2nd Grade Newsletter
September 10, 2024
Your 2nd Grade Team
Welcome Mrs. Vallandingham!
Let's welcome Mrs. Vallandingham to our 2nd grade team! She is our new homeroom teacher. She has taught at OVCA in the past and we are so excited to have her back!
Upcoming Events
Sept 9th-Mrs. Johnson's small groups begin
Sept 16th-Small groups start!
Sept 19th-Family Literacy Night (Info to come)
Oct 4th-Fall Festival
Oct 15th-Last Day of 1st Quarter
Oct 16th-18th-Fall Break
Small Groups
Small groups will begin Sept. 16th. These are REQUIRED and will be based on STAR scores. You will receive an email with more information after testing.
*If your student sees Mrs. Johnson, she will begin her small groups on Sept. 9th.
Helpful Tips
- Students with better attendance achieve more success during the school year.
- Make a schedule and get in a routine for your school day. (Here is a template if you'd like one.)
- Here are some useful tools you might want on hand that can be purchased at Dollar Tree or anywhere: dry erase board, dry erase markers, dice, clear sheet protectors (can also work as dry erase to do work pages on), analog clock, ruler, pencils, paper, folders to organize subjects.
- Check your email everyday! Best practice is to check it at least first thing in the morning and at the end of the day before you log off for the evening.
- Create a quiet learning space that has all your materials easily accessed.
- Schedule Brain Breaks throughout the day. (Here are some great ones!)
- Expect your student to school for 6-7 hours (give or take) with breaks and lunches.
- Remember start out can be difficult but making mistakes is okay. Do not be scared to reach out for help!
Suggested School Supplies
These items are often used in our daily live classes.
Paper
Pencils
Pencil Sharpener
Whiteboard/Expo Markers
1 Pack Crayons and/or Markers
Container to hold school supplies.
What You Can Expect This Year
Fluency
Your child should also be fluent with sight words. We use the Literacy First sight words. Your child should have Sight Word List A (100 words) mastered by the middle of 1st Grade and Sight Word List B (100 words) by the end of the 1st Grade. If they have not mastered these words already, start there! Sight Word List C (300 words) will need to be mastered by the end of 2nd Grade. Click here to access all the sight word lists.
ELA
Reading at least 20 minutes per day is a great way to increase reading fluency. Your child can work on building up their stamina by starting with just 5 minutes. You can also change up your reading space to make it fun and new! Some ideas are: reading outside, build a fort-then read in it, reading during a picnic, or read a book in bed. This website has more creative reading challenge ideas: https://www.ateachableteacher.com/free-reading-challenge/
As they read, help them practice comprehension skills like identifying the main parts of the story including details about characters, setting, beginning/middle/end, etc. They can also read a book and describe the main idea and details about the people, places, and thing in it.
Writing
Math
We will start with number sense and build upon that throughout the year. Fact fluency (up to 20) is a major part of 2nd Grade. We will also work on telling time, money, fractions, and arrays, just to name a few!
Science & Social Studies
In Science you will complete 1 lesson a week and in History you will complete 2 lessons a week in the OLS.
Important Websites and Attachments
Ms. MaKenzi Fox
Mrs. Erin Giles
Mrs. Tara Vallandingham
Homeroom Teacher
Mrs. Julie Davis
Mrs. Krista Johnson
Mrs. Amanda Coyle
Elementary School Counselor
Call: (405) 869-6427 ext 3077