October 19-23

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

I just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your overwhelming support last week.  It was a tough week, to say the least, but I could tell that every member of Team Howard was loved and supported at home.  I appreciate all the time and careful effort you took in sharing the news with your child and giving them the support that they needed.  I also thank you so much for all the support you gave me.  Although the loss of a student brought on a feeling indescribable sadness, I could feel the support and encouragement from all of you.  Whether it be the emails I received, the hugs in the hallway, or just your encouraging thoughts... thank you.

Bus safety was postponed and we will be attending the assembly this Wednesday instead.

Mrs. Thibodeau will also be visiting us again!  

Conferences begin this week and continue into next week.  Today, each of you should have received an orange half sheet of paper letting you know the time and date for your child's conference.  Remember, these are a three-way conference so your child needs to attend the conference with you.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

Spelling Tests:  Your child's first corrected spelling test went home today.  You'll see two scores.  They received a score for being able to spell the word correctly when given a traditional spelling test and also a score for being able to use the words correctly in a sentence.  Any words that were missed (in spelling or in sentences) will be added to your child's personal review list for our review week.

Homework reminder:  Please refer to your homework survival guide for the spelling words for the entire year as well as a list of suggestions for how to practice.  The unit we are focused on will be labeled on your child's homework packet and listed on this blog.

THIS WEEK IN:

Spelling:  We are working on unit 2.  The words are:  which, said, do, if, and their.  Our spelling test will be on Friday.

Phonics:  We are working with the long and short a sounds.  Here our our focus words:  bag, cap, mad, back, ham, cape, bake, made, ate, and rake.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  safe, flames, tell, forest, and heat.  We'll define these words, use them in a sentence, and build connections to them.  Then, we'll search for them in two short stories called "Firehouse Friendships" and "A Special Bear."

Comprehension:  We will focus on identifying the main idea and supporting details.  The main idea is what a passage is mostly about.  The supporting details give more information about that idea.  We'll practice this skill while we read Fighting the Fire.

Grammar:  We'll be talking about the two parts of a sentence:  subject and predicate.  The subject of a sentence is who or what the sentence is about.  The predicate gives information about the subject.

Scholastic News:  We'll be reading an article all about Mo Willems, the amazing author of the Elephant and Piggie series!  After reading the article, we'll answer questions about fiction and nonfiction texts.

Writing:  This week, we will continue our work with identifying small moments.  Today, we went on a safari and used our binoculars to zoom in on a small moment.  These moments can be called seed stories.  For example, a pumpkin story might be going to the grocery store.  Seed stories could be when I dropped a jar of tomato sauce, getting a squeaky cart, or not being able to find the quinoa.
We'll use our brainstormed list of ideas to begin writing a seed story of our own.  We are really going to focus on the brainstorming piece of writing.  First, how to get an idea.  Second, how to write about our idea.  And last, how to make our story sound even better.

Math:  We are finishing up our unit on graphing and will be moving into the amazing world of geometry!  Here is our second grade standard:

I can identify shapes such as triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes.  I can identify and draw shapes given specific attributes such as number of sides,number of angles, or number of faces.  I can recognize a 3D shape.

This new adventure is certainly going to be a lot of fun!

Science:  We are SO lucky!  Pineland Farms kindly donated pumpkins to our classroom for a science project!  Since we are working on landforms, we are working on painting our pumpkins to look like globes.  We'll add the oceans, the continents, and labels.  We began painting today and let me tell you... there were some seriously happy students in room 10!