Happy February

Dear Parents,

We enjoyed conferencing with each of you about your children.   It is delightful to get to share with you all the wonderful things your children have been doing in class.   We are so proud of all of them.   Most of all.... we are excited about how much this class just loves reading and how much they've gained in their reading skills. 

 

Students learned about the artist, Vincint Van Gogh, and his painting, Starry Night.  This also tied in to a lovely book called, Sky Color, by Peter Reynolds.   After discussing Van Gogh and the book Sky Color, students created their own unique sky colors and then added an evening skyline to their work.

 

 Today we worked on our February monthly calendar.

 We also learned about  looking for a pattern to solve math problems.   Students will be completing this recent math unit on Friday.   They will take the topic test next Monday.

 

Today, we practiced a little bit for our spelling bee.... students went out two at a time and practiced spelling words with an adult.    We will also be hosting a practice bee this week and next so students can become familiar with the concept of the spelling bee.  Studetns should keep practicing their words each night.

 

Our class now has an IXL account for math practice.   We will open it up this week and log in so that students can also do this at home.   I will send home passwords tomorrow.

 

Have a terrific week!



Conference Week

 Art:    Students created these fun watercolor giraffes during art last week.

Community Research Project:
Students have from now until Feb. 19th to research information about their specific location in the Kirkland/Juanita community.   We will be creating powerpoint projects with all the pictures and information we gather.
The list of places selected by students is in a tab at the top of the blog.   We've also included the list of sample questions.  Your child might want to ask different questions based on their location.

Spelling Bee:    
The all 2nd grade spelling bee has begun!  Students brought home a list of words to practice. All students are encouraged to participate in the class bee, but participation is optional.  Students who do not wish to participate should choose 15 words from the spelling bee list that they don't know how to spell and write them in a sentence.  Students may use any paper from home for this assignment.  The classroom bee is on Feb. 22nd and the final all 2nd grade bee will be on Feb. 28th.

Friday Email:

As you may have noticed your Friday email from your child can be hit or miss! We begin the writing process on Thursday by writing an outline. During this time we discuss transition words, topic and conclusion sentences, word choice and adding details to our ideas. For now, we give the students the prompt for their writing. If your child misses school on Thursday then they will have missed this important step in writing and will most likely just type a quick note to you on Friday.

On Friday the students have an hour to type their message to you. We focus on parts of a friendly letter, spelling, sentence structure and punctuation. I always try and check all their work before they send it to you. As you can imagine, troubleshooting 23 finicky netbooks is a challenge. Some weeks the email message gets stuck in the Drafts Folder and never makes it to you. Other times the draft doesn't get saved when they head out to recess and their work is lost. Other times the Netbooks spontaneously shut down in the middle of typing. During this time the student are learning patience and flexibility!  We do our best to send you a quality letter each week but it doesn't always happen. Please let us know if you notice a reoccurring pattern with partial emails or none at all.

We look forward to seeing you during your child's conference time.   Our schedule is available to view in a tab at the top of this blog.

Tuesday Update

Last week, we read Snowmen at Night and then learned about the concept of VALUE in art.   We created snowmen using value to make the snowmen look 3D

This week we are having our first big buddy get together with Mrs. Armstrong's 4th graders.  We are looking forward to working with them.

Community Project:   Thanks to all of you who have already helped your child choose their top 5 places to research in Kirkland/Juanita.  We will be assigning places this week and coming up with research questions tomorrow.

The math timed tests will be permanently moved to Thursdays from now on.  Fridays will still be the spelling test day.

Our conference times are listed on a tab at the top of this blog for your convenience.  We look forward to seeing you and your child for their conference next week.

School-Wide News:
This Friday is a school spirit day! Dress up in "Retro" clothes.
Math Night:   Feb. 28th from 6:30-8.  Learn some great new math games!
Monthly Math Challenge:  Remind your student to try the challenge that is listed in the commons.
Science Expo:  Project Entry Form due Feb. 1st.   Expo March 14th.
Please sign up for Recess Game Coach - here's how it works in 3 easy steps:

1. Click this link to go to our invitation page on VolunteerSpot: http://vols.pt/CGE3SP
2. Enter your email address: (You will NOT need to register an account on VolunteerSpot)
3. Sign up! Choose your spots - VolunteerSpot will send you an automated confirmation and reminders. Easy!

Friday Update

Happy Friday!
I just wanted to remind everyone about a few things....

Book Rodeo:  
Round up all of your children's books that your family has outgrown.  Bundle your books together, fill out the flyer (on the box under the main stairway), and bring them back to school on Tuesday.
Students receive one book buck for every 4 books.    They may use their book bucks to buy new books.  Students may also bring in money and buy books for a quarter each.
Books are due by Jan. 22nd to receive credit.

Community Project:
Students are bringing home a flyer about their new community project.  This should give students first hand experience with a location in the Kirkland/Juanita community.  Students will choose a location and bring their choices back to school by Friday, Jan. 25th. 

Pen Pal:
On Wednesday, Mrs. Zuber came in and read us a book about pen pals.  We all then wrote a letter to our friend Jacob Schaub who has moved to Sweden.   Mrs. Zuber is mailing our letters with a picture of our class.

Have a wonderful weekend!

This week's news

As many of you may have heard, Mrs. Fornia taught the class today.  This is because Mrs. Fornia will be flying to Arizona on Friday and I will be working for her on that day.   We did a little switch....one of the great things about job shares, is that we try our best to be each others substitutes.   Mrs. Fornia will be flying to Arizona on Friday so that she can run in a marathon.   We will be rooting for you.  Go Mrs. Fornia!!

In other exciting news, we have a new student in our class.  Welcome Ariana!!   We are so delighted to get to know her.  Everyone in our room has been such a help and a great new friend to her.

Thank you for returning your conference sheets to us.   We will be finishing our master lists and sending them out later this week.   We are looking forward to meeting with each of you to discuss the progress of your child.

We finished our money unit and will begin our next unit.  We will alternate between Topic 6 and 7.. Both topics teach mental math. Topic 6 is mental addition and topic 7 is mental subtraction. 


Our School is holding a penny drive this month in honor of Carl Sandburg and Martin Luther King's birthdays.  Carl Sandburg won his first Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.   Hundreds of schools do penny drives in remembrance of Sandburg because of this biography and Lincoln's face on the penny.  To celebrate both Sandburg and Martin Luther King Jr.,.  we are  running a penny drive at Sandburg in January to raise money for biographies for our library on influential Americans.  

A few pictures for you too.....

Quietly reading just like they do every single morning for the first 20 or so minutes.   

 Working with the netbooks and getting faster and more skilled at doing a variety of things.  Here they are taking a survey about their computer knowledge.

Weekly Update

 Conferences: 

 Conference letters will be going home Tuesday.   Please choose three times that work for you and we will schedule a time for you.  Sheets are due Jan. 14th.   If for some reason, none of the times work for you, please let us know and we will try to make alternate arrangemetns for you.  At conferences we will be discussing your child's report card.

Writing:

 We are working on planning out our writing, creating great introductions, and strong concluding sentences.   Here is an example of a plan we did today for our letter to Mrs. Frazier about 2nd grade.    

Science: 

We finished our Geology Science unit. The District Science test scores will be shared during conferences. We will begin a unit on Balance and Motion in a few weeks. 

Reading:

We are also in the midst of giving the winter DIBELS assessment. Results from this reading test will also be shared during conferences. This quarter the children are tested on fluency and comprehension. They are given three passages to read. After a minute they are to retell the story. 

Read Aloud:

We just finished our 3rd Read Aloud chapter book. So far we have read Matilda by Roald Dahl, Bunnicula by James Howe, and SuperFudge by Judy Blume. Tomorrow we will vote on our next chapter book. In addition to chapter books, we read wonderful picture books every day during snack time. We are learning so much from the authors we read.

Thank you to Caroline Adam for coming in to read aloud  to the class on Friday.  

 Math: 

Please remind your child to study their math facts for the Friday timed test. Their test comes home on Friday if they did not pass the test in one minute. We encourage the kids to erase the answers and practice taking it at home with a timer. 

We are in the middle of a math unit on Money. Students will have a math test on Friday. They need to know the name and value of each coin, as well as different ways to make .35 or a given amount. They also need I practice adding coins. A practice test will come home on Thursday. 

Mrs. Chin came in today and did a lesson on group work.  Students worked in teams to build the tallest tower they could with the blocks they had.   I was impressed by everyone's great team-work.

Lunch Helpers:  Our class has lunch helpers this week.  Students who would like to help serve lunch go to the lunchroom early and then help serve all the food.  Students who are lunch helpers receive a free lunch on the day they work.

Welcome Back

Hi Parents,
It was fun to see everyone back from winter break and to hear about all the fun things everyone did over vacation!    Today, students used the friendly letter format to write letters to me telling me what their vacations were like.

We started our unit on counting money.  Students will be practicing counting combinations of coins and comparing different amounts.   Today they brought home a homework sheet to practice what we learned today.

There is no official homework cover sheet this week and no spelling this week.  Students are to read every night and work on the math sheet that comes home today and tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures taken during art time today.