 Can you believe that our year together is remarkable close to half over? Time flies by when you're having fun, that's for sure! Below you will find the December Happenings. Please let me know of any questions, concerns, or schedule changes by email. Happy Reading!
Students have been reading, reading, reading. As a part of our reading grade, students are expected to take Accelerated Reader quizzes (AR) and score above 70%. Second grade AR is an introduction to the ins-and-outs of the program and they are taking quizzes as part of their basal reading instruction and independent reading time. If they score below the cut-off, students reread their selection and take a new quiz. Students can, but are not required to take quizzes based on their at-home reading.
We are going to try a new approach to math fact memorization. First of all, I'd like to say that I am seeing a big improvement overall in understanding math facts. But there is still room for improvement; and as the year progresses, students must be able to quickly compute addition and subtraction sentences up to 1,000. That can be daunting if they are still trying to add or subtract on their fingers.
That being said, I am not sure that simply asking students to "practice math facts nightly" is most effective. For the time being, students will be required to alternately practice an addition and subtraction fact sheet nightly. The goal is to be able to compute/recall 50 facts in 2 minutes or less. Feel free to copy the addition and subtraction fact sheets if you want to. The students have learned many strategies for solving these facts but using mental math is the most effective. This homework should take less than 5 additional minutes. Thank you!
Just a quick reminder to please sign your child's homework sheet nightly. Your signature verifies that you have checked their homework for completion and correctness.
Your child needs to pay attention to details as much as they understand overall concepts/processes. For example, they all have beautiful handwriting, use it! It shows pride in their work. Please use the correct side of the paper and write against the margin. Problem numbers, sentences, spelling words, etc. should be NUMBERED and be listed DOWN the paper. All sentences MUST have a capital letter and ending punctuation. Spell words correctly that they know/should know and try to phonetically spell out difficult words. No more "slop" on the paper. If you know how to spell a word, spell it correctly. Last but not least, sigh, do not do your child's homework. By all means, please help them understand what to do, but it needs to be done in their own writing.
Please keep snipping and sending in your Box Tops. We are trying to reach a new goal of $4000 this year.
We are low on snacks once again. If you did not send anything last time, please send in a snack for this month. We only need about 10 more days worth of snacks. Gracias!
The Pearson Benchmark testing dates are December 16-17. Please make every effort to be present. These are system-wide tests given in Math, Reading and Language Arts.
Book orders will come home the first week of December. They are due by Monday, December 7th to have time to order and ship by the 18th. Feel free to order gifts if you wish and we can make arrangements for a "secret delivery".
On Friday, December 18th, there will be a sing-a-long in the Little Theater at 8:45. The class party will begin at 10:45 and there is a noon dismissal. No lunches will be served. Enjoy your winter break!
School resumes, Tuesday, January 5, 2010.
Reading
The focus will be on reading fiction books related to children in their communities. A Trip to the Firehouse, Big Bushy Mustache, and Jamaica Louise James are the core stories. Targeted skills include main idea, details, content vocabulary, making inferences, and problem/solution. Phonics patterns include digraphs (ch, sh, th, wh) and dipthongs (ou, ow, oi, oy).
Language Arts
Grammar skills will be continually practiced through daily Mountain Language and DOL. Each Thursday, the DOL is taken up as a quiz grade. The core of DOL is proofreading for complete sentence structure.
The focus of Language Arts will be the Writing Trait of Organization. We start by organizing our ideas in "topic house" or "sandwich" templates. The students will be learning the appropriate format for paragraph writing and friendly letter writing. Students will need to be able to develop a main idea and supporting details for an informative paragraph. Other key factors include: correct spacing, use of margins, and indention. They'll wrap it all up with a whopping closing sentence.
During friendly letter writing, students will need to have their address memorized. (This is a good safety tip too!) They'll learn the format of a letter and how to correctly label an envelope. We'll be sending a GIANT one to Mr. Barnett also.
Math
Students are currently solidifying their regrouping skills for both addition and subtraction. Most are pretty adept at both, but now they are working on "mixed practice" with and without regrouping. They must be able to discern for themselves whether to add or subtract, and whether they need to regroup.
For the remainder of the month we will focus on the basics of repeated addition and multiplication strategies. Students will learn to group objects and use skip-counting as one way to multiply. By January, I would like them to know the 0, 1, and 2 families for multiplication.
Theme
This month's theme unit is Physical Science. Classes will rotate to each of the 4 second grade teachers for this unit. During this time, they will learn about the 3 states of matter, chemical/physical changes in matter, magnets, and force/motion (simple machines). Once again, this is a hands-on unit in which they'll explore the world they live in. During the second week of December, your child will bring home a science experiment sheet. They will need to choose ONE of the experiments and make a hypothesis, test, and record results. It's simple and lots of fun!
Click here for this week's spelling and vocabulary lists.
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY.... TO YOU TO YOU TO YOU, OLE!!!
DELECTABLE DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS
Ian
Matthew
Taylor
Sammy
WISE THOUGHTS TO TAKE HOME AND PONDER...
For the kids:
Your actions speak louder than your words.
For the adults:
A life is like a tree. If you don't make it straight when it's young and green, you'll never do it when it's old and dry.
WHAT'S FOR LUNCH CHUCK?
Under the "links" section of the webpage, you can click on the "School Lunch Menus" which will direct you to the JC Schools menu for the month.
'Tis the Season!
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