October 27-31

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Conferences are beginning this week!  Please let me know if you are unsure of your scheduled day and time.

Our monthly spelling test will be on WEDNESDAY!  Students will be assessed on all 20 words, regardless of how they did on the pre-test.  If you child has been practicing the words on the challenge list, they may sign up for an optional buddy challenge list test.

Homework packets are due on THURSDAY!!

Friday is our Harvest Party!  We are still looking for the following items:

2 medium round pumpkins
2 brooms (even if you could send one in for borrowing, that would be great!)
6 more butternut squash

For those of you who signed up to bring other items, please be sure to send them to school by Wednesday!  This will allow me enough time to gather up any other materials we will need.

If you signed up for volunteer for our Harvest Party, please plan to be here around 11:45 and stay until about 1:15.  If it happens to rain on the day of the Harvest Party, we will have to cancel our outdoor games and watch a movie instead.  Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough space in our classroom Russell School to accommodate the games if it should rain.  I will make the call on Friday morning and email each of you to let you know what the plan will be.

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with consonant blends.  Blends are two letters that come together to make a sound.  We are working with /dr/, /sl/, /sk/, /sp/, and /st/ blends.  Our focus words are:  slide, slips, dress, drop, skin, task, still, must, crisp, and spell.

Spelling:  We are working with unit 4.  The words are:  out, them, then, she, and many.  We will practice spelling these words correctly and also using them correctly in a sentence.  With our spelling test coming up this week, we will also take some time to review units 1-3.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  rescued, mammal, young, hunger, examines, and normal.  We will define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we will search for them in the short story called “A Whale is Saved!” by Elizabeth Baker.

Comprehension:  We will work on identifying the sequence of events.  This means we will practice retelling telling the events in the order that they happened.  When we are reading, we will look for clue words such as “first, next, then, and last”.  When we retell the story, we will retell the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  We will practice this skill while we read A Harbor Seal Pup Grows Up by Joan Hewett.

Grammar:  We will work with plural nouns.  A plural nouns names more than one person, place, or thing.  Most of the time, we can change a singular noun to a plural nouns by simply adding an -s to the end of the word.

Writing:  We will continue working on how-to writing.  This week, we will begin the shift into November themes!  We will read the story A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman to found out how a small town plans to trick turkeys into becoming their turkey dinners.  Then, we’ll write our own versions of how to catch a turkey.  

Scholastic News:  This week, we will learn all about geese!  When autumn comes, snow geese migrate.  Using the information in the article as well as a map of North America, we will answer questions about the migration pattern of these animals.

Read Aloud:  We are loving Henry Green and his adventure with, Chocolate Fever!  We should finish the book before the end of the week.

Math:  This week, we introduced two new math fact families.  Make 10 and doubles.  When we are adding or subtracting make 10 facts, we are really looking for the missing number.  Here are some examples of +/- make 10 facts:

___ + 3 = 10

6 +  ___ = 10

10 - ____ = 5

10- ____ = 9

Doubles facts are when we add the same number twice.  For example, 1 + 1, 2+2, and 3+3.  The subtraction facts would be 2 - 1= ____, 4 -2 = _____, 6-3 = ______.  

This week, we learned three new games to help us practice these new fact families.  Remember in the fall semester, we are focusing on learning all of the different strategies for solving these equations mentally... and very quickly too I might add.  Once we have learned all of the strategies, students will be held accountable to memorizing them.

In geometry, we have shifted our focus from 2D shapes to mostly 3D shapes.  We will talk about faces, edges, and vertices this week.  We will also continue to practice and identify various 3D shapes.  

During independent work time, students are continuing to work on their own goals during games, activities, worksheets, IXL, or working with me.  There is also the option of geometry challenges, where students can take their knowledge of geometry and extend it even further.  By the end of the week, all students will be assessed to see if they have met our second grade geometry standards.  Be on the lookout for those celebration tickets!

Self Reflection:  In order to prepare for our conferences, Team Howard also took some time to reflect on how they think they are doing in terms of behavior and social goals.  They were asked to rate themselves (always, sometimes, or never) on various aspects of behavior and social goals.  For example, do you listen to the speaker when they are talking?  Do you walk quietly in line?

The information gathered on these student evaluations will be used to develop behavior goals for the year at our parent/teacher/student conferences.

October 20-24

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Tomorrow is an early release day!  Please plan accordingly.

Tomorrow is also spirit day!  Help your child find something green to wear to show their Russell School pride as a second grader!

 Homework packets are due on Thursday!  Please remind your child to put it in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  Remember... no homework packet = no free choice Friday!

Last week, I sent home a green sheet of paper answering all of your questions about homework.  I hope you found the information helpful!

This Friday, we will be going on a field trip to Memorial School.  We will be seeing a live demonstration by Mexican artist Gerardo Ortega Lopez.  If I have not received a permission slip from you yet, I will need it by TOMORROW in order for your child to go on the field trip.  Please sign it and return it to school as soon as possible.

The weather in the morning is getting quite chilly!  Please send your child to school with a sweatshirt or coat of some kind.  Although the weather may warm up by the afternoon,  our morning recess and lunch time recess have been on the colder side.

Conferences will begin next week.  You should have received an orange confirmation paper with the date and time of your child’s conference.  If you did not receive the paper or have misplaced it, please let me know.  I would be happy to tell you when your conference has been scheduled.  Parent and child should be present at this conference.  If you are unable to come to your scheduled conference, please give me at least 48 hours notice so that I can try and reschedule you as best as I can.

Our monthly spelling test is coming right up! You can plan to have your child take the spelling test on Wednesday, October 29th.  This will be a fill in the blank story test.  Team Howard will listen to the story and correctly place the spelling word into the story.  They must spell the word correctly.  In order to be successful on this test, please help your child practice using the words in context!  For example, when should they use “their” and when should they use “there.”  Many words on this month’s spelling list can be tricky!

For student’s who have been practicing the challenge word list, they will be able to sign up for a buddy challenge spelling test.  This test is optional.

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the short and long /u/ sounds.  Our focus words are:  sun, bud, duck, bump, cup, cube, dude, fume, rule, and rude.  

Spelling:  We are focusing on unit 3 this week.  Here are the words:  will, each, about, how, and up.  We will practice spelling these words correctly and also using them appropriately in a sentence.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  drowns, drifts, desert, gently, burst, and neighbor.  We defined these words and built connections to them.  Then, we searched for them in the story called “Plant Power!” by Bradley Roberts.

Comprehension:  This week we will practice drawing conclusions.  When you draw a conclusion, you are thinking about the story and what it is telling you.  Good readers draw conclusions based on what they know, clues in the story, and picture clues.  We’ll practice this skill while we read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

Grammar:  This week we will be working with nouns.  Nouns are people, places, and things.  We’ll read lots of sentences together and determine what is the noun.

Writing:  Since we are going to visit a Mexican artist on Friday, we will begin writing friendly letters.  Our friendly letters will be written to Gerardo Ortega Lopez expressing what we liked best about his demonstration and also thanking him for coming to Maine and teaches us more about his art and the Mexican culture.

Scholastic News:  This week’s issue is titled “Nocturnal Animal Showdown”.  We’ll learn about owls and mice, predators and prey!  Then, we’ll use the information we learned while reading to decide who would win in different situations, the owl or the mouse.

Read Aloud:  We began a great story called Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith.  It is a story about a boy named Henry Green who loves chocolate and eats it as often as he can until... chocolate fever!  He mysteriously breaks out in dark brown spots all over!  This is such a fun story for this time of the year, when many of us can be caught eating lots of candy!

Math:  We are continuing our focus on geometry and Team Howard is on fire!  We have been working incredibly hard not only identifying shapes, but also drawing shapes based on attributes such as sides, angles, and faces!  Ask your child to draw a 3D shape for you today!  We have been loving the challenging world of shapes.   Lessons this week will continue to focus on 2D shapes, however, we will begin to delve more into the world of 3D shapes.  We’ll practice identifying them, drawing them, and counting the number of faces (the flat surfaces of the shape).  As an added challenge, we’ll begin looking at edges and vertices!

Early Release Fun:  Team Howard has earned yet another classroom reward!  To reward the team for filling my heart, we will be spending the day tomorrow immersed in a world of bats and pumpkins!  First, we’ll create a picture graph to find out whether the team thinks bats are cute or creepy.  Then, we’ll read two different fictional stories about bats:  Stellaluna and Bats at the Beach.  We we are finished reading the story, we’ll display data about the class in a fun way... a glyph!  A glyph is a type of picture graph.  Each glyph will differ as the responses from individual students change.  Here are the directions we will be using to create our glyph:

1. Do you like to hang upside down?

Yes- tree branch

No- moon

1. Which story was your favorite?

Stellaluna- Black Bat

Bats at the Beach- Brown Bat

1. Are you afraid of bats?

Yes- red mouth

No- orange mouth

Then, we’ll watch a short video depicting the life cycle of a pumpkin using beautiful time lapse photography.  While watching the video and learning about a pumpkin’s life cycle, we will be creating stained glass pumpkins to display in our windows.  

October 14-17

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Please remember to send back the conference sign up sheet by WEDNESDAY!  It is first come, first serve so be sure to send it back as soon as possible.  If I do not hear from you by Wednesday, I will assign you a time.

Homework packets are due on THURSDAY!  Please remind your child to put it in their packet in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  No homework packet = no free choice Friday!

Mrs. Thibodeau will be visiting us again on Friday.  George and Kelso should also be coming to teach us!

Russell School is supporting the GNG High School Spirit Challenge!  We will be collecting non-perishable food items to donate to the Good Shepard Food Bank from now until October 29.  Money donations are also accepted.  $1.00 = 5 pounds of food!  

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the long and short /o/ sound.  Our focus words are:  box, fox, dog, lock, pot, cone, hope, rose, poke, and rope.

Spelling:  This week we will focus on Unit 2.  The words are:  which, their, said, if and do.  We will practice spelling these words correctly and also using them correctly in a sentence.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  settled, wrinkled, practiced, cuddle, favorite, and patient.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we’ll search for them in the short story called “My New Home” by Miguel Vasquez.

Comprehension:  This week we will be focusing on making and confirming predictions.  A prediction is a reasonable guess about what will happen in the story.  In order to make a good prediction, readers use the text, pictures, and what they already know.  When you confirm your prediction, you read on to find out whether the prediction you made was correct.  We’ll practice this skill while we read My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits.

Grammar:  This week we will focus on quotation marks.  Quotation marks are used at the beginning and end of what a person says.  

Writing:  We will begin our “Harvest Time How To” stories.  Team Howard will pick a harvest time activity to teach someone else how to do.  Ideas might be something like “How to Pick the Perfect Pumpkin” or “How to Go Trick or Treating”.  Using the words first, next, then, and last, students will write the steps for their harvest time activity.  

Scholastic News:  To go along with Columbus Day, we’ll be reading the article about finding the Santa Maria.  The Santa Maria was one of Columbus’ ships.  It sank and no one saw it for 500 years!  When we finished reading the article, we will use a map that shows where Columbus sailed in 1492 to help us answer some questions.

Read Aloud:  We will finish our adventure with Charlotte and Wilbur this week.  As a fun culminating activity, Team Howard will get to pretend to be Charlotte and write words in a web.  Students will think about a positive word that they think describes themselves.  They will then use glitter and glue to spell the word and add it to our web of adjectives that will be hanging in the hallway.  Be sure to check it out on your way to your parent/teacher/student conference!

Math:  We are now fully immersed into the world of shapes!  This week, we will focus on identifying the following shapes:  triangles, squares, rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes.  We’ll also practice identifying sides, angles, and faces of shapes.  We’ll do this by playing “Swat the Shape!” where we use fly swatters to swat the shape that is being described.  Later in the week, we’ll practice drawing 2D shapes from a given set of attributes such as the number of angles or number of sides.  During Team Howard’s independent work time, students will be practicing their individual geometry learning goals through IXL, activities, worksheets, games, and challenge activities.  Challenge activities include working with 3D shapes (recognizing them and identifying attributes such as faces, edges, and vertices), building a tower using 5-10 geoblocks and making a 3D drawing of it, making a book to teach others about 2D and 3D shapes, and mystery shapes where students have to use their knowledge from other math topics such as money, place value, addition, and subtraction to make and name a mystery shape.

We also reviewed telling time to the hour and half hour with a fun activity.  We created our own pocket books and organized 15 clocks by clocks that tell time to the hour and clocks that tell time to the half-hour.  Before we could sort them though, we needed to read the analog time on the clocks and write the digital time.  

Science:  To celebrate our spider reports, we will be watching The Magic School Bus Spins a Web!  In this episode, Miss Frizzle’s class is on a mission to catch a giant praying mantis.  The students will learn about the many ways different spiders catch their prey.  Using their knowledge of spiders, Miss Frizzle’s class will have to decide the best way to catch the preying mantis.

October 6-10

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Homework packets are due on Thursday!!  Please remind your child to put their homework packet in their folders on Wednesday evening.  Remember, no homework = no free choice Friday!  

This week, we will be attending a fire safety assembly.  Our local firefighters will come to school and share with us some fire safety tips for home and at school.  Be sure to talk to your child about some safety tips for your home.

Stay tuned for the “How To” videos for math fact cafe and spelling city.  I’ve been having some difficulties uploading them to both the classroom website and the classroom blog.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about how to use these resources, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

The mornings can be pretty chilly here at Russell School.  Please remember to send your child to school with a sweatshirt or coat for those chilly mornings!

Mondays are our P.E. day.  Please remember to have your child wear flat sneakers or pack them in their backpack to change into.  

Thank you so much to all of the parents who expressed an interest in volunteering this year!  My goal is to reach out to each of you by the end of the week so that we can start developing a schedule.  All volunteers will begin the end of October.  If you would like to volunteer, but have not yet reached out to me (either by email or by filling out the volunteer paper that was sent home at the beginning of the year), please feel free to contact me at any time!

Here are some snack ideas for room 10!

ALWAYS check the labels!!

Apples

Bananas

Grapes

Strawberries

Oranges

Celery Sticks

Carrot Sticks

(any fresh fruits or veggies!)

Canned fruits such as applesauce or mandarin oranges

Nabisco Graham Crackers

Rold Gold Pretzels

Natural Popcorn (not buttered or cheesy)

fruit snacks

pumpkin seeds

sunflower seeds

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the long and short /i/ sound.  Our focus words are:  did, rip, fin, mix, pick, five, nine, side, pipe, and hike.  We reviewed our magic (silent) “e” and how it changes words!  

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  deaf, language, signing, cultures, relatives, and celebrate.  We will define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we’ll search for them in the short story called “A Special Camp” by Kate Jones.

Comprehension:  We will be reviewing main idea and supporting details.  The main idea of a story is what the story is mostly about or the most important point.  It’s usually found at the beginning of the story.  The supporting details give us more information.   We’ll practice this skill while we read Meet Rosina by George Ancona.  

Grammar:  We’ll be reviewing the two parts of a sentence:  the subject and the predicate.  The subject is who or what the story is about.  The predicate tells more about the subject.  

Writing:  We are continuing to work on our Spider Reports.  Last week, we gathered research on Spiders in general and wrote this report together:

Spiders are very interesting animals.  They have eight legs, hair all over, and fangs.  They can be big or small and they can be many different colors.  Their bodies are made up of two parts:  the head and the abdomen.  They also have eight eyes but they can’t see very well.

Spiders use their fangs to catch their prey.  Inside their fangs is venom.  The venom stops their prey so they can eat it.  Spiders don’t chew their food.  They suck the liquids out of it instead.

Different kinds of spiders make different kinds of webs.  Funnel webs look like a tube.  Tangle webs are the kind of webs most people think about when they think about spider webs.  Tangle webs are also called cobwebs.  

Not all spiders make webs, but all spiders have silk.  It is stretchy and strong.  They use it in different ways.  Some use silk to travel.  Some use silk to wrap their prey.  Others use silk to wrap their eggs.

All spiders start out as eggs.  Mother spiders protect their eggs by keeping the eggs in an egg sac.  Once the baby spiders are born, they are called spiderlings.

As you can see, there are a lot of interesting facts about spiders!

This report will serve as a model for how Team Howard will write their reports.  The team will be divided into groups of two.  Each group will study one specific spider.  They will find information about what it looks like, what it eats, where it lives, and some interesting facts.  Then, they will write a report together.  

At the end of the week, students will be given a writing challenge.  They will choose two different writing prompts that they wish to respond to.  In their responses, they will show me what they think it their best writing.  Using these responses and their previous writing, we will develop our first writing goals for the year.  

Spelling Words:  This week, we will focus on Unit 1.  The words are:  we, there, can, an, and your.  We will practice how to spell these words and also how to use them in context.  Then, students will work independently to use each word correctly in a sentence.

Read Aloud:  We are still on our Charlotte’s Web adventure!  Wilbur is getting closer and closer to going to the fair.  We are so excited to learn more about his journey with Charlotte.

Scholastic News:  This week, we will introduce Scholastic News.  It is a second grade level newspaper.  This week’s issue is about goats and how they prevent wildfires.  When we are finished reading the article, we will practice our reading skill of the week:  identifying the main idea and supporting details.  We will answer questions about the Scholastic News article as a whole group.  As the year progresses, students will be challenged to read and answer Scholastic News issues independently.

Math:  We will be finishing up our graphing unit and unpacking our next focus unit... geometry!  In second grade, students are asked to recognize and identify the following shapes:  circles, squares, rectangles, trapezoids, rhombuses, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes.  They also need to know about quadrilaterals.  They will need to identify what features of a shape make a shape a quadrilateral and be able to recognize shapes as quadrilaterals.  Second graders also need to have an understanding of sides and angles.  Using this understanding, they will recognize and draw all of the shapes named above.   This week, we will simply be unpacking the standard and doing some whole group activities to help us understand exactly what our learning expectations are.

We have introduced a math fact game to help us with our first two math fact families:  +/- 1 and +/- 2.  We can use our +/- 1 or 2 bingo to help us practice recalling these facts quickly.  At the beginning of the year, our main focus is to develop and practice strategies to help us recall these facts quickly (three seconds or less).  As the year progresses, students will be held accountable for memorizing these math fact families.

We will also be using Wilbur to help us review clocks and how to tell time!  After reviewing the parts of a clock, we will work together on Swine Time!  In this activity, students will have to match the digital time in a sentence about our Charlotte’s Web characters to the clock found on the pigs.  

Finally, we will review what we know about coins.  After talking about the identifying features of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, students will have to “spot the coin” on a worksheet that has all kinds of coins mixed up on it! 


Phew!  We are going to be one very busy team this week!  If you have any questions, comments, or insights, please let me know.

Have a wonderful week!