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   An easy 1.8 million? Who wouldn't sign up for that? I'm talking about words. What were you thinking about? That's right, if a student reads for 20 minutes a day and there are about 3600 minutes in a school year, by the end of sixth grade, that child will have read a total of 1.8 million words.That is the equivalent of 60 days of reading! Click on the graphic to the left for more details.
   Studies show that there is a strong link between reading and school success. With that in mind, I am going to add reading to your child's daily homework. The amount of time spent reading may vary from day to day, depending on your family's extra-curricular activities. I only ask that you have your child read a minimum of 5 minutes each day.  
   In class, we have discussed three ways to read a book (listed below). Your child may read in of these ways; they are all valid and are equal in their importance. 

   1. Read the words
   2. Read the pictures
   3. Retell a familiar story

You may want to read with or to your child. This is an excellent way to complete this homework. Snuggling together as you read to your child is just an added benefit.

Thank you for your support. As I say to the children every day - we are in school to become smarter. With every word we read, every connection we make, and every problem we solve, we get smarter; that is our ultimate goal.

This post was written by Mrs. Levine

Sources
Horbec, Deb. (2012). The Link Between Reading and Academic Success. Australian Association for the Teaching of English.
http://www.greatschools.org/students/7104-read-aloud-to-children.gs
http://online.wsj.com/articles/read-slowly-to-benefit-your-brain-and-cut-stress-1410823086

Families -

Please forgive us for not posting our weekly blog update today. We are creating a special blog entry and will need a few extra days. I will email you when our newest blog post is up. Thanks for your cooperation and understanding.

This week we celebrated the anniversary of the writing of the Star Spangled Banner. We celebrated the anniversary by making a human flag. The people in the Lower School were assigned to wear red, white, or blue. We lined up in rows by color to make the flag. Second graders were the red and white stripes. The photographers were on the roof to take our picture. While we were in the flag shape, we sang three Americans songs. We sang the National Anthem, This Land is your Land, and You're a Grand Ole Flag.

This flag was so important because it stayed up through the Battle of Baltimore, during the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key wrote the poem called the Defense of Fort McHenry because the Americans won the battle. That poem became our national anthem and was called the Star Spangled Banner. When he wrote the poem, Francis Scott Key was on a British ship. He was on the ship to ask the British to let Dr. Beanes, an American doctor who treated wounded soldiers,  go free. The British general thought Dr. Beanes was not treating the injured British soldiers as well as he was treating the Americans and they captured him. Francis Scott Key showed him that he was wrong and they let Dr. Beanes go. Mr Key and Dr Beanes had to stay on the ship during the battle because the British didn't want the Americans to know their plans.

This flag is different from the usual American flag because there were only 15 stars and 15 stripes. There were only 15 states in the USA at the time. Today there are 13 stripes and 50 stars on the flag.

We were excited to participate in this activity because it was the 200th anniversary! Go red, white and blue!

This post was written by the members of class 2B.

www.pixabay.com

   We do lots of fun things in 2nd grade. The best thing we all love is having a BRAIN BREAK! A brain break is when we watch a video on the computer. Each video makes us go cuckoo! We run around, we dance, or we take deep breaths. We watch these short videos after we've done a lot of sitting. Sometimes we have been writing and sometimes we have been reading. These videos give an exercise break.
   We watch these videos from a website called www.gonoodle.com. We got to pick a character to be our mascot. We chose McPufferson, who we call McPuffy. He has three hairs on top of his head. He's a purplish-blue. He has no hands or arms and he is a ball. He has pink freckles and he is chunky. He is so cute.

You can watch a video of us taking a brain break below.

To protect our privacy, please don't copy this video to social media.

This post was written by the members of class 2b.