Second Grade

​St. Joseph Regional School teachers welcome and encourage communication with families regarding all aspects of a student's development.




Contact information:
585-344-8451
msacheli@sjsbatavia.org

Subject Area/Grade and Related Education:
A.S. Genesee Community College
B.S. Elementary Education with minor in Psychology

About the teacher and Why Catholic Education Matters:
I absolutely love teaching 2nd grade and being part of St. Joseph's School. I recently gave birth to my third child in August and will be out on maternity leave until December. The students will be learning from co-teachers Mrs. Reyngoudt and Mrs. Clattenburg until I return. They also will have our wonderful classroom aide, Mrs. Fraser who will be with them for the entire year.

I am soaking up every moment with my newborn, but also look forward to getting back into the classroom! I have always loved being an educator. I have a deep connection and admiration for SJRS as I was a student here myself. I advanced on to graduate from Notre Dame High School in 2004.  There is something undeniably special about the connections, family atmosphere, top-notch education and faith-based academics that take place at SJRS. Catholic education provides the ability to lay a foundation in faith, to knit together the connection of Jesus and add on academic growth together. I believe this connects the students and faculty in a way that grows with us in life. Seeing as we are all part of that foundation, we become part of each other through God, growing and learning together on each of our journeys.
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I am excited and grateful to be part of that foundational growth in 2nd grade this year helping each student academically, social-emotionally and spiritually. I am looking forward to the educational fun that will unfold- mixing in movement, sensory play and creative activities!

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Second Grade News

Social-Emotional: We start the year with building our connections and relationships, getting to know one another and setting up our classroom expectations.  We create a classroom family together and believe in helping each other grow educationally and socially. We believe in learning from mistakes, helping each other identify the reason for behaviors and building skills to use more acceptable strategies that help us correct and improve the behavior in the future. 
 
Reading: To start off the year we will be reviewing our Super Kids 1st grade skills, memory words and sight words. We will continue on with encoding pattern words, building comprehension and fluency skills, learning different types of sentences and increasing our vocabulary. We will have weekly reading practices that help improve our fluency skills!
We will incorporate technology through I-ready and educational apps that allow us to differentiate reading with various topics that appeal to each individual student.
 
Writing: We will continue to learn proper penmanship and handwriting. We will also begin learning cursive this year!
 
Math: We will review number bonds and fact families. We will practice making 10, adding on 10, counting the “say ten” way, adding and subtracting multiples of 10. We will move on to learn connecting measurements with physical units. We will then learn how to use rulers and measure various things around us. We will develop skills on estimation and work on increasing our mental math abilities.
 
Science: Students will help “Tina the Traveler” decide where to live in the U.S. They will receive postcards from Tina to learn about land, water features, mapping skills, and events that affect Earth. They will get to observe natural objects from different parts of the U.S. and then try to help Tina decide where to live.
 
Religion: We will review prayers we know, build an understanding of what we pray and learn new prayers. In our first unit we are focusing on the gifts that God has given us all. Understanding that we are gifts of God and we have the love of Jesus in our hearts. We will learn about the sacraments of the church and how Baptism is our first sacrament in the Catholic Church. We will begin talking about First Reconciliation that the students will experience this spring.
 
Social Studies: We are starting off this year with learning about citizenship. What does it mean to be a good citizen? How can we be a good citizen in our community and in our country? We will learn answers to questions like “what is a democracy?”, “what is a debate?”, and “how do we vote?” The students will have multiple opportunities to vote on various decisions in the classroom.

A note from Mrs. Laska, our religion teacher: I am so excited to be teaching Religion this year to our second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. My main goal as a Catechist is to encourage students to live their faith and become active members of the Catholic Church. 
This year our second grade will be preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Our first unit of study will be about God giving us life and love. We will be learning more about Baptism and the Church.