November 17-24

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Wednesday is an early release day so please plan accordingly.  Since our early release days are also spirit days, we are asking that all Russell Students wear their favorite fall color on Wednesday!

Homework packets are due on Thursday!  Please help you child make sure their homework is in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  In order to get free choice Friday, students must have AT LEAST five checks for reading, two checks for spelling, and two checks for math.

Thursday will be our big spelling test for the November spelling words.  If you would like to help prepare your child, make sure they not only know how to spell the word correctly but also how to use it correctly in a sentence.

This week in...

Spelling:  We will focus on units 7 and 8.  The words are:  like, him, see, time, could, no, make, than, first, and been.  We’ll practice spelling them correctly and also using them correctly in a sentence.

Language Arts:  We’ll be practicing a variety of skills this week with a Thanksgiving theme!  Here are some of the things we will be doing:

Nonfiction Reading:  We’ll read a nonfiction books about wild turkeys.  When we are finished reading the book, we will collect the various facts that we learned from the story.

Thankful thoughts:  To help us get into true Thanksgiving spirit, we will be making thankful turkeys to display the list of things we are grateful for this time of year.

Mayflower Facts:  Thanksgiving began with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and the Native Americans here in America.  We’ll be reading a book and collecting facts throughout the week.  Then, students will make mini books showing some of the most interesting facts we found.

Story Elements:  With story elements being such a huge focus in second grade, we practiced identifying them again today with a great story called Too Many Pumpkins.  After reading the story, students were challenged to identify the title, characters, setting, beginning, middle, end, problem, solution, and moral of the story.

Flat Stanley:  We will be making our flat selves this week!  We will also be writing friendly letters to the friends and family members who agreed to help us with this project.  Once the letters are complete and the flat kids are drawn, we’ll be sending Team Howard in the mail so they can begin their adventure all over the world!  As we begin to receive our flat kids back, we’ll be able to track our adventures using many different kinds of maps.  We’ll also be calculating the number of miles we have traveled.  This is definitely going to be a memorable project.

Math:   We will be finishing up our fraction unit this week.  After some quick review, Team Howard will be given the final fraction challenge to see where they are with their goals.  Later, we will be applying what we learned during our fraction unit to make fractionpillars!  This will be a creative project where students will create a caterpillar using various shapes.  When their caterpillar is complete, they will have to write the fraction of each shape that make up the caterpillar.  These will then be on display in our classroom for all to see.

Read Aloud:  We are continuing our adventure with Stanley in Stanley, Flat Again.  Today, Stanley helped win a sailing race by becoming the sail of a boat!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

November 10-14

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

There will be no school tomorrow as it is Veterans Day.  Be sure to thank a veteran for their service!

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

Mrs. Thibodeau will be visiting with us this Friday!  Her friends Kelso and George will be tagging along as well.  We’ll learn more about Kelso’s choices and how to solve the small problems we might encounter when we are playing with our friends.

Please remember to send your child to school with their coats.  Even hats and mittens have come to the rescue recently!  With our early recess, we have had to deal with some of the cooler temperatures during the day.

If you have not done so already, please remember to send the Flat Stanley page back to school with the name and address of someone who would be willing to participate in this project.  If you do not know someone who lives in a different state or different part of Maine, please let me know and I will find someone for your child to write to.  We need everyone’s addresses before we can begin this project.  Please contact me if you have any questions.  

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the long /i/ sound.  We are practicing the spelling patterns igh, ie, i, and y.  Here are our focus words:  light, sight, high, wild mind, dry, cry, try, tie, and lie.

Spelling:  We are focusing on unit 6 this week.  The words are:  into, has, more, her, and two.  We’ll practice spelling these words as well as using them correctly in a sentence.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  peered, giggled, snuggled, fluttered, vanished, and recognized.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we’ll search for them in a short story called “Leo Grows Up” by Kevin Lee.

Comprehension:  We will focus on two skills this week.  First, we will focus on making inferences.  When you make an inference you make a decision based on clues in the story and what you already know.  We’ll also focus on story elements.  Team Howard will practice identifying the title, characters, setting, beginning, middle, end, problem, solution, and moral of the story.  We’ll practice these skills while we read Farfallina and Marcel by Holly Keller.

Writing:  This week we will focus on writing and publishing a personal narrative.  Here is what students will be expected to show in their writing:
I can reread my writing to check for mistakes and places where I could make my writing better.

I have a good topic sentence that gets my reader’s attention and introduces my writing.  

My story goes in order and makes sense.  I use transition words.

My story gives lots of details that make a picture in my reader’s mind.

I used some interesting words to make my writing fun to read.

My sentences start with a capital letter.

I have correct ending punctuation.

Most of my words are spelled correctly.

I have a good closing sentence that brings my writing to a nice end.

Team Howard will be writing “Ouch!” stories while they practice these things.  Their story will tell us all about a time that they got hurt.  I, for one, am so excited to hear what they come up with.

Grammar:  This week we will work with possessive nouns.  A possessive noun shows who or what has something.  To do this, we add an apostrophe and an s to a singular noun to make it possessive.  Here are some examples:  duck’s, cow’s, Joe’s, Sally’s, cat’s, etc.

Fluency:  This week, I will be reading a great book that will help us understand what fluency really means.  The book is called Wolf! by Becky Bloom.  In the story, a wolf is determined to become a better reader.  First, he reads too slow.  Then, he reads too fast! Finally, he learns how to read at an appropriate pace and with his very own style.  After reading the book, Team Howard will work with partners and practice different fluency passages so that they may find their own style too!

Math:  We are continuing our adventure with fractions!  Each day we are practicing how to divide circles and rectangles into two, three, and four equal parts.  A big focus has been to use fraction words when describing these parts (halves, thirds, and fourths).  We will also do a lot of work with writing fractions correctly.  We’re even using big fraction words like numerator and denominator!  We will also continue to focus on how to say each fraction (i.e. one half, one third, one fourth, etc.)

Scholastic News:  With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we will be reading about the first Thanksgiving.  Did you know that the first Thanksgiving happened almost 400 years ago?  After reading about the meal between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, we’ll use a chart to answer questions about how Pilgrims cooked and ate.  

Read Aloud:  We just finished Flat Stanley’s original adventure.  We will continue to travel with Stanley in Stanley, Flat Again! by Jeff Brown.  After Stanley Lambchop goes flat again, he uses his flatness to win a sailboat race and rescue a classmate from a collapsed building.

November 3-7

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

It was very cold this morning at recess!  Please be sure to send your child to school with a coat, hat, and mittens.  It's better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them!

There will be more conferences tomorrow.  If you are not sure what time you should be meeting with me, please contact me as soon as possible so that I can let you know.

Picture retakes are this Thursday, November 6th.  If you would like your child to retake their school picture, please let me know so I can send them down at the appropriate time.

Homework packets are due on THURSDAY!  Please help your child put their homework packet in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  

November marks the start of new spelling words!  We will be working on units 5-8 this month.  Your child took their pretest today.  Be on the lookout for them at home!  They will be coming home sometime this week.  Attached to the pretest you will find words from the previous month that your child might need more practice with as well as the second bonus word list for an added challenge.  

THIS WEEK IN…

Phonics:  We are working with the long /a/ sound.  We are practicing words with the /ai/ and /ay/ spelling patterns.  Here are our focus words:  main, wait, sail, tail, train, jay, pay, stay, hay, and may.

Spelling:  We will focus on unit 5.  Our words are:  some, so, these, would, and other.  We'll practice using these words correctly in a sentence as well as how to spell them correctly.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  serious, broken, personal, informs, and heal.  We will define these words and build connections to them to help us remember them better.  Then, we will search for them in two different short stories called, "A Ride to Help" and "Time for an X-Ray".

Comprehension:  We will continue working with the order of events.  When we are thinking about the events in the order that they happen, we can use signal words like first, next, then, and last to help us.  We'll practice this skill while we read A Trip to the Emergency Room.

Writing:  Now that we have had plenty of practice building our writing stamina as well as learning where all of our writing materials are, where we can practice our writing goals, what we can write about, we are ready to introduce our journal writing rubric.  In our classroom, each student receives a writing journal.  This is where they can do most of their free writing during daily 5 time.  This week, we will focus on journal writing expectations.  Here is the rubric we will be using:

Journal Writing Checklist	I can do it!
I have a capital letter at the beginning of every sentence.
I have correct ending punctuation. .       ?       !
I have finger spaces between my words.
I tried my best with spelling and underlined the words I didn’t know.
My writing gives lots of details that make a picture in the reader’s mind. For example: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? What did you... see?                 hear?               feel?                 smell?        taste?
My writing makes sense when I reread it to myself.

 

This week, we will practice free writing in our journals and then checking our rubrics to make sure our writing is meeting expectations.  We'll also practice what to do if you notice that your writing doesn't completely show something on the rubric.

Grammar:  We will work with proper nouns.  Some nouns name a special person, place, or thing.  This kind of noun is called a proper noun.  Proper nouns always begin with a capital letter.  Here are some examples of proper nouns:  Mrs. Howard, Riverside Hospital, Maple Drive, Monday, November, etc.

Read Aloud:  We are heading out on an adventure with Flat Stanley!  This story is a great story written by Jeff Brown.  It is about a boy named Stanley who gets flattened by a bulletin board.  Then, we get to follow him on his adventures.  We will also be doing a really fun project to go along with this book.  This week, you will receive a paper asking you to provide the name and address of someone who lives outside the state of Maine.  This person will be someone who agrees to receive a letter and flat kid from our classroom.  They get to take this flat student on an adventure with them and then send the flat kid back with a letter telling us about their adventure.  Please look to the letter for more information.

Math:  We are moving onto our fractions standard.  Here is what the standard states:

Students must be able to divide circles and rectangles into two, three, and four equal parts.  They will refer to these parts at halves, thirds, and fourths.  A whole can be recognized as two halves, three thirds, or four fourths.  The same fraction of an identical whole does not need to be the same shape.

Our lessons this week will focus on dividing circles and rectangles into two, three, and four equal parts.  We will then practice referring to these parts as halves, thirds, and fourths.  We will also practice writing 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4.  Students are going to love the challenge of dividing up shapes in different ways!  For example, we could divide a rectangle into halves horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.  

Money:  We are going to review adding different coins together.  This week, we will practice adding pennies and nickels, then pennies and dimes.  The activity will have student's practicing identifying the coins, naming the values, and adding the coins together.  

Math Facts:  We are continuing to practice different strategies for adding and subtracting 1 or 2, making ten and subtracting from ten, as well as adding and subtracting doubles.  Today, we learned a fun rap about adding doubles.  Check out the video we watched and then practiced.

I made copies of the words so that Team Howard can practice at home if they would like.  Have them sing it to

Scholastic News:  This week's issue will focus on veterans.  We will learn about the different jobs men and women in the armed forces do.   Then, we will read a short article about hardworking dogs.  Using that article, we will answer questions about key details in the text.

Have a great week!