Welcome to second grade at St. James Day School! We are starting our learning adventures every morning with tactile tubs. Students enter the classroom, unpack their things and are given 15 minutes of time to play with various manipulatives. This quickly becomes a highlight of the morning and is an excellent opportunity to move our bodies before sitting down to listen and learn.

Second grade has also attended Chapel twice this year. During our chapel service we sing and learn a lesson from the Bible and Mrs. Susannah shares campus news.

Workshop began in second grade as well. During workshop students move about the room to various stations and practicing skills taught throughout the week. Stations currently include:

Listening & Media: Students get to listen to our weekly story and watch interesting videos that cover topics discussed in class.

Writer’s Workshop: Students respond to literature, illustrate vocabulary words, and use graphic organizers to develop writing skills.

Library: Students read books covering various topics and reading levels to practice and reinforce reading strategies.

Teacher Table: Students meet with me in small groups and we practice spelling sounds, math strategies and comprehension, and build relationships with each other.

STEM Fridays are also a class favorite. Every Friday we take what we have read and learned throughout the week and complete various experiments. We are currently learning about the physical properties of matter and how to classify objects into groups using color, shape, flexibility, texture and temperature. We investigated different cookie types and groups them based on their different or similar physical properties.

Second grade kicked off the month of May with standardized testing the first week. The students worked so hard each morning showing what they have learned and we’re rewarded each afternoon with a sweet treat! For the morning tests, parents sent brain food, salty snacks and sweet treats for the kids each day. Thank you parents for your volunteering and making this hard week so special!

Testing week afternoons were spent playing outside and exploring the new creek made from recent heavy rains! We found crawfish, frogs, and many many worms!

The second week in May was the annual Lower School Tennis Tournament. Coach Rusty works with the tennis students all year teaching them the rules of the game and how to play tennis with proper form. The student adore Coach Rusty and look forward to this time every year. Thank you Coach Rusty for pouring into the students each week and teaching them to love tennis!

The third week in May our class got to visit the Roman Carnival at the middle school. Students participated in many fun events like archery, hair braiding, face painting, and a three legged race! We are proud of the middle schoolers and their efforts to put on such a fun event.

The last week in May, and our last week together as a class was spent experimenting with solar ovens we designed and created. The students learned about solar and heat energy. We cooked s’mores on the sidewalk and enjoyed them when they were roasted.

Finally, the class was together one last time before summer break at our end of year water party. Fun was had by all. This class has grown socially, emotionally, and academically into a group of students I am proud to say are ready for the third grade! Teaching them was a blessing and an honor. I am eager to see each of them soar into their futures. Third grade: HERE THEY COME!

The Lion King Spring Musical was a fantastic display of the talented St. James students. Students practiced very hard and really performed well!

Students designed and recorded their own movies in technology.

Solve the room is still a very fun and hands on activity for independent math practice.

Easter came and went in a flash! We celebrated with bunny masks and yummy Easter egg cookies. Thank you Mrs. Alix for the sweet treats!

Second grade loves a hands-on science experiment especially when it involves cookies! Students experimented with density and buoyancy of 4 different cookies types. They made hypothesis about each cookie’s ability to float when dropped in milk. Students wrote down their observations and checked their hypothesis. Lastly, after much hard work, students were able to enjoy a cookie or two and a cold glass of milk.

Students have also been busy learning to sew. This year, for the St. James Gala auction item, second graders designed and created hand sewn felt flowers. Each flower was personalized with a leaf and the students name and then attached to a pillow. The class worked hard on learning to sew and they were so proud of their finished product.

In social studies, students have been studying Westward Expansion. We learned about steamboat, flat boat, and railroad transportation. We also learned about the negative effects westward expansion had on the Native American population. Students learned about hardships of traveling on the Oregon Trail and were challenged to create wagons and flat boats using recycled milk cartons.

The 2022-2023 school year is quickly coming to an end, but there is still much to learn and lots of fun to be had here in second grade at St. James Day School!

We are marching right along here in second grade! Winter break gave us the perfect amount of rest and we are back in the swing of learning all we can. Math and reading groups are a daily time period where students have the opportunity to work independently on skills previously taught and also work in small groups with the two teachers in the room. Recently, we have covered topics in plant and animal life cycles, parts of speech including singular and possessive nouns and pronouns and contractions. We have also been working hard and perfecting adding and subtracting to 1,000 and even learned about the War of 1812! Ask your child to recount the history of Francis Scott Key and the Star Spangled Banner.

Second grade had the opportunity to tour the third grade biography projects. We learned about Rachel Carson, the marine biologist, and her effort to ban DDT and other pesticides, and Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone call consisted of the words “ Mister Watson…come here…I want to see you.” We also learned about Queen Victoria, Cleopatra, Fred Rogers and many more. Way to go third grade!

Students brought one insect to school for a collaborative, class bug collection. Our approach to beginner entomology included researching the insects’ common and scientific names, habitats, diets and if they were predator, prey, or both. We learned the mosquito hawk is actually the Crane Fly and does not commonly eat as an adult! This insect spends its adult life reproducing. The Short Winged Grasshopper can be both green and brown to blend into its habitat. We also learned that insects have three body parts: head, thorax, and abdomen and also a pair of antennae.