End of October!

We had a great week of Halloween fun. We are now heading into another busy time of the year as we learn about Sinking and Floating in Science and Native Americans in Social Studies.
Reading: Last week we read the wonderful story of Corduroy. Again we talked about kindness. This week's story is about three whales who take a difficult journey. We will not be taking an end of the story test on the Three Whales. Rather, we will do a writing assessment and a fluency assessment.
Writing: The Halloween stories were magnificent! Bravo! We will continue to work on our narrative writing this month. We will also work on paragraph writing with a topic sentence, details and a conclusion sentence.
Math: We finished our Unit 2 assessments and we began Unit 3. We will be working hard on place value, time and money skills. Please make sure you give your child ample opportunities to count money, make change and tell time!
Science: We learned about buoyancy this week by doing some experiments. We learned that they type of material an object is made of affects buoyancy.
Ask your child about:

• sinking and floating cubes that were the same size and shape.
• sharing their writing assignments with 2nd grade friends
• Halloween!
  

Pre Halloween Fun!

The Halloween stories are AWESOME! Wow! I can tell how hard your child worked on these stories and how much support you gave them. They are great! The students will have fun reading them tomorrow to their friends in Mrs. Klette's class. I sat and read each one today. Each one was so original, creative and fun! If you join us for our party tomorrow, take some time to read them!

There is a flier in your child's folder today describing tomorrow's activities. The parade starts at 12:40 and there will be a performance in the gym at 1:30. Our classroom celebration will begin at 2:15. Laura Mattern has planned the party and you can contact her if you have any questions at
kurt_laura@yahoo.com

You can also contact me, but she has done such a thorough job I know very little about it! Thanks, Laura and all your helpers, too!

One last reminder that weapons are not allowed with the costumes. We will change into the costumes at 12:40. Do not send your child to school in their costumes.

Wonderful to See All of You!

It was wonderful to see all of you for our conferences this week. I hope you got some of your questions answered and left with a better idea of what kinds of things your child is working on in school. Please do not hesitate to ask for clarification or updates on any of our conference topics.

Reading: We read a story called The Butterfly House about a little girl and her grandfather who show kindness to a butterfly. We practiced monitoring and clarifying.
Writing: We wrote an extended response to our reading story. The students had to write a topic sentence, give three supporting details, make a personal connection and write a conclusion sentence.
Math:We finished up Unit 2 in math and prepared to take our end of the unit test for next week. Basic facts, algebraic concepts and telling time will be assessed.
Social Studies: The Social Studies test and packet of work was sent home on Friday. Please review it with your child.
Science: The students watched a 15 minute video about the states of matter as an introduction to our upcoming science unit on Sinking and Floating.

I will be updating the links on the left to show the lexile website and some new sites for practicing the states and learning about buoyancy. Check back often!

The Week Before Conferences

Please click on the link to the left to see your conference time. Make every effort to arrive on time so we have the full 20 minutes to discuss your child's progress. Come prepared with questions. If we need more time we will schedule an additional conference.

Reading: We read a story called The Paper Crane. We talked about Cause and Effect. This is another story about kindness.
Writing: We worked on our personal description stories and talked about how describing a setting can set the tone for a story.
Math: We continued to practice our basic facts. We also learned how to do frames and arrows problems, which is a prerequisite skill for many algebraic concepts.
Social Studies: We wrapped up our unit on Neighborhoods and Map skills. A packet of our work will go home next week.

Be sure to come to our Book Fair next week before or after conferences.
Ask your child about

• cause and effect.
• our upcoming book fair.
• our activity with our Kindergarten Buddies.
  

Perfect Fall Week

We had a great week in second grade. The students were very productive and enjoyed the trip to the farm.
Reading: We read Shoemaker and the Elves and practiced sequencing. We looked for time and order words. We continue to work hard in our small reading groups. Two groups are enjoying the book Boxcar Children and two groups are working on verbs and adjectives.
Writing: The students drafted and edited two paragraphs that describe their interests and physical appearance. They learned proofreading marks and practiced using them. Parent volunteers will be busy this week and next helping to publish these stories.
Math: The students practiced math facts all week. We used a spring scale, a balance scale and even a bathroom scale to weigh our pumpkin.
Social Studies: We are finishing up our unit on Neighborhoods and Communities. We read a book called Encounter. This book talks about Christopher Columbus' arrival in the islands from the perspective of a Taino, a native of San Salvador.

Ask your child about

• weighing our trash from lunch on Wednesday as part of Irving's Waste Assessment for a Zero Waste Grant awarded by Seven Generations Ahead.
• using spring scales
• The book Encounter

Please send in an empty cereal box-or two-by next Wednesday. We will use them for an activity with our Kindergarten buddies. If you want to help "wrap" these boxes, please let me know! It is an easy job, but will be time consuming unless we share the work! This is a great opportunity for someone who can't help during the day!

Pumpkin Farm

We enjoyed perfect weather today on our Field Trip to the Pumpkin Farm! Many thanks to our four wonderful chaperones. Michelle Chapman Reinstra, Laura Mattern, Al Nieto and Gloria Garcia. Enjoy the pictures! I'm not a photographer, but I do have pretty cute subjects. Click on the picture to see a bunch of (unedited) pictures from today.