September Animoto Video

Important Dates

 

• September 30th : DCC parent meeting 7:00 pm
• October 1st: Picture Day
• October 7th: Student Count Day
• October 16th: Fun Run/ Students brought home letters about the event and how they can help. This event helps to fund many of the activities we do throughout the year.  

Our Fun Run Assembly

 

Reminders:

• NWEA Testing (Northwest Evaluation Association) : Students wil be taking both a reading and a math assessment on the computer next week. Our classroom will take these tests on Thursday and Friday.

• Students are allowed two healthy snacks a day. No nut products please due to allergies.

• Please remember to send me a note if there are changes in your child's dismissal.

• In order to make our dismissal run more smoothly, as a school, we are asking that if you are coming to pick up your child from school at the end of the day, that you stay in your car and go through the parent pick up car line. There has been a lot of conjestion near the doors and sidewalks and cutting through the parent pick up car line, which can be dangerous. 

Math

Last week we continued to work on routines and procedures in our Math Learning Shop. We are continuing to work on building stamina in order to complete our learning activities in each station.

We will continue to study Unit 1 this week. Some of the lessons we've studied so far are:

• Finding numbers to complete number sequences
• Fill in numbers on a number scroll
• Counting by ones and skip counting by tens
• Finding equivalent names for a number

This week we'll learn more about finding equivalent names for a number, identifying even and odd numbers, skip counting and looking for patterns based on place value, comparing 2 digit numbers and coin amounts.

At the end of the week, I'll send home a review sheet whcih will outline the skills we are working on. Our first test will not be given until  the week of October 5th, if I feel students are ready to be assessed. I'll send an email to notify you. IXL skills that can be practiced, please use any of the A (counting and number patterns) or B (comparing and ordering) activities.

 

Math Learning Shop consists of  Math to Self (review and practice of basic math skills), Math with Someone (usually a math game from our Everyday Math series or number scrolls), Math and Writing (students explain a math concept using words, pictures, or diagrams) and Teacher Time (students meet with the teacher to review, assess or learn a new skill).

 

Math Worksheets Website- Salamander Math

 

 

Reading

We continued to work on routines and procedures in Reading Learning Shop. This week we'll continue practicing our rotations, learning how to use the sites and apps on our computers and Ipads for our Listen to Reading Station, how to work independently at our Word Learning Station (ending blends), Read to Self and shop at our Book Shop, and work with the teacher at the Teacher Time Station.  We'll learn about keeping reading logs and setting goals as a reader this week and building stamina as a reader.

Assessments: I have completed almost all of our back to school reading assessments. Whew! On Friday I had a testing marathon and finished 15 assessments, while your child visited another second grade classroom. This was a great way to ensure continued instruction, while I focused on the testing. I'll email you soon with results!

 

Writing

 

Special Author visit: Maria Dismondy visited our school and talked about bullies, while highlighting her book, "Spaghetti on a Hotdog Bun."

 

 

In writing, we've been working on how writers get ideas for their writing pieces. We created a heart map and drew pictures on that map to show the things that we love. Authors often write about things that are close to their hearts. We started making a circle map to focus on one small moment topic. We also began a piece on our favorite fall activity. Next week, we'll complete some of these projects, learn how to organize our thinking for a personal narrative  and continue to complete putting together and organizing our writing binders.

 

Science and Social Studies

This week we continued to explore our worms! We used a thinking routine called "Think, Puzzle and Explore." We brainstormed what we thought we know about worms, we wondered and asked questions about worms (puzzle) and this week we'll explore more by learning how to research about worms in our Reading Learning Shop. During our afternoon Social Studies time, we'll begin to learn about families.

 

 

 

 

Special Project:

 Please send me (electronically through my email) a picture of your family. I'm trying to create a slide show of our classroom families. If you have any family pictures that are in native dress, that would be great too, as I want to focus on our classroom diversity. I'm not telling the students, as I want to surprise them with a slide show of families, and hopefully they'll recognize themselves in it! 

 

Homework

Hopefully, you've received your password sheet and tried to log on to some of them.  I believe the  Language Arts has been added to the IXL now, so all students should be registered for Math and Language Arts. Please remember that these sites are simply options for students to complete their homework. They are NOT mandatory. All that we expect is for students to practice math for 10-15 minutes a night and reading for 10-15 minutes a night. This includes reading to them if you are reading a chapter book or a bedtime book to them. So much can be learned from visualizing during a read aloud. If you choose to use these resources, that's great, but students may practice reading and math in any way that works best for you and your family.

 

 

Have a wonderful week! I'm looking forward to a great one!

 

 

 

 

 

News Update

Important Dates and Reminders

*Picture day is October 1st, forms should be coming home next week.

*Please remember 2 healthy snacks a day. No peanuts due to allergies.

*Thank you to those who emailed expressing interest to volunteer. I will be contacting you soon to help.

* The DCC is looking for volunteers to help with the students on September 28th- Please see the Deerfield Download for more information.

*Password papers will go home late next week. I'll send an email the day I send them home so you can expect them in your child's folder.   

Language Arts

This week, we started practicing routines for our Reading Learning Shop. We worked on choosing "Just Right" books and building our reading stamina. This class LOVES to read! They love books and enjoy spending time in our book corner. Next week we'll work on teaching the different components of our Learning Shop; Word Work, Listen to Reading, Read with the Teacher, and Read to Self. Our Reading Learning Shop is based on the framework of the Daily 5 that structures literacy time so that students develop lifelong habits of reading, writing, and working independently and within a group. 

*Next week, we'll work on an Author's Study, reading books by Kevin Henkes. We'll learn about story mapping and focusing on character, setting, problem, solution. We will also write in our Reading Response Journals.

We also practiced reading and writing words with short vowel sounds during word work. We made our Word Work Books and began to sort words and look for patterns. Next week our focus will be on letter blends.

In Writing, we've set up our Writing Binders. We'll be working on writing ideas for our personal narratives next week.

List of Favorite Second Grade Books

Math 

We are working on Unit 1 in math. We focused on learning how to use our math "tools" (not toys) and worked on number lines. We also practiced our "Math Learning Shop," routine. Our Learning Shop consists of 4 math stations, Math to Self,  Math with Someone, Teacher Time and Math and Writing. Math to Self consists of review and basic skills practice. This week we focused on effort and using stamina to complete as much as we could during the fifteen minute timeframe for that station. At Math with Someone, we practiced our "partner principles" while we played math games with a partner or a 3 person group. In math and writing (my favorite, but not always theirs) students write in a math notebook and explain their thinking with words, pictures and diagrams. We learned the format of writing in our notebooks (date, learning target and dot check). In the Teacher Time Station, students sit with me in a small group and practice math concepts from the lesson. This is a great opportunity for me to formatively assess because it's such a small group, I can really focus on needs.

These are online games that your child might like to play for practice with number sense.

ordering numbers

Hundreds Chart Number Sense Game

Science

We've worked all week on learning how to work with a group practicing our "partner principles," Because many of my Science Units are based on Project Based Learning, my first priority is teaching students how to work together,  creating a community of learners. We are a team, we work together like a team. Today we began to focus on inquiry. We began by using a Thinking Routine called, Think, Puzzle, Explore. This routine is from a wonderful book I read several years ago, which teaches strategies for thinking using thinking maps. We worked on this today, activating our schema and thinking about what we THINK we know about ... worms! We'll continue to work with our worms next week!

Project Based Learning



We are answering the question: What do we think we know about worms?

What do we wonder?

**Suggestions for Continued Learning at Home: Read! Have your child read to you, read with them (they read a page, you read a page) and read to them!  In math, practice counting. We're working on number sense. Some children are having difficulty counting numbers 1-100. Some need more practice with numbers 100-200 and some may need to practice numbers in the thousands. This is really the basis for number work. When I worked with them today we played a simple game where I asked them to write the number that comes after 199 or what comes before 50? For some, this was very difficult. We'll continue to work on this!

Have a great weekend!

Our First Week!

Dear Families,
We had a great first week! We spent some time getting to know one another and learning our classroom routines. We'll continue to do activities next week to help build our classroom community.

Important Reminders:

Curriculum Night will be Wednesday, September 16th from 5:30-6:30. The Second grade team will be giving the presentation together for the entire second grade team. If you are unable to attend, we will be sending home the PowerPoint via email after Wednesday evening's presentation. 

 

Everyday Folder: Please be sure to look at your child's folder each night and return to school each day.

 

Art shirt and gym shoes: Please send in an art shirt this week. The students are painting in art class this week. I have given each student a baggy with their name labeled on it to store it in the classroom. Also, be sure to bring your gym shoes for P.E. days.

 

Have a great week! I'll be sending more information throughout the week!