Weekly News for January 25th

Our on-site field trip with Shelburne Farms was a hit with all the second graders!  You should have seen your children imitating the way many animals move. There were waddlers, hoppers, bounders and straight walkers.  The children hunted for tracks and tried to identify animals by track patterns.  Children spent some time indoors sorting animals by what they do in winter.  All in all it was a great learning adventure for your children!  Thank you for supporting this wonderful opportunity!


This week the children will continue to work on writing poetry.  Each child has chosen an animal native to Vermont to focus on how their animal is able to survive the cold winter months.  They will be using this information to help them create a poem about their animal and then in Art they will be painting their animal.  We will be finishing up our unit this week or early next week.

In math we will begin a new unit this week on measurement.  A letter will be coming home in homework folders that will explain the goals of this unit.  The children will be exploring both non-standard and standard measurements and will use measurement tools.  On another note, on the evenings that your child does not have math homework, it will be beneficial for your child to use this time to practice their addition and subtraction facts for ten minutes.  This will help to insure they meet the standard for achieving 20 addition and subtraction facts in 1 minute by the end of second grade.  We thank you for your support in this!

We are getting ready to celebrate the 100th Day of school on February 5th!  This could change if by some reason we wind up with a snow day.  We will be sending home a letter in your child's homework folder with more information regarding our 100th Day Celebration!

Reminders:
Please be sure your child brings their sneakers on PE days.  Also please make sure that your child has shoes to change into each day so they do not have to wear their boots all day long.  Thank you!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.  Have a great week ahead!

Weekly News, January 19th

Students were so excited to earn pajama day last Friday! We followed a regular schedule in the classroom, but doing things such as reading and writing in our pajamas with our stuffed animals made it extra special. Students were given the chance to introduce their stuffed animals during our morning meeting. We look forward to more fun rewards for positive behavior in and out of the classroom. Recently, we have been reviewing our classroom rules such as respecting peers and adults, taking care of classroom materials, and doing our best work.

During our "Number Corner" time, we have begun exploring fractions. We have been randomly choosing tiles from a bucket with 15 red tiles and 15 blue tiles. Each day, we choose the number of tiles that matches that day (for example, 9 tiles on the 9th day of the month). We then come up with a fraction that matches the number of red tiles. For example, if 5 tiles were red, and 4 were blue we talk about how the fraction that shows the number of red tiles is five-ninths (5/9) and what the 5 and the 9 mean in the fraction (5 is part that is red, 9 is the total number of tiles or the whole). We then talk about whether the fraction we have created is more, less or exactly half and graph the results each day. 

This week for word study, we will be doing assessments and reviewing common "trick" words. There will not be regular word study homework or spelling tests this week. We will be sending the review words home to be practiced informally. Spelling tests from last week will be coming home on Wednesday.

In our reading groups, we have been reading about animals in winter and cold weather adaptations in addition to reading poetry. During our writing time, we've been exploring the art of poetry through reading and writing poems about winter. This week, we will continue to explore the craft of poetry--thinking about objects in new and interesting ways (metaphor) and how to use line breaks to add meaning to our poetry. We'll be choosing an animal native to Vermont that we will research and then explore through poetry and the visual arts. 

We are excited that on Friday we will have educators from Shelburne Farms coming for the morning. Please make sure your child has appropriate clothing to be outside for a few hours this day. Also, if you are interested in joining us for this great learning opportunity, let us know. It will be from 8:45-10:45. 

On Friday afternoon, we will have Darcie Thorburn visiting our classroom to discuss the importance of oral health.  Have a great week. As always, let us know if you have any thoughts or questions.

Writing in our pajamas with our stuffed animal friends

Reading with friends

Monday News for Jan. 11th

The children enjoyed watching a cardinal outside our classroom window!

Happy New Year!  It is exciting to start a new year with all your wonderful children!  We are beginning a new unit on Animals in Winter. This unit will integrate reading, writing and science.  We will be collaborating with our Art teacher and Librarian as well.  During this unit the children will be reading all about animals and how they survive the cold winter months.  The children are creating a bulletin board in our classroom where they are displaying new learning with their drawings and labels and captions of any new learning that provides evidence as to whether or not an animal migrates, hibernates, remains active, or is dormant (otherwise referred to as a napper and snacker).   In addition to learning through reading, the children will be conducting science experiments that relate to animal survival during winter months.  In writing the class will create poems about different animals and include their new understandings of how their animal makes certain adaptations in order to survive the cold winter months.  On top of all this we are also having a Shelburne Farms educator visit our class on Jan. 22nd for a morning to lead indoor and outdoor activities related to our unit.  We will be looking for parent volunteers to help us out on this morning.  Please let us know if you would be interested.  January is going to be an exciting month!  We appreciate your help in supporting this visit with your donation of $3.50.  Please try to send payment in by next week.  Thank you in advance!

Report Cards and Assessment - We will begin assessing students this week and next in reading and in math.  This information will help us in reporting out to you how your child is performing in school.  Report cards will be sent home on Jan. 29th.

Reminder:  Since winter has finally arrived and the children are fully decked out in snowsuits, boots, hats and mittens, it is helpful to have names on all clothing items.  The children need to travel the hallways with their snow clothes going to lunch, coming indoors to their classroom and on their way to and from the bus.  Lots of opportunities present themselves for students to drop pieces of clothing along the way.  Almost everyday we have a child searching for different items.  If names are on these items they find their way to their rightful owner most of the time.  Thanks for your help with this!

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.  Have a wonderful week ahead!

Monday News for Dec. 21st

We all had a great time at Colonial Craft Day last Thursday. This was our culminating event for our Long Ago unit and a celebration of the season. Thanks again too all of you who sent in supplies and volunteered at the event. We hope you enjoy "the goods" your child brought home and the pictures below.

This week, we'll be working on story problems in math that use presents (units of 1) and parcels (groups of 10), and we'll continue this work after vacation. We'll be finishing up our writing prompts about our choice to live today or long ago and will be finishing up with holiday/long ago books in our reading groups.

On Tuesday, we'll participate in the Holiday Sing-Along and have a small Holiday celebration (popcorn and a movie) in the afternoon. We hope you have a wonderful break. Perhaps we'll actually have a stretch of winter weather when we return! We look forward to lots of new learning with your children in 2016.

Monday News for Dec. 14th

On Friday the class had an opportunity to participate in The Hour of Code.  The Hour of Code is a global movement to try an hour introduction to computer science, reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries. Our class learned the beginnings of how to write code.  The children could choose from working on computer websites or apps created for I pads.  I have included a link to the website for you and your child to continue to explore and learn about writing code.  https://code.org/learn

This week we are wrapping up our unit on Life Long Ago.  Our culminating activity will be Colonial Craft Day on Thursday.  Thank you so much for all your generous donations!  It is great to have such supportive parents!  The children will be responding to a prompt about whether they prefer life today compared to long ago or vice versa.  They will need to explain their ideas based on what they have learned during this unit.  

In math we continue to explore the number line and different strategies for adding and subtracting using the number line.  If you are supporting your child at home with their homework and have any questions of your own, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Please don't forget library books on Wednesday.  We will not have Library again until after the break, so Wednesday will be a time when your child can take books home for the holiday break.  As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.  Have a great week ahead and THINK SNOW!  

Monday News for December 7th

In writing, students are finishing up and sharing writing prompts they have worked on. These prompts focus on a favorite place. We worked on having three reasons it is a favorite place and supporting each reason with details. We also worked on having introductions and conclusions for our writing. This week, students will get to work on another prompt about whether they would rather live long ago or today and why.

We continue to read books and learn about Colonial times, this week focusing on a general introduction of the conflict between the American colonists and Great Britain. We'll also look at some famous Americans of the time including George Washington, Ben Franklin and Paul Revere. Next Thursday will be our Colonial Craft Day from 1:15-2:30. Thank you to all who have volunteered to come in and signed up to send in materials!

As part of our December Number Corner, we've been creating surveys. Last week, we looked at favorite colors and favorite books. This week, students will come up with ideas for another type of survey we can do as a class.

Have a great week!

Monday News for Nov. 30th

Performing a Readers' Theatre

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!  It is great to be back to school!  We will resume spelling this week with words coming home on Monday for the week.  We have also begun a new unit in Math so look for the Unit 3 parent letter in your child's homework folder.  Many of the concepts that the children will be working on in this unit will be explained.  Also, we would like to suggest that on the evenings when your child does not have math homework, that this would be a good evening to practice math facts for about 10 minutes.  If your child does not know their doubles facts this would be a great place to begin.  If your child has their doubles memorized, then move on to doubles plus or minus one facts. For example, 5+6=11.  They can use one of their doubles to help them solve this problem.  If they use the higher double they subtract one and if they use the smaller double they add one.  If you have any questions, please let us know!

We are continuing our unit on Long Ago.  We will be focusing on Colonial Times

 over the next few weeks.  The second grade team will be holding Colonial Craft Day on December 17th from 1:15 - 2:30, as a culminating activity to our unit.  In order to make this possible we will be looking for parent volunteers to help us out by running a craft center.  We will have it all organized and will show you what to do.  You don't have to be crafty to participate!  We will also be asking for donations of supplies and will have a sign-up genius where you can sign up to make a donation.  We will be sending further information with the link to the sign-up in an e-mail.  We should be sending it out in the next couple of days.  This is a great afternoon and we would love to have your help!

Have a great week ahead!