June 10-14th

We have a fun-filled busy 8 days left of our school year!

Today, we welcomed a new student to our classroom.  Welcome Hannah!   Hannah has moved to the Sandburg area and will be going here next year as well.

Today was also our 2nd grade talent show!!  Lots of great acts performed.   Congratulations to all our great performers from this room:   Carson, Layton, and Noah (Chinese Yo Yo); Lillie (hula hooping);  Ariana (how to draw an owl); Faye (piana playing); Faith and Hanako (magic tricks).   Great job all of you!

The King County Librarian came to visit today to tell us all about the summer reading program.  Your child is bringing home the reading log today.  I know there will be lots of students filling those up very quickly.... we have a class full of readers!

We are binding all of our art and finishing projects in anticipation for our class party on Monday, June 17th at 1:30.    After the party (at 3pm), families are invited into our room to look at student work and then to take everything home!   If you are unable to make it here to school, your child can bring their work home on their own that day.

Report cards will be going home on the last day of school (June 19th).

This week is our LAST weekly homework.    Students will have reading and math sheets.

Thanks so much

Weekly News

Reading in our Imaginarium

Look at all of us reading in the Imaginarium!    We can't believe we all fit in there at once!

 This picture is a picture we are using for our Memory Book page for Ms. Caddock.  Each class is making her a page so she will have a beautiful book of memories from Sandburg.   We will be presenting her with our class page (which includes a poem we wrote about our favorite story settings) during our library time this week.    All library books are due this week so that they can be catalogued and organized for summer.  Please make sure you check your house for any school books.

As some of you may know, Mrs. Fornia and I are both going back to full time teaching next year!
 Mrs. Fornia will be teaching both AM and PM kindergarten classes next year (won't she be an amazing kindergarten teacher??!) and I will be teaching 2nd grade right here in this room.

It's been a while since both of us have had our own rooms!    Mrs. Fornia has been job sharing for 7 years and I have been job sharing for 12!  This was our first year job sharing together and we feel so lucky to have been able to teach your children together this year.    They have been a wonderful group and we are sad to see this year ending.

 If you happen to be cleaning out bookshelves this summer, Mrs. Fornia and I would love to add some exra books to our growing independent collections.   We also will be in need of bookshelves if you happen to know of anyone getting rid of some.

Talent Show:  Our 2nd grade talent show is coming up on June 10th!!  We will send out details about the program soon.

End of the Year Celebration on  Monday, June 17th:    Mrs. Zuber and Mrs. Dorwin are planning a great end of the year celebration (invitations coming home soon).   We will be having our party outside from 1:10-3pm.  From 3-3:30, parents are invited into our classroom to come see some of our projects as well as to collect all personal belongings to take home.

Ceramic with Shuko: Today we had another fun lesson with our fabulous ceramic art docent, Shuko! She will be back next week to help us glaze.

Homework:   Students are bringing home their weekly homework cover sheet today.  You will notice that there is no spelling this week.  We are officially done with 2nd grade spelling tests!    Students will still have math homework and should be reading 15-20 minutes every night.

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle: The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" is opening Sat. June 1st--Sunday, June 23rd. This silly show is based on the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books and is sure to bring laughs! We read this book aloud in class, so students may enjoy going to see this production.

End of May Update

Our Super Fantastic Class End of the Year Self Portraits

The Painted Lady butterflies have hatched!  They were in a chrysalis stage for about 10 days and we arrived at school Tuesday to see lovely butterflies.  We also found an orange-red liquid on the ground. This is called meconium and is the waste material from the pupa. It is NOT blood as butterflies do not have blood; they have what is called hemolymph.   During the time the wings are drying, the proboscis (tongue tubes) will uncoil and recoil, as the imago (adult butterfly) readies itself to go out into the world to begin its 2-week or so life to procreate.  We will be releasing the butterflies Thursday or Friday of this week.

We had our last Big Buddy session Tuesday.  We revisited the artist, Wayne Thiebaud, who is known for his paintings of dessert.  This time, we looked at his bubble gum machines and then did a probability exercise with our big buddies.    We learned how likely it would be to get certain colors of bubble gum.

We are having fun with geometry... .learning about vertices, flat surfaces, faces, and edges.  We are also learning about the sides and vertices of flat polygons.


Talent Show forms will still be accepted until Thursday!  We hope to have lots of fun acts.

We have been spending a lot of time learning about what makes an excellent writer.  The number one way we have been doing that is to read, read, read lots of wonderful pieces of writing.   While reading, we have been collecting samples of how authors use similes to add description to their writing.  We have been having so much fun doing this and we are amazed how often authors use similes!  Some of our very favorite authors, like Roald Dahl, use them all the time.   

Flat Stanley posters are mostly finished.  Students will be able to take these home on Monday, June 17th at our 3pm showcase of student work.

Weekly Update

Art:   We read the wonderful book, The Dot, by Peter Reynolds and learned that by using different types of lines and dots, we can draw so many things.  Students used lines and dots to draw elephants.

Science:  Our butterfly larva arrived and have already migrated to the top of our container, ready to pupate.

Talent Show:   The last day to turn in forms is this Friday.    Due to a scheduling conflict with the school commons space, our talent show date has changed by one day and will now by Monday, June 10th.

Monthly Assessments:  Your child will be bringing home a packet of completed assessments sometime this week.    We have one more batch of assessments this month (including a math test this Wednesday on 3 digit adding and subtracting) before Mrs. Fornia and I start completing your child's 2nd grade report card.

End of the Year Celebration:  
Our class party will be Monday, June 17th starting at 1:10.   Thank you to our end of year party volunteers, Stacey Zuber and Kristen Dorwin, for organizing this.

We would also like to invite all of you to join us at 3pm that Monday as a final showcase of some of our 2nd grade work.  At this time, you will be able to take home your child's artwork, Flat Stanley posters, poetry and writing folders, and all other personal items from school.    

Mrs. Caddock and Mrs. Jacobson's Retirement:

You are invited to help us celebrate their retirement at a reception: When: Thursday June 13that 3:30-4:40 Where: The brand new Carl Sandburg Library.

Barb has spent 33 years in the Lake Washington School District as an adored 1^st grade teacher and school librarian at Mead, Dickinson and Sandburg Elementary.        
Dana has been a talented speech therapist for a 28  years in the Lake Washington School District working with students with 12 of those years  at Carl Sandburg.

Volunteer Thank You: The latte cart will be in the library from 8-10:30 AM on Wednesday, May 29th. Our class volunteers should also stop by our room for a little personal thank you from us.

Weekly News

Volunteer Thank You:
We have been so fortunate to have so many classroom volunteers this year!    Your help has made things run so smoothly for the two of us.  On May 29^th our school will be having a special appreciation day for you.  We hope you can stop by.  Also on the 29th please visit our classroom for an extra treat from our class to you.  Classroom volunteers will have their last week of work that last week of May.    Thank you so much!!!!


Talent Show:  Remember to turn in your participation slip by Friday, May 24th

Weekly Homework:     We have a few students who have missing weekly homework sheets.   I gave everyone a reminder to turn in the weekly slips each Monday.  This is our way of knowing that students have been reading and working on their math.  Plus, it builds good habits to bring in papers on the correct due date. 

Science:  Here is a picture of our class beetle habitat.  We have also started raising milkweed bugs.   This Thursday, we get our caterpillar larva.

 We have been reading the book, The BFG during read aloud.  The BFG collects dreams and blows them into children's ears at night.   Today, we captured our own little dreams in jars and then wrote about our dreams.

Weekly News

Last week, we learned about sculpture and created a 3D paper sculpture of a lizard. They turned out so cute and your children did a great job with this kind of tricky project.

       
It’s time for the 12th annual 2^nd Grade Talent Show on Tuesday, June 11^th! Talents may range from drawings, poetry, magic, dance, gymnastics, jokes, science experiments, musical talents, and anything else. All you need to do is tell your teacher what you would like to do by returning the bottom portion of this flyer and start practicing. Each child will only have 3-4 minutes to perform and may perform individually or in small groups.

We are sending home the entry form today.

 

1. Once we have all the entries, invitations will be sent home with the details/times.
2. The PM session will be in the commons for performances needing a larger area.
3. A piano will be available.
4. Please review all lyrics for appropriateness and submit them to your child’s teacher one week prior to the performance. 
5. Talent show slips need to be returned by May 24

 Today we started creating our Flat Stanley posters.   Students are learning about how to design an interesting display as well as learning about a new community.   We will be inviting parents to come view the displays later this year.

Most of our mealworms have turned into pupas.  At this point they do not move much or eat, but many changes are taking place inside its shell. This pupal stage lasts 10-20 days.   Pretty soon we will have adult mealworm beetles.

Wednesday, May 8th, is Bike to School Day.  We hope you choose to bike to school that day.   All k-3 students must ride with a parent.

Sparrow Club donation forms are coming home today.    You may return them back to our classroom.

 

                                               

 

 

 

 

 

Pacific Science Center Pictures

Weekly Update

Thank you to all our wonderful chaperones who helped with our trip to the Pacific Science Center! We had a very successful trip and things ran very smoothly thanks to our terrific chaperones.  If you haven't seen an IMAX 3D movie, we highly recommend the Butterfly movie!   It was magical.

Our next in-class field trip from Nature Vision is scheduled for Tuesday, May 14th.   This visit will be all about insects as well.

We are in need of some glass soda bottles for a ceramic art project we will be doing with Shuko.  If you have any bottles, please send them in to us.

Here are some pictures of last week's art session out in the sunshine.

This Week's News

Hi Parents,
Our Flat Stanleys are arriving!   We are enjoying find out all about different communities in the United States (and even some out of the United States!).
Here's a picture of our giant US map we made in class.  We are keeping track of where Flat Stanley is visiting.

Next week, we will be taking all the information we learned about our Flat Stanley adventures, and each student will create a poster displaying the community his or her Flat Stanley went to.

We are also having fun learning about our local Kirkland community.   We have been enjoying the powerpoint presentations of our classmates while learning about the local banks, stores, community centers, and parks.  Parents can view the powerpoints on our haiku site:   lms.lwsd.org   Students log in with their regular user name and password.  They should be able to help you find the powerpoints under Social Studies, Connect, and Drop Box.  Enjoy!

Our meal worms have arrived!  We are learning all about insects and insect life cycles while we feed, care for, and watch our meal worms grow and change.   Each student has his or her own meal worm in a little house on his or her desk.  We feed them left over apples or carrots from lunch.

Our next field trip is next Monday, April 29th.  Thank you to all our chaperones:  Stig, Linda, Stacey, Tami, Jeff, Doug, Mini, Marianela, Prerna, Kris, Alissa, Michelle.     We'll meet you here at school at 9AM.  Students are to come to school with a sack lunch that can be disposed of after the trip.

Over the weekend, I came across an interesting article about background TV exposure and how it affects children's learning.
Here's a link to the article:  http://www.education.com/magazine/article/background-tv/

Field Trip

We had a wonderful time at the Burke Museum today!
Thank you to all our volunteers:   Kristen, Kim, Linda, Marianela, Doug, Mini, Alissa, and Caroline.   Having so mnay parent chaperones really makes things run smoothly.

Here are some pictures of today's events:

Also..... here's a great chance to get together with other parents:

There will be a pancake breakfast this Saturday from 9-11am.  This is a great opportunity for those parents who are not able to make the 9-5 events at school.  They are still looking for several volunteers.  It would be very much appreciated as they would like to see the first working parent event a huge success.   It is also a great way to earn sparrow club hours! See below for details.  Thank you, Stacey Zuber

Please join us the first Sandburg/DCS working parent Pancake Breakfast event this Saturday morning from 9-11.  Cost is $5.00 per adult and $4.00 for each child.  Tickets can be purchased by going to the website http://sandburgdcs.ourschoolpages.com/Home and signing up by clicking on "working parents" on the left hand side of the page. Or, a half sheet flyer will be coming home with your child this week, please fill it out and send it back.  Tickets will also be sold at the door for a slightly higher cost.

We are also still looking for some volunteers, 8:30- 9:00 set up,  9-10 cooks and ticket sales, 10-11 cooks and ticket sales, 11-12 clean up. Please contact Will Pranzini at therealpranzini@hotmail.com to sign up.  All volunteers will get a free pancake breakfast. We can also take a mother/father/child partner to sale tickets at the door and earn sparrow club hours. Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Pancake Breakfast this Saturday 9-11