Sept. 30, 2016

Dear Families, 

We had a great week in school! Here are some highlights from our learning:

Important dates:

*October 4th: Early Fun Run Pledges due

*October 7^th: Deerfield Wildcat Night Varsity Football game

*October 11th:  Deadline for all Fun Run pledges and shout outs.

*October 14^th: Fun Run! (Second Grade10:40-11:00)

*October 31^st: Halloween parties- more info to follow (note home today)

SeeSaw

If you have not signed up for SeeSaw yet, please do so soon!  We are still waiting for a few families to sign up. Directions were sent home with your child’s passwords.    

Character Trait of the Month

Please continue to talk about Empathy with your child and encourage them to complete some of the tasks from the Empathy menu. Ask them about the book that we read this week called, "Those Shoes." This is a wonderful book to teach about empathy. We did a thinking routine called Step Inside, where students "step inside" a character and write from their perspective. We'll share these on Seesaw next week. 

​Box Tops​

We love to collect Box tops for our school! Here is another way to help our school you may not know about. All you do is download the app, take a picture of your grocery store receipt and you can earn double points on certain items. It is super simple!  Here's the website http://www.boxtops4education.com or just download the app on your phone. 

Holiday Donations for upcoming parties

Please see the letter that was sent home today regarding our upcoming team parties.  We are asking for a $7 donation to cover items such as:  Snacks, Craft Materials, Drinks, Game Materials, Paper Products, and Enrichment Materials.   Thanks so much for helping to make our parties great for the children! 

Language Arts

This week we continued to focus on our Reading Workshop Procedures.  We also learned how to write to a prompt while focusing on our Character trait of the month, Empathy.  Ask your child about the books we read and what empathy means.  In writing, we chose a small moment from our lives and began to map out our story.  We rehearsed the story and wrote our first rough draft! The students did a great job! We will continue our personal narrative unit next week.

Math

In math, we continued to review our routines for math workshop. Students learned about compliments of 10, and we practiced strategies for how to find missing numbers in a number grid.  We learned about quick looks and learned how to play the games, “Pass the Paper ” and "Apple Sums. "  We completed lessons 1.6 through 1.9 if you are following along with Home Links.  These do not have to be returned to school, but are a good resource for reviewing concepts learned in school. We will be having a math test this Thursday, Oct. 6th.

WIN (What I need)

This is a time students are able to work on “what they need”.  Students may be doing reading or writing activities, completing unfinished work, or working with the teacher on a skill they need.  We will be rotating between WIN and Science/Social Studies/PBL/Makerspace during this afternoon time.

  

Have a wonderful weekend! 

The Second Grade Teachers

September 23, 2016

Dear Families,

Important dates:

*September 29^th: Picture day, Information and packets were sent home earlier this week.

*September 29^th: DF Bingo Night: 6:00-8:00 p.m.

FUN RUN:

*October 4th: Early Fun Run Pledges due

*October 11th:  Deadline for all Fun Run pledges and shout outs.

*October 14^th: Fun Run! (Second Grade 10:40-11:00)

**If you have not signed up for Seesaw yet, please do so soon!  Directions were sent home with your child’s passwords. We practiced today! We practiced taking photos and using our microphones to talk about our learning. Log on and check out your child's entry and comment or like! Last year, I purchased some earbuds because we noticed that it was hard to hear because of the background noise in the classrooms. Your child is welcome to use mine, (they've been cleaned, and stored in a baggy with your child's name on it), or you can send in an inexpensive pair (with a microphone) for your child to use this year.  

We had our first assembly, which we are now calling a community circle.  We went over expectations of showing leadership during this time and had our Fun Run Kick Off!  Ask your child all about the Fun Run.  Also, have them show you the signal we use to get everyone’s attention and what L.E.A.D. stands for!

Character Trait of the Month! Empathy

Please continue to talk about Empathy with your child and encourage them to complete some of the tasks from the Empathy menu. Next week, we'll send home a Seesaw assignment to demonstrate empathy using your Empathy Menu. 

Thank you for your donations for KidBlog!  If you want your  child to bring in their own  headphones with a microphone, please send a pair soon!  These will come home with your child at the end of the year.

NWEA- we finished up our NWEA testing this week, woo hoo! This is a base line for the year that will help us to form our instruction.  Students will take the NWEA again in the Spring to see their growth! 

This week

We are continuing to work on behavior and learning expectations.  Ask your child how the teacher gets their attention and what they do when they hear the teacher.

Language Arts:

This week we continued to focus on our Reading workshop/Learning shop Procedures.  Students reflected on the types of readers that they are, and created reading goals.  Ask your child what goals they have for becoming better readers!

In writing, students started created heart maps for writing ideas. We'll start our small moment stories next week!

Math: In math, we continued to review our routine for math Learning shop. Students had practice counting change and looking for patterns on a number grid.  They also got started on their number scrolls and learned expectations for our math game center! We learned about patterns on a number grid and wrote about our strategy for adding ten in our Math and Writing Notebooks. We completed lessons 1-3 through 1-5 if you are following along with Home Links.  These do not have to be returned to school, but are a good resource for reviewing concepts learned in school. 

MakerSpaces and STEAM:  This week the theme was “Build”.  Students began with building and creating on their own with different materials.  Then they had to create a specific structure.  They had so much fun thinking and creating!

 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

The Second Grade Teachers

Another Great Week!

Dear Families,

Thank you to those who were able to attend our Curriculum Night!

We'll send a separate email with an attachment so that you can look it over if you weren't able to attend. 

Important dates:

* Next week:  NWEA testing: Baseline data, no worries, just seeing where they're starting the year!

*September 19th: Online Book order due.

*September 29th: Picture day, Information and packets were sent home earlier this week.

*September 29th: DF Bingo Night: 6:00-8:00 p.m.

*October 14th: Fun Run, more information to come!

This week, we continued to review classroom routines and expectations. We had our first LEAD meeting with the second grade team and learned about appropriate assembly behavior. Students learned about our new school wide hand signal for attention. Ask your child to show you. We’re looking forward to some great assemblies this year and want to make sure that everyone can enjoy them with our leader like behaviors.

Language Arts:

This week we focused on our Reading Workshop/Learning shop Procedures.  Read to Self is a quiet time where readers get to read! Thanks to our volunteers who filled our Leveled book library! We also took our Words Their Way spelling pattern test. This test helps to determine letter patterns that children already know and those that they need to practice (short vowel patterns, long vowel patterns, etc.) Next week we’ll start our Writers’ Workshop and begin to find ideas for our personal narratives.

Math: In math, we reviewed our routine for math workshop. Students know routines of math and writing, game time, and math to self. They took a beginning of the year math test so that we could see skills that they remembered from first grade and skills they need to review. We began working in our math journals and had fun playing  the Number Line Squeeze Game and learned “Partner Principles.” Ask your child about them.

Science:  Worms! We did a thinking routine called, See, Think , Wonder. Students shared their thinking in teams and observed our Night Crawlers very closely. They used magnifying glasses to observe and write down what they saw. Then scientists  wrote  what they knew already about worms. Finally, what they wondered. Then they read an article and learned how to highlight important vocabulary words and learned the definition from the words around the word and answered comprehension questions. Ask your child how to tell the head from the tail! 

                                                                            My Favorite...

 

 

 

Effort and the power of Yet!  We mentioned at Curriculum Night about the importance of the power of yet! We are discussing with our classes about how some things may be hard for us now, and we may not be able to do them…yet. With perseverance and effort , soon these tasks will be easy for us. The effort part is important… we’re asking them, “How hard did you try?” Ask your child about their effort this week!

Character Trait of the Month! Empathy

We talked to you about our special projects at Curriculum Night. Attached to the email you will find some empathy papers to look over.  Your child’s Empathy Menu was sent home today. We’ll be talking and reading about this trait in class and sharing some of the things that they did to practice empathy.

One more thing…we need paper towel tubes for our number scrolls!

Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy the weather and your children!

Back to School 2016

Back to School 2016

Our First Week

Hello Families,

We had a great first week together! It has been so much fun learning about one another and getting back into our school routines. We will continue to do a lot of activities next week to help build our classroom community. Our number one concern at this point, is that your child feels safe, comfortable, and a valuable member of our classroom family.  Thank you for sharing your child with us! We are truly enjoying them and can’t wait to have an awesome year with them.

Important reminders:

* Don't forget to fill out

ParentQuestionnaire

 *Curriculum night will be Wednesday, September 14th from 5:30-6:30pm. The 2nd grade team will be giving the presentation together as a team. If you are unable to attend, we will be sending home the PowerPoint via email after Curriculum Night.

 *Picture Day will be September 29th.  More information will be coming home at a later date.

 *Snacks- Please send two nutritional snacks a day. Also, please send a spoon if your child’s snack requires one. As these snacks are “brain food”, we are kindly asking that you don’t send any sugary snacks (i.e. brownies, candy bars, etc) and no snacks containing nuts due to allergies in our classroom and other classrooms. If your child would like to bring a water bottle to school with them, that’s great.  Please just make sure that it is in a spill-proof bottle.  Thank you so much!

 *Everyday Folder- Please be sure to look at any notes in your child’s daily folder and send your child’s daily folder back to school every day.

 Art Shirt and P.E. Shoes- If your child doesn’t have an art shirt at school, please send one in as soon as possible. Also, be sure your child has tennis shoes for P.E. class on our gym day! You can find our class’ specials schedules on the back of your child’s Everyday Folders.

 Dismissal- As a reminder, teachers are not allowed to let children enter the parent pick up line, if they regularly ride the bus (or are CARE) WITHOUT a note from his/her parent. Thank you for understanding! We want to keep your wonderful children safe. If your child has a change in the way they are getting home for that day, please send a written note. If the change happens AFTER your child is already in school, please call the office to let them know.  They will make sure we get the message.  If you send an email, we don’t always have a chance to check this during the day, so we may not be aware of this change. 

 *E-mail Distribution List -one last reminder…if you did not send me an email saying “Please use this email for our class distribution list”, please do so as soon as possible. 

*Blog-If you have not signed up for our classroom blog, please do so soon.  I will be sending these newsletters on the blog only, from now on.  Once you have signed up, don’t forget to accept the blog’s invitation on your e-mail.  Thank you!!

Have a great weekend! We look forward to another fabulous week with your lovely children!

                                                                       Flexible Seating!

                                                                                      Getting to Know You Game

                                                                           Puzzle Time!

                                                                  
                                                                      Autograph Game

The Night before Second Grade!

Dear Families,
I'm hoping everyone is relaxing and enjoying the last evening of summer vacation! I think tomorrow will be my forty sixth first day of school, both personally and professionally. Wow, time flies when you're having fun... anyway, I'm always a little nervous too. Please share that with your child, that teachers are a little nervous too, and we always have a hard time falling asleep! I'm excited to get to know all of my new kiddos. I love finding out the little things that make them tick, and make them excited about learning. I'm looking forward to a great year with your children! I'll take lots of pictures tomorrow and post them on this blog later in the week.

If you haven't filled out the questionnaire from the previous blog post, please do so when you get a chance. Also, don't forget to email me with your email address as well as your child's bus number, and I'll add you to the email class list.

Have a great evening!

Parent Questionnaire Form

Please fill out the Parent Questionnaire Form. This will help me to become better acquainted with your child. All responses will be sent directly to me. Please click on the link below to fill out the form. 

Parent Questionnaire