School Tours During COVID-19

We’re sorry you can’t tour our campuses in person this year. Fortunately, parents take a lot of videos on their phones, and we’ve collected them in order to create a window into the unedited, everyday realities of being an AVS student and community member. Enjoy!

Academics: Second Grades

What's Happening in School This Week (Sample Week)

Second graders had a great first week back after the February break! This week students wondered about the agricultural revolution, how to tell time, and began thinking about their new Book Club books! March is Women’s History Month! Each day during our class morning meeting students learn an interesting fact or about an important woman from the past or present. Last week’s theme was women and numbers. This week the theme will be women in sports. Remember, this Friday is a C4 Day and the school day will end at 1:30 (unless you signed up for after school programming).

Science

Mind-blowing moment of the week: The water on our planet today is the same water that has been here for nearly 5 billion years. That means there’s a very high chance that water in your glass is what thirsty dinosaurs were gulping about 65 million years ago! So much water… So little to drink. This week we explore why humans, animals, and plants survive on just less than one percent of the world’s total volume of water. In addition to terms reviewed last week such as evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, over the next couple of weeks we will become comfortable in using additional hydrology related vocabulary such as reservoir, aquifer, and potable. We will also address Earth’s climate patterns and how scientists determine past ice ages, asking the question, “How did the expansion of the polar ice caps significantly affect the living things on Earth during that time?” If inspired, please have conversations with your student regarding how such factors as the Earth’s orbit, changes in the Sun’s energy, gas levels in the atmosphere, ocean currents, and volcanoes could affect climate change.

Math

Time can be measured in
seconds, in minutes,
in days or in weeks,
months, or years.
By watches or calendars,
cellphones, computers,
or clocks that tick-tock
with their gears.
Students will continue to work with analog clocks throughout the week, discovering what each number represents and learning to consistently tell time to the nearest 5 minutes. We are focusing on language around telling time such as “quarter till, quarter after, half past, etc…” We encourage students to practice reading analog clocks at home as much as possible.

Literacy

Letters added to the beginning of a word is called a prefix. Letters added to the end of a word is a suffix. Did you know both are called affixes? An affix is one or more than one syllable or letter added at the beginning or at the end of a root word, to change its meaning. This week students will continue on their suffix journey, with a focus on rules of verbs ending -ing. A verb ending in -ing means it’s happening now or in the present.

Second graders will begin brainstorming ideas needed to create personal narratives. Personal narratives are a form of writing in which the writer relates one event, incident, or experience from his/her life. Please engage your child in stories centered on memories and details of their lives- vacations, birthdays, celebrations, family gatherings, traditions, etc.

Social Studies

This week students will continue to learn about using a timeline with BCE and CE. Students will practice creating and reading timelines that explore world history from before the year 0 and after. Another part of our Social Studies curriculum is reading picture books about important women from history.

Art

Second graders are learning about the Op art movement and the work of English artist Bridget Riley. They will be using ink and paper to create the impression of space, form, and implied line in a worm of art.

Music

Next week second graders will continue adding Orff instrumentation to the song "Tideo." This song proved to be a hit amongst second graders, as it is accompanied by a fun movement game. We'll also take the singing/movement game "A Cup of Tea" to the next level. Giving the motions a try with two hands!

Drama

This past week in drama, second graders held a mock election where they created campaigns for 5 of the characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I am proud to say we had 100% participation, and our elected official was Hipolyta, Queen of the Amazons who offered women’s rights. This week we will begin to create an original play for The Spring Drama Performance, which will be nature themed, and involving William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Spanish

Second grade will be learning and reviewing the months of the year and learning the seasons of the year. We will be talking about the different holidays around the world celebrated in the United States and around the world. With the aid of this vocabulary, students will state the current month and identify the month of their birth.
This vocabulary is introduced with a lot of movement games, songs, and art projects. This vocabulary is introduced with a lot of movement games, songs, and art projects.
Repetition is key so feel free to practice with your child at home!

PE

This week is the start of our gymnastics unit. Students will have fun making shapes and giving it motion. We will stretch the whole body using basic body positions of straight, pike, straddle, tuck, hollow, superhuman, bridge, butterfly and turtle. As students move their bodies and create shapes it enhances the ability to move and control their bodies and develop strength, flexibility and coordination!

Building Community

Community meetings

Social emotional learning

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

STEAM challenges

Events

Gala

Field trips

Volunteering

After-school care

FAQs