Front Page News!! Read all about it!!

When you receive your child's report card this Friday, I predict that your child will want you to take a careful look at the front page.  The first thing you'll see on the report card is a section titled Skills That Support Learning.  I've explained to second graders that this section is comparable to the Front Page News of a newspaper -- it's the biggest story of the day! These essential skills are critical to each child's success in elementary school, middle school, high school and beyond. In order to involve the children in the process of assessment and to encourage them to reflect on their role in their own learning, we spent some time taking a careful look at these skills that support learning.  In second grade language, these include

• following classroom rules
• showing respect to teachers
• showing respect to classmates
• working together with classmates on group projects
• solving problems
• showing kindness
• staying organized
• using classroom tools appropriately.

After a thoughtful whole group discussion, each child worked independently to self-assess using a kid-friendly rubric.  Each child assessed himself or herself on these skills using the following scale: never, rarely, sometimes, most times, and always. Each child worked carefully on this important work and it will be included in his or her report card envelope on Friday. Please take some time to review this self-assessment of Skills That Support Learning as well as my assessment (the report card) with your child.   Check out these photos of second graders at work:

The I CAN statement that accompanied this work was I CAN think about how my behaviors help my learning.