In second grade we began our Saints blocks this week. We heard the story of St. Christopher and his quest to serve the most powerful master he could find. The story was a springboard for writing a summary as a class using the ideas of who, what, where, when, and why to guide our writing as well as talking about the question mark for punctuation. We also began Vimala cursive this week, starting with the letter A. We spent time drawing running forms which allowed the children to practice the lines and curves that go into cursive lettering. We will move slowly though the letters, working on writing them as accurately and as neatly as we can. This not only helps to build penmanship skills, but also helps develop our will for giving our best effort to all we do.

In Math, we worked in our math journals writing addition doubles such as 2+2=4, 3+3=6, through 12+12=24. The students quickly found the pattern in the answers (skipping one number to write the answers by 2's). Many of the children chose to work well past 12+12, seeing how far they could get adding doubles and following the pattern. This also gave us an opportunity to see how we can add the tens place value and ones place value together to build larger numbers, a concept we will return to in our next math block.

Next week, we will have our annual coat drive to help the veterans in honor of Veterans Day. Please bring coat donations to the picnic tables or the front desk. As a community, we can help so much! The students will also be bringing home lanterns they made during painting and handwork class. We hope you have a chance to take a family lantern walk this evening, a time to remind us that we all have a special light to share with the world. It also looks like winter will be visiting us, so please dress your child in warm, labelled layers! The dome is chilly in the early mornings until the wood stove and heaters warm it up!

With gratitude,

Ki Melissa