Ms. Margaret Howe - 
& Mrs. Mary Sanger  - 

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When you think back to your year in second grade, what do you remember?  Do you remember playing hopscotch on the blacktop or vying to be the first for a shot a tetherball? Do you remember filling out book reports and discovering Beverly Cleary for the first time? Do you remember how it felt to share a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a friend or a simple smile and know that you’d had a great day? When it is time for your child to enter second grade, what will he remember at the end of the day? The year? Or in a lifetime? Our goal here at Holy Cross Academy is to form your child’s mind, body, and spirit in such a way that when he looks back at second grade, he’ll remember not only the lessons taught but the lessons learned, the hearts he touched and the way in which his was touched by God.

Your child’s heart will be touched by God in extraordinary ways at Holy Cross in second grade. We begin the year by reliving the joy that Baptism brought not only to your family, but to the family of God and the ways in which she became part of a larger community, a community that includes the Church family here at Holy Cross. We delve deeper into the understanding of the sacraments to help prepare your child for the faith-forming sacraments of First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion. We discuss the Ten Commandments and practice the Act of Contrition and the Rite of Penance until your child is fully prepared to meet Jesus for her First Reconciliation. We will love watching your child exit the confessional with a smile of peace upon her face. We will practice receiving Jesus in both our hands and hearts as your child discovers the greatest sacrifice God has given us. The gift of second grade at Holy Cross is a gift laced with the love of God and the ways your child can discover peace and joy on a daily basis. Our children who are not Catholic assist us in preparing for these wonderful encounters with Jesus and share the joy of their faith traditions with us.

Second grade is a building block for the rest of your child’s elementary years. In second grade, your child will learn to read with more fluency and to, more importantly, grow in his love of reading. Here at Holy Cross, we make sure your child reads, reads, and reads, both at home and at school. We keep his interest piqued by ensuring that reading ties in with everything else we are learning and that different reading groups are reading different books to keep everyone interested and reading at his own level. When we learn about fairy tales, our reading groups enjoy reading Cinderella tales from all over the world. When we learn about Native Americans, different groups read a blend of fiction and nonfiction as they share Native American legends with one another or books that describe the history of the totem pole. In addition, we make sure to read to our students daily to remind them that books and reading are essential and fun.  We ensure that your child excels in not only reading, but in mastering math. The children will come out of second grade able to add and subtract large three-digit numbers and to understand the relationship between addition and subtraction with multiplication and division.  Second grade will also teach your child to move from print handwriting to cursive and to master the formation of those letters neatly and correctly. Your child will be met with an individualized spelling program known as Word Study in which each student is tested on spelling words that coincide with his phonetic abilities.

Although it is important and wonderful for your child to learn to read, write, add, and meet Jesus in the sacraments, it is just as important to us teachers that your child learns all these things with passion and excitement from our end as well. We make sure that we end our social studies units with learning activity days complete with crafts, games, and food. We will eat pumpkin pie and popcorn and try hasty pudding when we learn about the Native Americans and Pilgrims. We will play hockey and make Canadian flags when we visit our neighbors to the north. We will hit a piñata and practice our techniques in futbol when we learn about Mexico and discover its culture. We use skittles and jelly beans to learn about fractions and probability. We watch in wonder and excitement as we see what happens when we mix a solid like Mentos with a liquid like Diet Coke. We eat Root Beer Floats to learn how solids, liquids, and gases coexist and dress up as our favorite Book Characters on a literary dress up day. Your second grader will have memories to fill a lifetime and lessons that will stay with him forever.

Finally, it is important to us that your child grows not only inside the classroom, but outside it. Your child can learn to entertain a spellbound audience by participating in the Drama Club (previous plays include Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast). She can go camping with the Scouts or earn a badge for citizenship. Her legs can become stronger if she joins the Running Club or signs up for the Great Train Race. Her smile will grow wider as she discovers all the talents she has to share and explore.

When your child looks back on second grade at Holy Cross Academy, what will he remember? Will he remember his First Communion and dressing up on that all important day? Will he remember eating pancakes with maple syrup like a true Canadian? Or will he remember the first time he wrote his name in cursive? No matter the memory or the lesson, we can guarantee it will be one filled with happiness and met with a smile. Please feel free to contact one of us if you would like more information about any of the above opportunities or would like to ask questions regarding second grade. We look forward to hearing from you and building memories with your child!