– Ongoing daily assessment of classwork and homework
– Beginning of the Year Assessment – September
Weekly Reading, Phonics, Spelling, and Grammar Assessments
– Benchmark Assessment upon completion of each unit
– End of the Year Assessment – June
Our Big Apple Academy Elementary Division DREAM TEAM from left to right Ms. Inga, Ms. Svetlana, Ms. Amanda, Ms. Ekaterina, Ms. Emily
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“I am passionate about helping your child succeed in school. I create a warm, welcoming, and working environment where every student feels special and valued and works to one’s highest potential.”
Svetlana Belopolsky, M.S., CCC-SLP
Assistant Principal of English Language Studies – Elementary Division
Author of the designated Reading and Writing program, “Easy Steps to Reading Success”
Holds B.S. and M.S. in Speech Language Pathology
Fun Facts About Me:
1. I am a proud mom of three amazing kids.
2. I’ve been with Big Apple Academy for over 2 decades, absolutely love what I do, and I enjoy the people I work with.
3. I am a big animal lover, and I have a few pets at home.
4. I love to spend time with my family, and one of my favorite activities is to go to soccer games.
5. My favorite book is “Thank you, Mr. Falker” by Patricia Polacco.
My Contact Information:
Email: Svetlana.Belopolsky@BigAppleAcademy.com
Phone: (718)-333-1099 ext. 2006
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“I believe that all children are unique and have something special they can bring to the classroom. As a teacher, it is my job to assist and help each student flourish as individuals and grow academically.”
Inga Barbarash
ELA Teacher
Holds B.A. in Early Childhood Education and M.A. in Special Education
Fun Facts About Me:
1. I have a dog named Charlie.
2. I enjoy hiking with my family and friends.
3. I love to eat ice cream.
4. I am a big animal lover.
5. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
My Contact Information:
Email: Inga.Barbarash@BigAppleAcademy.com
Phone: (718)-333-1099 ext. 2006
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“Teaching is my true passion. I strive to create an engaging and nurturing environment in my class. I encourage my students to be kind and to do their best every day.”
Emily Fraiman
ELA Teacher
Holds B.A. and M.S. in Education
Fun Facts About Me:
1. I have two children.
2. I enjoy reading and watching movies.
3. My favorite holiday is Mother’s Day.
4. I like to vacation with my family.
My Contact Information:
Email: Emily.Fraiman@BigAppleAcademy.com
Phone: (718)-333-1099 ext. 2006
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“I am committed to helping children reach their full potential by fostering a supportive learning environment.”
Amanda Kaplan
ELA Teacher
Holds M.A. in Early Childhood Education and Special Education (Birth-2nd)
Fun Facts About Me:
1. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.
2. I enjoy reading, watching TV, and being outdoors.
3. My favorite color is green.
My Contact Information:
Email: Amanda.Kaplan@BigAppleAcademy.com
Phone: (718)-333-1099 ext. 2006
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“Working with children and watching them grow is my passion. I aim to bring the best out of each student. I am firm, bur fair.”
Ekaterina Zavalnyk
ELA Teacher
Holds B.A. and M.A. in Education with a specialization in English and French as a Second Language
Fun Facts About Me:
1. I am a bookworm. I am scared to count how many books I read.
2. Tea is my favorite drink.
3. I thought I like to hike until my boyfriend took me on the actual hike.
4. I love animals, and my favorite one is mini pigs.
5. I love classical movies, and my favorite one is, Gone With the Wind.
My Contact Information:
Email: Ekaterina.Zavalnyk@BigAppleAcademy.com
Phone: (718)-333-1099 ext. 2006
To challenge our students beyond academics it is our department’s old tradition to host an annual Spelling Bee Contest. Winners of the Spelling Bee Contest get to compete with the other winners of the entire 2nd grade student body. It is always fun, inspiring, and rewarding to watch these young minds stand tall in front of the faculty and calmly and proudly spell out one word at a time.
Since 2007 Big Apple Academy participates in the National Language Arts League Olympics. Our 2nd graders compete nationally with other 2nd graders, and have been placed first nationally almost each and every year.
To continue to nurture love for reading and writing our 2nd graders present their favorite books in Halloween Show and Tell. We love to wrap up a calendar year with PJs Day when students come to school wearing their favorite pajamas and bringing their favorite book to share with their classmates.
The school year gets more exciting as we celebrate love for reading and writing while students dress up in their favorite literary character on Valentine’s Day and present it to their classmates.
To support, promote, and expand love for writing Big Apple Academy provides students with a few opportunities each school year to have a chosen work published with Young Writers.В В There is nothing more rewarding and promising than to be able to purchase a book with your child’s published writing piece. Grand Prize – iPad, and even here Big Apple Academy got it done! Adam Basin, our former graduate was a proud winner of this Grand Prize.
Big Apple Academy teaches beyond classroom environment; thus, our students participate in 3-5 educational trips that go hand in hand with the reading material that was either already covered or will be covered in the near future.
Finally, before our second graders graduate from Elementary Division it is our warm annual tradition to end the school year with a rewarding department ceremony where students are acknowledged for their hard work and academic success with prizes, metals, and certificates.
And that is not all… to avoid inevitable summer slide and to ensure a smooth transfer from the Elementary Division, Big Apple Academy prepares a thought-out summer homework book list to keep young minds occupied and to make sure they return to school well prepared to take on the next challenge.
Our events and activities may vary from year to year; however, at Big Apple Academy we make sure that our students are not only acquiring skills that will last them a lifetime, but we also never forget to have fun.
Join us and see for yourselves how far ahead we can challenge your child’s mind as well as teach working ethics beyond their peers from other private or public schools in the most professional way to ensure that your child prospers to one’s highest potential.
At Big Apple Academy we work as a team, and we guarantee your desired academic results!
At the end of 2nd grade our students acquire the following skills:
– Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
– Recount stories, determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details.
– Describe characters in a story and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
– Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text utilizing context clues.
– Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza.
– Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters. Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story.
– Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters.
– Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.
– Use information gained from illustrations and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text.
– Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
– Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories. Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes.
– Write opinion texts on topics supporting a point of view with reasons. Write informative texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. Write persuasive texts with proper introduction, supporting details with examples, and competent conclusion to convince, motive, or move the readers towards a certain point of view or opinion.
– Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, proper nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, in general and their functions in particular sentences.
– Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns. Use abstract nouns. Form and use regular and irregular verbs.
– Form and use the simple verb tenses.
– Ensure subject-verb agreement.
– Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.
– Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
– Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.
– Capitalize appropriate words in titles. Use commas in addresses.
– Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue.
– Form and use possessives.
– Use conventional spelling for high-frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words.
– Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
– Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word.
– Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root.
– Use glossaries or beginning dictionaries to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.
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