February 1-5

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Team Howard welcomes Miss Gilmour to the team!  Samantha Gilmour is an education student from the University of Maine Farmington.  She will be student teaching with us until May.  We are so excited to have her on our team!

You’ll see two papers come home from Miss Gilmour today.  One is a survey and the other is a permission slip.  During her student teaching experience she will be taking pictures to add to her portfolio.  The permission slip will let her know whether or not you would like your child to be photographed.  Your child’s name will never be used with the photograph.  If you have questions, please let me know.

Next week, the second grade team at Russell School will be holding a fairy tale ball!  For the next two weeks, we will be studying fairy tales.  Next week, your child will select their favorite fairy tale character and create a poster.  They are also invited to come to school dressed like their character for the ball.  This can be a SIMPLE costume.  It could be as simple as a hat.  Please look out for more information coming home in your child’s folder at the end of the week.

THIS WEEK IN...

Spelling:  We are working on Unit 11.  The words are:  way, find, use, may, and water.  

Phonics:  We are working with the long /u/ sound with the spelling pattern u_e.  The focus words are:  mule, June, fuse, duke, use, tune, dune, and flute.  The words bugle and music do not follow this pattern.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are tips, obeys, attention, accident, enormous, and buddy.  We’ll practice defining these words, using them in a sentence, and building connections to them.  Then, we’ll search for the words in the short story called “Safety and School” by Brian Sullivan.

Comprehension:  We will focus on using illustrations.  When we use illustrations we are looking for clues to help us better understand the story.  We’ll practice this skill while we read Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann.

Scholastic News:  Since tomorrow is Groundhog Day, we’ll be reading a special issue of Scholastic News all about Ms. G, a groundhog from Massachusetts.  Then, we’ll answer questions about Ms. G providing evidence from the text.

Math:  This week, we will be playing some fun place value games that will have us thinking all about the ones, tens, and hundreds place.  We’ll also have to think about how to compare two numbers using the symbols <, >, and =.  Ask you child about the fun and challenging place value game we play together!

Social Studies:  Today, the Love Monsters arrived!  They brought a special message telling us to be extra kind and extra nice to others in the coming days.  If we’re caught doing something nice, we’ll get a special treat from the Love Monsters.  In addition, the Love Monsters will leave a kindness challenge for us to complete each day.  

Read Aloud:  This week’s read alouds will be focused on fairy tales.  We’ll be reading Rumpelstiltskin, Beauty and Beast, Cinderella, and the Gingerbread Man.

Fairy Tales:  This week, we’ll read the story of the Three Little Pigs and the True Story by A. Wolf.  We created a motivational poster showing the moral of the story from the Three Little Pigs.  Tomorrow, we’ll write an opinion letter to the editor sharing our thoughts on who we think is telling the truth.  Later this week, we’ll read two versions of Cinderella.  First, we’ll create an invitation to Cinderella’s ball.  Then, we’ll create interview questions for Cendrillon (the other version of Cinderella).  Finally, we’ll read two different version of Little Red Riding Hood.  With the original version, we’ll make a missing poster of The Big Bad Wolf.  With the fractured version, we’ll be creating a magic wand ending and write a different ending to the story.