I hope to be able to see you and your child around at school next year!

-Ms. You