Room 206 Happenings!

Good evening!

Today the students received their AR folders. They are aware of their levels, point goals, and what they should be reading. I am going to send you their levels and log ins for Home Connect as soon as possible so you can track their progress at home.

Also- I completely rearranged the classroom after school. I was frusterated with the "congestion" in our room. Twenty-four desks is a lot to fit, especially with a science sink taking up space and the computers in their own peculiarly placed spot.

I will help the kids adjust in the morning. We will go through one more change whenever the kidney table makes its appearance in our room.

As I stated in the e-mail, if possible please pack lunch tomorrow instead of having your child buy. We are doing lunch in the classroom as a reward for Boosterthon class goals, so bringing a lunch will be much easier.

The footprint cars are due tomorrow for our Boosterthon door!

The Unit 1 math test is tomorrow. Your child should have completed the review by now, which is not due to me. It is only a tool for you to use to help your child practice and study. Unit 1 covers lots of different things so do not fret! Things calm down a little bit and we will begin to focus more on addition in the next unit.

We reviewed a bit for the math test by doing math centers today. The centers included using coin stamps to stamp out coin amounts, using base-10 blocks to practice place value, playing the Penny-Nickel exchange game to reinforce there are 5 pennies in a nickel, and playing the Rolling Our Way to Basic Facts game to practice basic facts by adding together values from dice.

Here is a picture of Archer playing the Penny-Nickel Exchange Game!

Daily 5 is underway and the kids are finishing up learning how to Read to Someone. We will move onto Listen to Reading next week, which I will accompany with a handwriting center and read to self. Once we complete learning our centers, I will start meeting with guided reading groups. HOPEFULLY we will have our beautiful wonderful much awaited kidney table by then so small groups will have a conducive place to meet.

Here are Catherine and Lauren practicing Read to Someone. Carter and Jeremy are working together in the background, and you can see Kyle in action too!

Mystery Reader

Thank you Keely Muse for coming to read to us today!

Accelerated Reader

Today the kids received their AR folders and AR levels. They from here on out take AR tests at appropriate times. I am going to send you an individual e-mail either tonight or tomorrow about how you can access Renaissance Home Connect at home to view your child's progress. They will be individual due to user names and passwords.

Links for Learning

This is a great link for practicing different reading strategies. We did the making connections game today and the kids LOVED it.

http://reading.ecb.org/student/entry.html?login=mrs.nel00006

This link can help them practice singular/plural nouns. I would choose "complex" as the level.

http://softschools.com/language_arts/games/singular_plural_nouns.jsp

Math Games!

Today we played a domino sorting addition game! This helped us practice our addition basic facts. Here are a couple pictures of the children playing the game!

Boosterthon!

As a class, we have come up with "class incentives" for Boosterthon. These are rewards that go towards our class total.

The class has already raised a little over 50 dollars.

$10-Table Points, $20- 5 minutes extra recess, $30- Homework pass, $40- 10 minute extra recess, $50 - Lunch in Classroom

Those are all rewards they have already earned. We had table points and five minutes extra "indoor recess" due to rain today. They watched a little bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I will send a homework pass home soon, they will have ten extra recess minutes tomorrow, and on Friday we will eat in the room.

$65- 15 minutes extra recess, $80 PJ Day, $100 - Trip to Sunken Garden (I still need a couple forms for this from some of you), and $150 is a movie/popcorn party.

We are currently at I think $53, and the Booster guys will update us of our standing daily.

Here is a picture of the class interacting with the Boosterthon staff today when they visited us.

Door Decorating for Boosterthon

Today we had some wonderful volunteers come in and help your child make a footprint.

I am sending home the footprint today. I believe Michelle Constantinides has sent an e-mail with the details of what to do, but I am going to paste into this post her directions in case you have lost them. Step one has already been completed by the room mothers.

2.  Your job is to cut out the footprint at home and get creative by turning the footprint into a car.  You can use anything to make wheels (think construction paper, wrapping paper, recycled juice boxes cut into circles, etc…), draw or glue on windows (think aluminum foil or colored saran wrap, patterned wrapping paper, etc…), decorate your car in any tasteful way (please no guns or death boys :)), the brighter and more colorful the better!!!!  Glitter, sparkles, colored markers, painted patterns, shine, color, patterns, anything goes for each car.  Have your child make it their "dream" car.  

3.  Please return the finished cars (with names on the back) to school by Friday of this week.

4.  Please have your children find one picture or draw one picture of something related to each of the historical figures.  You can print it, cut it from magazines, draw it, or write a catch word or phrase.  Just keep it small as we don't have a ton of space.  Please return these by Friday of this week.  Below by last name is your historical figure.

MLK JR

Abramowitz

Arvin

Conrad

Constantinides

Earhart

Rdmonds

Ferguson

Hartman

Irwin

Kim

Cunningham

Lieberman

Lietz

Martinsen

Meador

Milam

Lincoln

Muse

Palckar

Prescott

Regnault

Sands

Edison

Smith

Streelman

Ward

Wiley

Winckler

5.  Our Mom Team will put it all together on Friday.  Tuesday will be the judging of the doors.  

Mystery Reader

                    Thank you to Angie Winckler for being our Mystery Reader last week!

Monday Updates

Here are some updates that will be very useful to you and to me!

1. BOOSTERTHON - Tee-shirts and an access code pamphlet went home today with your child. Your child should wear this tee shirt on the day of the fun run, which I believe is Thursday, September 6.
The pamphlet contains information about fundraising for Boosterthon. The access code on the front is how you log onto your child's page on funrun.com. Pleae be sure to get on funrun.com tonight with your access code and check it out!

2. HOMELINKS- Homework tonight is in Homelinks for math. Please help your child tear this out so it does not rip down the middle. Their names MUST be on it for them to receive credit.

3. MATH REFERENCE BOOKS - I was brave enought to send home reference books tonight for math because it is part of the homework. It is imperative that these are brought back to school in the same condition tomorrow. I will be checking names on a checklist to be sure they are all returned.

4. MATH REVIEW - This was sent home to help you and your child study for the math test on Friday. It doesn't need to be turned in.

5. HOMEWORK PLANNER - Once again, I strongly encourage you to remove the planner from the MOOSE binder and keep it at home until it gets turned in on Friday. This will help us avoid confusion when turning it in on Friday.

That is all I can think of for now!

Please know if you have donated ANYTHING to our room, I am so thankful. The first few weeks have been hectic, and I have not been able to sit down and write notes. I just want you to know I am so grateful for everything you do.

Awards of the Week

Three Spaces in ATW (I ran out of certificates!!!)
Margaret
Hayden
Jia
Spencer
Sophia

Estimation Station
Andra - (With an EXACT guess of 81)

Table Race
Lightning Bolts - Kyle, Mollie, Bailey, Carter, Archer, Luke
Yes, they have won 3 times in a week. They have been raking in points for being the first ones ready to listen almost every time.

Have a great weekend! I am a little under the weather, so if your child is feeling the same, please ensure they relax.

Weekly Update!

Today is a much better day than yesterday in room 206. I think missing a special yesterday threw us for a loop, as well as some germs going around giving many of us headaches and sore throats. The kids are encouraged to use the hand sanitizer placed on the sink often!!!

Math
-On Monday we will start doing math homework out of the Home Links book that was sent home. Everyone should have this at home. Please let me know if you do not.
-We have been working on skills this week such as greater than/less than, skip counting, and number grid patterns.
-There will be an assessment on Friday covering unit one. A review will go home on Monday to help your kids study. The nightly homework should be of help as well.

ELA
-We are still working on schema in reading. We are currently up to making "text to text" connections. We made connections between Amazing Grace and Oliver Button is a Sissy. Both books dealt with themes of bullying and special talents that made the kids "different". We also connected Chrysanthemum and Julius, Baby of the World by Jeff Henkes.
-We are continuing our work on nouns. By now, we are feeling confident in knowing the difference between common and proper nouns. Next week we will work on plural nouns and do a small quiz on Friday to see how we are doing with nouns!
-This week in writing we practiced how a paragraph in our journals should look by copying a model I provided. The model shows putting the date, underlining a title, and indenting our paragraphs. It also showed them how we must capitalize the beginnings of sentences and use punctuation. Next week, they will complete a graphic organizer on how to write a paragraph and begin writing their own paragraphs in their journals.
-We began the "Read to Someone" component of Daily 5. Ask your kids about "EEEK" and the "Five Finger Rule" for a right fit book!
-AR levels will be given out on Monday. We will work on this throughout the week.

Social Studies
-Our topic in Social Studies has been Sequoyah. The students have learned about his  contributions to the Cherokee tribe. He improved communication by creating the tribe's written language. These are the vocabulary words they should know. We have made our very own written languages which are on display in the hall. Yesterday, we learned about how Sequoyah exhibited patience. We made a text-to-self connection by writing about a time when we each showed patience.
-A small quiz will be given on Sequoyah probably on Tuesday.


SNACK REMINDER - Please do not pack your child's snack in the lunchbox. It is difficult for me to monitor to make sure everyone is eating their snack and not part of their lunch. Please see the Healthy Food Guideline that went home yesterday.

BEHAVIOR UPDATES AND READING LOGS - These must be signed and returned every Friday :)

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Behavior Updates and Homework Calendar

Please be sure to send in the signed behavior update and signed reading on the homework calendar tomorrow. It is due every Friday :) Thank you!!

Oy Vey

Hello parents!

I wanted to fill everyone in on our "hairy" day as I like to call days like these.

Right now I am giving the kids ten minutes to either put their heads down and relax or read silently.

Today had some small stresses in it, between our math lesson having a technology fail and we missed Spanish today because we received a new schedule and I accidently took them at our old time, which is later than our current time.

I think between resetting after a half day (days after a half day seem long and tiring), changing weather, and a few changes in our plans today, a few of the kids have headaches.

The kids are currently taking a small "brain break" and resting their heads or reading. This way we can be refreshed and ready to move on to soical studies in a few minutes.

Melissa

Last Night

Thank you for a great back to school night! I am so glad to have a room of positive and involved parents.

Please do not forget that snack should from now on be packed separately from your child's lunch box. It should be something not messy (i.e. granola bar, apple slices, etc.). A guideline for healthy snack choices will be going home in the near future.

Back to School Night

Hello Parents!

I want to give everyone a friendly reminder that back to school night is tomorrow night at 6:00 PM. It is a "kid free" event. Please arrive on time. We will go over curriculum for the year, class expectations, volunteer opportunities, and grade level fees.

Thanks so much! I look forward to seeing all of you!

Fun-tastic Friday

Week two is over! We have had a great week. Here are some updates on what we have been working on.

Language Arts

1. Nouns have been our focus in grammar. We have been working on what words are and are not nouns. We also have been working on knowing the difference between common and proper nouns.

2. Schema and making connections has been our focus in reading. We are currently finishing up making "text-to-self" connections. The kids understand this as connecting things in our own lives to what we are reading. My Great Aunt Arizona, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother are the books we have used to make these connections. We will be moving on to "text-to-text" connections next week.

3. We are building stamina for our read to self component of Daily 5 Reading. They are able to independently read for 30 minutes now quietly. In the middle of next week we will begin to work on read to someone. We will discuss Daily 5 and how it works at Back to School Night

Math

Everyday Math is the program used at Morningside. You may be familiar with it from years past. It is a program in which you are not always working on just one concept for a period on time. Ideas spiral and build. So far, ideas we have touched are counting coins, counting dollar bills, sequences/number lines, telling time, calendars, and basic facts.

We work on place value, calendar skills, and graphing every day during calendar. We work on tally marks with our table races and at the end of the week.

Social Studies
This week we studied about the Creek and Cherokee tribes. We read in our social studies big book, learned about Venn diagrams to compare and contrast their culture and our culture today, made posters about the tribes, and took a quiz today. Next week we will study about Sequoyah, who created the Cherokee written language.

In other news...

Estimation Station Winner: Jia Kim
Moved Three Spaces in Around the World: Archer Streelman, Jia Kim
Table Race Winners: The Lightning Bolt Table (Carter Hartman, Bailey Prescott, Kyle Palickar, Luke Milam, Mollie Meador, Archer Streelman

Back to School Night- August 21st at 6:00 PM

Historians at Work

We ventured into small group work today to review what we have learned this week about the Cherokee and Creek tribes. Each group illustrated a different topic about the Cherokee and Creek tribes.

Mystery Reader - August 16

Thank you Stephanie Abramowitz (Lauren's mom) for coming into read with us today! We enjoyed having you with us!

Behavior Charts

Good evening everyone!

Week two is underway, and I am still so glad to be at Morningside! What a wonderful school to work at!

Thank you for your patience so far this year. Being a new teacher is a lot about learning what works for me in my classroom and what does not. Therefore, I am going to be making a couple of changes for things that I think I need to change!

1. MOOSE binders are new to me. I am used to sending home everything once a week. Unless something is very important, I will start sending home important papers and student work home on Thursdays in the binder instead of everyday. Otherwise, it becomes very cumbersome at the end of the day to pass out papers.

2. Behavior Calendars -
Theoretically, I would love to have the kids shade in their behavior color everyday on a calendar like they did today. Realistically, at the end of the day it is very difficult to make sure they all fill their calendar in, for me to check to make sure they filled in the correct color, and to write a note for anyone who was not on green or blue.
Here is what I want to do instead - I want to send home once a week (on Thursdays) a behavior checklist specifying different behaviors and space to make notes if needed. It will go home in MOOSE binders on Thursdays, and you will sign and return on Friday.

3. Needs for the classroom:
-clipboards
-candy for estimation station
-construction paper (long and short)
-Avery labels!!!!!

For everyone who has donated to our room- THANK YOU!!! Typically I would write a thank you note to each individual, but the first couple weeks have been hectic! Please know I appreciate every donation of every kind greatly.

Melissa

Telling Time

Here is an online game you can use to work on telling time with your child.

http://www.primarygames.com/time/1a.htm

Updates

Here are a few updates for today

1. Homework Planner was given out today. This is a planner all of 2nd grade uses. Students should do the place value homework tonight and return it tomorrow. They should be reading 20 minutes a night AT LEAST. Please initial planner at end of week for this and send it in on Friday.

2. Please return Clinic Cards ASAP so I can return them to Nurse Petty.

3. EAR BUDS - If you could please send ear buds this week at some point with your child that would be great. Please put them in a ziploc with their name. They will need these in the near future for listening center on the computers.

4. Transportation- Please confirm with your child in the morning how they are getting home. There have been instances where children do not know in the morning how they are going home, and the information you filled out at meet and greet differs from how they end up being told to go home. I will send out a list tomorrow of what info I have for transportation for you to confirm.

5. Snack - Please do not send a snack that will make a mess on the desks (i.e. fruit cups, fruit that squishes easily or juices.) Granola bars, etc. are usually great options.

Thanks!!

We did it!

Happy Friday!

We had a great first week of second grade! I am excited to hit the ground running next week with curriculum.

A few notes:

1. M.O.O.S.E. binders - Please carefully read the directions for the M.O.O.S.E. binders that are on the back of the cover page. Your child is responsible everyday for unpacking this binder at school and putting all notes and homework in the appropriate basket independently.

2. Extra papers - There are two forms that I forgot to stick in their binders today. I will send them home on Monday. They are Federal Eligibility Applications for free reduced lunch and a MAS Extracurricular form.

3. Mini Project- In the notes section of the binder there are directions and a copy of an example for our Mini Project. It is a class book. Your child needs to make his or her page. It is due at school on Friday, August 17. There is a gently folded piece of construction paper in the binder pocket. Use this for the project. It has holes punched on the left side with a sticker on the top left corner. You should complete this project so that the holes are on the left side and the sticker is in the top left corner. The directions say the sticker is in a different place than I put it.

4. Candy - We do estimation station every week. If you would like to donate a bag of candy it will help with our estimation station efforts.

5. Air - Our air is WORKING! The children are a little cold, but it is a good trade off for not being in a stifling hot room. Please send a little jacket or sweater in the backpack if your child wants one so they aren't cold in the room.

6. THANK YOU for all you do! I have been blessed with such great classroom parents who have been positive and supportive.

Mystery Reader

Good evening!

Tomorrow or over the weekend I am going to send out a document to sign up for Mystery Reader. I need to sit down and figure out how to make sure you can open and add to the document.

I am thinking the best time to do Mystery Reader is on Thursdays at 10:30. We have an open block at that time for half an hour. I will make the first sign up for this Thursday.

Please don't tell your child when you are coming because Mystery Reader is obviously such a fun surprise for them. :)

Be on the lookout tomorrow or over the weekend in your e-mail for this document if you wish to sign up. Please let grandparents, etc. know in case they are interested in coming in to read. I know I had a grandmother at Meet and Greet who was very interested.

Your kids have been such troopers with our air condition issue. I am still crossing my fingers that this will be remedied sooner than later!

Wow it is Wednesday

We are already over halfway done with the first week!

The kids are continuing to practice our procedures and classroom rules. Things are running pretty smoothly for a first week, so I am hoping that by the end of next week our ability to follow procedure, rules, and behave properly is 100 percent down pact!

Today we continued to work on building stamina on independent reading. This will be a component of our Daily 5 reading program that we are slowly building up to.

We have started reading James and the Giant Peach as a class read aloud. The kids are enjoying the descriptive language. We are working on visualizing literature as a reading skill. When you read aloud to your kids, I encourage you at times to ask them to close their eyes and picture the scene. The kids did some interesting impressions of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker from the book today!

The kids took the first half of a math pre-assessment today. It is a review of content they learned last year. I will give the second half tomorrow.

We did a little art project today to continue getting to know each other. We created Monster Glyphs. A glyph is like a code that needs to be cracked. Each Monster Glyph tells a little bit about each kid, from how many letters are in their name to how many siblings they have. The glyphs are hanging outside of our room. I will post the clues to them once I get them printed (I am waiting on Client Support to connect my wireless printer to my computer.)

I decided to start Everyday Mathematics today. On Friday I will be sending home their at home materials for this. Today we did the first lesson, which is about number lines and sequences. Ask your child what the word sequence means. We practiced filling in spaces in a number line to show that numbers in a sequence are in order.

I am HOPING to send home those M.O.O.S.E. binders tomorrow. The copiers have been out of/low on toner, so I haven't been able to copy what goes in it.

Update on the air - Becky and Myana are VERY aware of the air condition in our room. They are doing their best to get this problem solved. They have to go through APS to deal with problems like these, and Becky and Myana have been in contact with them everyday working hard to help us.
The A/C guy came and was convinced whatever he did on the control panel fixed it, but he was obviously incorrect because no air is blowing out still and the room has been clocking in at 87 degrees. Becky is trying to get us a portable A/C in the meantime. Thank you for your patience with this.

Thanks,

Melissa

Summer Reading and Math Celebration

Summer reading and math logs need to be turned in by WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15.
Your child must have read at least 10 story books or 5 chapter books AND completed 5 hours of math practice over the summer to attend the celebration.
The celebration is on Friday August 24 during lunch.

Thank you for making sure these get turned in so your child can attend the celebration if he or she completed this work!

M.O.O.S.E. Binders

Hello Parents!

Many of you are probably wondering when your child's binder is coming home. Tomorrow I will be sending home a binder that second grade uses called a M.O.O.S.E. binder. This has a behavior calendar, a pocket for homework to come back to school, a pocket for notes to come back to school, and a pocket for work that I send home.

The kids will be responsible EVERYDAY for taking out their homework and notes and putting them in the appropriate trays.

The behavior calendar will need to be initialed daily, even if they ended on green.

The directions for the M.O.O.S.E. binder will be in the binder.

Thanks for your cooperation!

Basic Facts

Basic facts. Basic facts. Basic facts.
I am sure you hear all the time from any teacher your children have ever had how IMPORTANT fluency in basic facts is. This is because it is true.

Basic facts are the BUILDING BLOCKS of any math your child will do in the future. I student taught in third grade and if there was one huge mistake I frequently saw in harder math (such as double digit multiplication, long division, etc.) it was an error within a problem dealing with a BASIC FACT.

Yesterday I gave the kids a two minute timed assessment consisting of 18 addition and 18 subtraction basic facts (I only did numbers where the sum or difference was equal to ten or less.). A few of these turned out to be decent-great, but the majority of the results have me worried.

It needs to be our goal as a team (teacher and parents) to help basic fact fluency in addition and subtraction. It is vital to your child succeeding in later math skills that build on this. They should be knowing these from memory, and the only way to do this is practice.

I encourage you to buy some addition and subtraction flash cards and practice nightly (even if just for five minutes a night) every night on each.

Here is a website also where your kids can work on these facts.
http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/mathfact/mathFact.htm

When you go to this site, click UP TO 5 for difficulty, add or subtract for operation, and select two minutes to set the game for your child. As they improve, change it to five minutes. If your child builds strong fluency, maybe even up the ante to UP TO 10 for difficulty.

Thank you for your cooperation in ensuring your child builds fluency in basic addition and subtraction facts. This is a great way that you can help them in their success at home.

Melissa

Day One is Done!

We had a great first day at school. Here are some of the things we did today!

We discussed and practiced procedures quite a lot today. We practiced lining up in a proper line and how to walk nicely in the hall. We discussed proper ways to get my attention, learned about classroom jobs (which will start next week), our behavior stoplight system, how to turn in papers, etc. We will be practicing this ALL week!

We read a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today. Ask your child about ways they can FILL or DIP INTO a bucket. This book emphasizes treating people kindly and making good choices.

We also did a timed addition and subtraction fact assessment. I cannot emphasize enough how IMPORTANT it is to practice these basic facts at home. They are critical building blocks to everything else your child will do. I suggest practicing at least every other night using flash cards or a timed test that you can print.

I know some of you are curious about LUNCH time in case you choose to visit your child. Lunch is 11:10-11:40 everyday.

Once again, P.E. is Wednesday and Friday. Please send your child in sneakers. Spanish is Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Tomorrow I will start sending home M.O.O.S.E. binders. These binders will have their behavior charts, graded papers, notes home, etc. Please be mindful to check these binders for papers, things you need to sign, etc. and put them back in their backpacks.

I will be sending home pencil boxes tomorrow. I apologize if your child is not fond of the idea of taking these home, but they tend to be something to play with rather than utilized appropriately.

I am so glad to have everyone in my class. I am looking forward to a great day tomorrow. Please do not hesitate to e-mail me with anything you need.

P.E. With Coach Carter

Our P.E. days are Wednesday and Friday. Please make sure to send your children in their sneakers on these days. Thank you!

Meet and Greet

Hello Second Graders and Parents!

I enjoyed meeting each and every one of you on Friday at Meet and Greet! Please make sure to arrive at school on time on Monday for our first day. If you only brought some of your supplies, or if you have yet to bring them, please make sure to have them on Monday. You can cross schoolbox off your list. We will be doing shared supplies in our classroom. If you already brought one, I will make sure to send it home with you on Monday.

Be ready to begin an awesome second grade year. I expect smiles, positive attitudes, and excitement to learn when I see you walk through my door on Monday.