AIS - Grade 2

Grade 2- Week 3- April 22nd-26th, 2019 LOOKING BACK It finally felt like spring-time this week! With warmer temperatures, we really enjoyed our time at the park, and at Family Picnic, especially as we learned more about making healthy choices for our bodies! Huge thank you to families who attended the picnic last Saturday- it was a blast!! Family Picnic 2019! Grade 2 Families and Kids! Grade 2 boys making bubbles. Tug of War Battle! Aika and Ichika stay cool in the tent. Dance club in the park! Aiya helps her sister learn the dance moves! Students learned all about physical fitness this week. They created their own exercise logs to keep track of their fitness activities, and they also began making a new game that would help others to practice or learn about physical fitness! Students also read books to learn more about our bodies, muscles, and bones! Art project this week: making icons to show different forms of exercise! Jack perus

Grade 2- Week 2- April 15th-19th, 2019 LOOKING BACK Special visitors!  What a quick week! We squeezed a lot into this week, including a special visit from my mom and aunt! Students were very excited to ask them questions, and also to show off their reading skills to them. Meanwhile, we got to try out reading on the balcony on a nice sunny day. Students did a great job of showing focused reading while outside! Jack reads to Ms. Valori (my mom!) Aika reads to Ms. Lynda (my aunt!) Students read on the balcony. Sunny day reading! In writing we continued to develop "small-moment" stories. Students focused on choosing specific "seed" stories, not giant "watermelon stories". In math, they continued to practice their number sense by showing numbers in many different ways, including standard form, expanded form and place value form. We love to read outside!! Students spent a lot of time learning about nutrition during UoI t

Grade 2- Week 1- April 8th-12th, 2019 LOOKING BACK Students try out flexible seating while they write. Bo and Rima practice keeping their eyes on the page. Focused readers!   The first week of second grade is complete! Students did an amazing job transitioning back into "school mode". It was nice to see how excited they were to begin a new school year! This week we spent a lot of time establishing our classroom expectations and agreements. We created reading expectations and practiced focused reading. We also created writing time expectations, and began to write our first "small-moment" stories to share about a favorite memory from spring vacation. In math, we practiced how to solve math word problems using the "RDW" process- first read the problem, then draw a picture, then write a number sentence, and finally write a word sentence. Students write about their favorite Spring Break memory! Narrative writing in action.

Blog #1-- April 3, 2019-- Grade 2 Welcome back to another school year! I hope you have had some time to relax with your families, and that your children are ready and excited to begin Grade 2! I wanted to share a little about myself. As many of you may know, I started working at AIS last summer. In just a short time, I've already learned so much about the IB PYP program, and the many great things we can do to improve students' learning experiences at school. Before moving to Osaka, I was teaching Grade 2 in California, near San Francisco. I was also born and raised in California, and attended university in a town called Santa Cruz. I have worked with kids for over 12 years, and I continue to do so because I love the challenges and joys that come from working with children. Every day is different, and I couldn't be happier with that! We will be learning a lot together this year. Students will work on differentiated spelling practice each morning when the