September 29 - October 3

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Unfortunately Mrs. Thibodeau wasn’t able to make it into our classroom last week but we rescheduled for this week!  It will be great to see George and Mrs. Tippy Toes again!

Beginning this week, I will be sending home homework.  This week, you will receive a “Homework Survival Guide” to help you understand how the packet will work and expectations for homework.  Expect to see homework come home this Thursday!  It will not be due until the following Thursday!

This year we will be inviting family and friends to come into our classroom as mystery readers!  Look for more information in totes on Thursday!

Our specials schedule:

Monday:  P.E.
Tuesday:  Music
Wednesday:  Art
Thursday:  Spanish
Friday:  Library

Please feel free to send in a water bottle with your child!  They can fill it in the morning and keep it on their desk so that they can stay hydrated throughout the day.  Please make sure that it is only water that is in the water bottle!

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the short /o/, short /e/, and short /u/ sounds.  Here are our focus words: went, tell, pet, job, fog, not, tug, hut, tub, and bun.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  share, wonderful, company, delighted, thinning, and enjoyed.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.  Then we’ll search for them in the short story “Making Muffins and a Friend” by Vanessa Lavin.

Comprehension:  This week we will focus on the plot of a story!  The plot is the events that take place in the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  In the beginning of the story, you find that a character has a problem.  In the middle of the story, something happens to solve the problem.  At the end of the story, the problem is usually solved.  We’ll practice this skill while we read Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea by Cynthia Rylant.

Grammar:  We will work with commands and exclamations.  A command is a sentence that tells someone to do something.  It usually begins with an action word and ends with a period.  An exclamation is a sentence that shows strong feeling.  An exclamation should begin with a capital letter and end with an exclamation point.

Writing:  This week, we will introduce reports.  A report gives information about a topic.  This information gives facts based on research.  To go along with our read aloud and to get into the spooky spirit of October, we will research spiders!  In a small group, students will use a resource to gather information on spiders.  We’ll find information about what they look like, what they eat, webs, baby spiders, and helpful spiders.  Then, we’ll compile our research and write a report about spiders.  Starting next week, students will research a specific kind of spider in a small group.  They will find information about what the spider looks like, where it lives, what it eats, as well as some interesting facts.  Then, the group will work together to write a report.

Math:  We are continuing our focus on graphs!  We will continue to work with bar graphs, picture graphs, and line plots.  Our goal is to be able to read these graphs and interpret the data that is shown.  We should be able to talk about how many are in each category, which categories have the most and the least, and also be able to compare more than one category using words like more than, less than, how many more, and how many less.  As a group, we are designing our very own survey questions and gathering data from the team.  Then, using that data we will create a bar graph or picture graph to present to the team.

Social Studies:  Mrs. Sylvester was so kind to lend us her “Olden Days” book!  The book has beautiful illustrations and great descriptions about many of the tools that have changed over the years.  It’s a great connection to what we saw at the fair and also in the “Long Ago, Yesterday, and Today” move we watched.

Read Aloud: We are continuing our adventure through Charlotte’s Web!  With our barn books, we are drawing what we are visualizing while we are listening to the story, gathering characters, and gathering interesting words!

Have an awesome week!

September 22-26

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Thank you so much for all of your sweet words!  It touched my heart to know so many of you were sending your thoughts to me and my family these past couple days.  The days were tough but we’re getting through it!

Tomorrow is picture day!

Mrs. Thibodeau, our guidance counselor, will be coming to our classroom tomorrow to talk with us about our district’s core values, I CARE!  With the help of her friend George, the monkey, we will focus on how we care for ourselves, care for others, and core for our school.  We love when Mrs. Thibodeau comes to visit!

Please remember that we are a peanut safe school and our classroom is a peanut and nut free classroom as well as a cheesy powdered snack free classroom.  Please keep these snacks as at-home snacks!  If you need a list of snack suggestions, please let me know!  I would be happy to send home some allergy-safe alternatives that are welcome in our classroom!  Thank you for helping us keep our Russell School students safe!

Our special schedule:

Monday:  P.E.
Tuesday:  Music
Wednesday:  Art
Thursday:  Spanish
Friday:  Library

CLASSROOM WISHLIST:    It would be greatly appreciated if any of you would be willing and able to donate some allergy-safe snacks for the classroom.  These snacks would be available to any student who may have forgotten their snack at home that day.    We would love to have some ROLD GOLD pretzels or NABISCO graham crackers!

THIS WEEK:

Phonics:  This week, we are working with the short and long /a/ sound.  Here are our focus words:  bag, cap, ham, bake, ate, mad, back, cape, made, and rake.  We loved meeting with our friend “magic e” again!  Here is a great video that I plan to show the students this week.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  safe, flames, tell, forest, and heat.  We defined these words and built connections to them so they are easier to remember.  Then, we searched for them in the short stories “Firehouse Friendships” and “ A Special Bear”.

Comprehension:  We are focusing on identifying the main idea and supporting details.  The main idea of a story is what the story is mostly about.  The supporting details give us more information!  We practiced this skill while we read Fighting the Fire.  What a great story to help us connect with the fire safety presentation that will be coming to school soon!

Grammar:  This week we are working with the two parts of a sentence:  the subject and the predicate.  The subject tells who or what the story is about.  The predicate tells more about the subject.  For example, in the following sentence:

“Firefighters help save people.”

Firefighters are the subject, since that is WHO the sentence is about.

Writing:  We will be writing a description and who better to describe than our best friends!  In our description, we’ll include information about our friends such as who they are, how we met them, what we like to do together, and our feelings about them!  Here is my model description:

My best friend Miko lives in Virginia.  That’s not where she has always lived, though!  We grew up together in a small town called Chino Hills in California.  That’s where we met.  She is always smiling and gives the best hugs!  One of our favorite things to do together was to be captains of our high school swim team.  We loved swimming with our team and cheering them on every step of the way!  I’m so glad I met Miko.  She is the best!

Math:  We are continuing our focus on graphs!  We will be reading and interpreting bar graphs, pictographs, and line plots.  We are explaining the data we see using words like most, least, more than, and less than.  We’ll also be comparing the data we see in order to be able to tell how many more or how many less a particular category will have.  Fingers crossed we’ll be able to start planning our own individual survey questions this week!

Social Studies:  The Cumberland Fair was a great kickoff for some of our social studies curriculum.  We were able to see so much of our community’s history, including a lot of the old tools!  We watched a video called Long Ago, Yesterday, and Today where they compared a lot of the tools we use now to the tools we used many years ago.  It was so exciting to see how things have changed over the years.  Then, we worked on two different activities.  First, we labeled pictures of different modes of transportation with either “now” or “then”.  Next, we matched pictures of old tools to the tool we use today to do the same job.  For example, we matched an old typewriter to a new computer.

Science:  Together, we went on an adventure outside!  We went on a plant scavenger hunt.  Looking around our playground, we had to find the following things:

-tallest plant
-two kinds of grasses
-two flowers
-two seeds
-something made from plants
-two leaves
-a plant that has yellow on it
-a plant that has red on it

Read Aloud:  We are still loved the world of Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.  We love using our barn books to draw a picture of what we are visualizing during the chapter that day, writing a sentence to summarize the chapter, collecting characters, and tuning into interesting words!

I hope you have a lovely week!

September 15-19

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Permission Slips for our first field trip have gone home!  We will be going to the Cumberland Fair on Tuesday, September 23.  Please sign and return the permission slip as soon as possible!  If you would like to chaperone, please contact me.  Be sure to fill out the volunteer paperwork and send it back to school if you haven't already done so.  I'll be in touch with any volunteers by the end of the week just to confirm that you will be attending.  

Every student should have a two-pocket folder as their "everyday folder".  This folder will come to school and go home everyday.  Some days there might be papers in there, some days there won't.  We just want the folders here just in case!  If your child does not have a two-pocket folder, please let me know and I will make sure you child gets one.

Blue totes will be sent home every Thursday!  Most likely, they will only be stuffed with papers every other week.  However, we want to make sure we get a good routine going!  These totes should be returned to school the following day.

Please feel free to send a water bottle to school with your child!  They can keep it on their desk so that they can stay hydrated throughout the day.  The only rule is that water bottles contain water only.

Breakfast! Breakfast! Breakfast!  Breakfast is available to all students free of charge this year!  Simply tell your child that they should get breakfast that morning.  They will have time to eat it in the classroom.  If you do not want your child to participate in the breakfast program, please let me know!

Our specials schedule:

Monday:  P.E.
Tuesday:  music
Wednesday:  art
Thursday:  Spanish
Friday:  Library

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the short /a/ sound and the short /i/ sound.  Here are our focus words:  has, sat, wag, had, bad, fix, six, him, will, and if.  We sorted these words and spelled these words with our words and our bodies!  

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  tomorrow, different, groan, excited, carefully, and whisper.  We will define these words, use them in a sentence, and build connections to them.  Then, we will search for them in the short story called School is Starting by Josh Singh.  

Comprehension:  Our focus skill of the week will be to identify characters and setting.  The characters are the people or animals in the story.  We will be thinking about what the characters say and do to figure out what the character is feeling.  The setting is where and when a story takes place.  Thinking about the setting will help us understand how the place and time might affect what the characters say and do in the story.   We'll practice this skill while we read David's New Friends.

Grammar:  This week we will be focusing on sentences and statements.  A sentence is a group of words that tells a complete thought.  A sentence should always begin with a capital letter.  A statement is a kind of sentence that tells something.  Statements end with a period.

Writing:  We will continue to build our writing stamina while we practice skills that will help us with our first writing project:  a personal narrative.  A personal narrative is a true story about yourself.  This week, we will focus on brainstorming ideas for a personal narrative and building "I" sentences.  For example, I went apple picking.  We will be placing a focus on making sure that our sentences are complete.

Daily 5:  This week, we will introduce read to someone and word work.  Read to Someone will be a time for us to really work on our fluency, reading a story accurately, smoothly, and with expression.  We'll practice finding partners, how and where to sit, checking for understanding, making deals, and reading three different ways.  When we read to someone, we can either read the same book or we could even read different books.  We'll practice the appropriate times for each.  Word work helps us become better spellers and writers.  This week, we'll introduce our word work stations and practice spelling our phonics words of the week.  A lot of emphasis will be placed on how to set up and clean up from word work.

CAFE:  CAFE is an acronym for different focuses in reading:  comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanding vocabulary.  We'll use this acronym to help us organize different reading strategies that we will use.  This week, we will introduce a comprehension strategy (check for understanding) and an expanding vocabulary strategy (tune into interesting words). 

Read Aloud:  We just began our first chapter book of the year... Charlotte's Web!  To go along with this book, we will be working in our barn books.  In our barn books, we will be drawing pictures of what we are visualizing while reading as well as writing a summary for each chapter.  We will also keep track of any human or animal characters we meet.  To take it one step further, we will also be "tuning into interesting words" (our CAFE strategy) while we read.  Then, we will write the definition of those interesting words and practice using them in a sentence.

Math:  We have begun our graphing unit!  We will be working with bar graphs, pictographs, and line plots.  This week, we will focus on collecting data and using that data to create one the graphs I mentioned.  Then, we will look at the graphs and discuss what we see.  We will use words like most, least, more than, and less than.  We will also be able to talk about specific amounts we see in a particular category.

Classroom Community:  Last week, we created our classroom vision.  Here it is!

***to the tune of yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

Yo, ho, yo, ho, together we’re a team

We respect our school, respect each other

Respect ourselves, yo ho.  

We’ll have so much fun, we’ll share with each other

Our smiles, our laughs, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho, together we’re a team

Creative we are, we learn from each other

Our brains will grow, yo ho.

We take on a challenge, give us another 

We’ll meet our goals, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho together we’re a team

We’ll each do our jobs, look out for each other

Good friends we’ll be, yo ho.

We’ll learn and laugh and play and grow

This year’s the best, yo ho!

Reading, writing, science, and math

We’ll learn so much, yo ho!

Together we’ll be, as tight as can be

Our team, we love, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho together we’re a team

We care for others, we help them out

Whenever they’re in need, 

When we do all these things, it’s so exciting

Our vision does come true!

Yo ho, yo ho, together we’re, together we’re, together we’re a team!

As you can see, we decided that respect, teamwork, creativity, and fun were the most important things to us and those were the things we needed to have the best year ever in second grade!

We then started talking about our Code of Cooperation, rules that will help the classroom vision come true.  Here they are:

Fun:

Be in control of your body.

Teamwork:  

Everyone has to do their part.

Creative:

Stay focused and never give up!

Respect:

Treat others the way you want to be treated.

When we do all of these things, we are really being our BEST selves!  When we are our BEST, our vision comes true!

This week, we'll work on unpacking our Code of Cooperation.  That means, we'll be talking about what it would look like if we were following each code.

We are definitely going to be one busy team this week!  Have a great week!

September 8-12

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Please remember to fill out the papers that went home in the Russell School blue totes last week!  Totes will be going home every other Thursday so be on the lookout for those!

Please send back any information papers that you received at ice cream social or on the first day of school in the manila envelope that had your child's name on it.  Papers like bus schedule, helping hands, and student information would have been found in that envelope.

Today, you should have received a classroom information paper with answers to some of the questions you may find yourself having after the first few days of school.  Please make it a point to look over this paper as it holds a lot of important classroom information!

WE DO HAVE SEVERE ALLERGIES IN THE CLASSROOM!  Please do not send in any snacks that contain peanuts (including peanut butter snacks), tree nuts, nuts, or cheesy snacks (such as goldfish, doritos, cheetos, or smart food).  Healthy alternatives such as fruits, vegetables, or crackers are great for a snack!  I would be more than happy to send home a snack suggestion list if you would like one!

THIS WEEK IN...

Classroom Procedures:  We are very busy creating SOPs (standard operating procedures) for our regular classroom procedures.  Today, we created one that will help us get ready in the morning.  Throughout the week, we will also create them for our pack up time, getting ready for lunch, and hand washing.

***Ask your child about our morning song!

Safety:  We have been talking about fire drills.  Today, we practiced with just our class.  We practiced linely up quickly, exiting the building quickly and safely, and also waiting quietly in the fields while we wait for the next direction.  This week, we will also practice as a whole school.  Talk to your child about our fire drill procedure.

Whole Brain Teaching:  I am a big supporter of whole brain teaching and action based learning.  Throughout our day, you will find us activating all parts of our brains (ask your child to sing the parts of the brain song for you!) and getting our bodies moving.  We have been learning and participating in many different brain boosts that involve us singing, dancing, and having fun!  In order to facilitate learning, we have been learning different ways to get our whole brain activated.  Ask your child about mirrors, teach/ok!, and our smiley/frowney board!  All of these things and more play a very important part in our learning.  More information about this will be coming to you in the next few weeks.

New friends:  We have been having so much fun getting to meet new friends!  We are learning everyone's name and a little something about them.  Together, we have been playing games and doing fun projects.  For example, we were given partners to interview.  From that interview, we were able to create a page for our first classroom book, Second Grade Friends!

Classroom Culture:  We have been building a classroom culture mostly through the use of children's books.  Each book we have read and will read in these couple weeks has a very special lesson for us.  Here are some books that we read last week and will read this week as well.

This book is a great story about a young mouse named Wemberly.  She worries about everything, especially the first day of school!  We spent some time talking about some of the things we worry about and what we can do when we get those worrying butterflies!  Some of us said we think about it and then let it go.  Others said that talking about our worries with friends and family members help!

The other students at school think Chrysanthemum's name is just plain different.  They make comments about it and make Chrysanthemum feel sad.  Then, a music teacher helps other students realize that Chrysanthemum is a beautiful name, as is everyone else's!  We used this story to talk about a very important topic... kindness!  Before reading this story, we took a beautiful cutout of a heart and pretended that it belonged to Chrysanthemum.  Every time we heard something that might hurt her feelings, we wrinkled the heart a little bit.  At the end of the story, we tried to fix all of the wrinkles hoping to make it just as beautiful as before!  Unfortunately, the wrinkles remained.  In order to help make Chrysanthemum's heart feel better, we each signed a bandaid with our name making a promise to always keep the following poem in our thoughts.

Click on the cover of this book for a video!

This is simple but beautiful story about the importance of helping others!

Today we learned all about being bucket fillers!  This book has a great metaphor for happiness... a bucket!  When our bucket is full, we feel happy.  When our bucket is empty, we feel sad.  Today we learned about how we can fill our bucket and help to fill the buckets of others as well.  Here is a picture of the chart that we created.

The rest of the week, we will read books that teach us about the importance of being ourselves, to remember that it is ok to make mistakes, that everyone learns and grows at their own pace, and last but not least, the importance of teamwork and leadership!

Here are the books that we will be reading the rest of this week.

Introducing the Daily 5:  The daily 5 is a system for how students can practice to become better readers and writers.  The first part of the daily 5 is "Read to Self".  This is when students are reading independently.  We have learned the 3 ways to read a book.

We have also built an independence chart to tell us what teachers and students should be doing during read to self time.  We have been building our stamina slowly but surely!  We started with just three minutes and now we are up to 5 minutes.  We'll continue building our stamina until we get to about 25 minutes of uninterrupted work time, where students do not get tired or give up.  Here is our independence chart:

This week, we will also introduce "Work on Writing".  We will create heart maps to give us ideas to write about.   We will brainstorm where we can write around the room and also the different types of writing that we might want to do.  For example, we might want to write a story or a friendly letter.  Then, just like "Read to Self" we will create an independence chart.  This will tell us exactly what we need to do during "Work on Writing" time so that we can become better and more independent writers. We'll use this chart as we practice building up our writing stamina.  Again, we'll start with just three minutes and we will work our way up to 25 minutes.

Classroom Vision:  Perhaps one of the most important things we have been working on creating is our classroom vision.  Our vision is our hopes and dreams for the best year ever in second grade.  Our vision gives us a clear picture of what we want and what we are working towards.  Here is our Russell School Vision as an example:

We the students of Russell School,
Promise to be respectful
Happy, healthy, friendly too
Kind and caring help you
Working hard and focusing
Helps us learn important things!

Have your child sing it to you!

In order to create our classroom vision, each student has been adding their ideas to three different questions:  What makes a great school?  What makes a great teacher?  What makes a great student?  After we have gathered all of the ideas we have put them into categories.  This week, we will vote on the categories which I will then turn into a classroom vision that the team can vote on.   This is very exciting stuff!  Be sure to tune in soon for more information!

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or insights please let me know!  Have a wonderful week!