News & Notes {and a spirit activity!}

Hi parents!

We had a wonderful week in second grade!  It was nice to return to a regular week after all of the spider activities last week.
The highlight of the week might have been the development of seed pods on our brassica plants.  The students were absolutely thrilled to notice their growth almost a week after pollinating the first plants!  Check out the pictures below.  :)

Please note the following:

- No School on Monday, October 27th due to a Staff Development Day.

- Please keep in mind the school's policy regarding both class party and birthday treats.  We, as a school, are working hard to encourage healthy habits in all students and appreciate your support in this area as well, especially when those exciting treats are involved.  Below is the school's policy for your reference.
Classroom parties may offer minimal amounts of foods with one item that contains added sugar (ex. mini cupcakes, doughnut holes, small serving of cookies, brownies, mini candy bars, or a small serving of ice cream).  These sugar treats should be limited to special occasions such as a birthday treat.
Two healthy foods should accompany a sugar added treat.
Suggestions of healthy foods include: fruits, vegetables, cheese, yogurt, dried fruit, and trail mix.
Acceptable beverages include water, milk, 100% fruit juices and fruit blend juices.

- If you have not yet done so, please confirm your PT conference time with me either via email or a written note.  I will do my best to reschedule conferences as needed.

A Peek At Our Week:

Bible --- We will finish our circle of grace lessons and continue with the Moses story.  We will be taking a closer look at how God keeps his promises.

Science --- Our plant unit is wrapping up!  We have a few more activities to complete, and then students will be creating a project to summarize their learning on plant life cycles.

Language Arts --- I'm excited to begin a three week unit on folktales and fairytales with the students! What a fun way to slip in some study on cause and effect (which is the skill they will be introduced to next week).  We'll also look at plural nouns and using context to understand words with multiple meanings.

Math --- It's a data week!  During data day/week lessons, students collect data and learn how to display that data in a variety of ways.  We then work on interpreting that data.

 Check out those seed pods!

 Building numbers with base - 10 blocks and place value mats.  This really helped to make place value more visual and tactile.

 We learned how to play a new game called "Spinning for Money".  It focused on trading and counting coins.

 Our math included a lot of hands-on learning this week!  Students also practiced showing and writing time with their tool-kit clocks.

 Students discussed and decided what objects/actions they would and would not want within their circle of grace.

 Of course, we can't leave out pictures of our spirit activity for the first quarter!  Musical chairs!

News & Notes {and spiders! oh my!}

This has been quite the week!  It was packed full of non-fiction, fun, review of old skills and brief introductions to new skills!  I'm sure you've heard quite a bit about spiders by now.  I know many of you get a play-by-play of what I said, and I hear some good stories about you all as well.  A student told me that their parents told them that the only good spider is a dead spider.  Ha!

Just a few reminders:

- The Fall Frolic is coming up next Friday!  I look forward to enjoying this evening with you.  There will be hayrides, desserts, drinks, and a showing of the movie, Frozen.  What's that you say?  You've already watched it a few dozen times?  Well, join us anyway!

- Please return the following items to school as soon as possible:  Grandparents day information (all students need to return the form regarding lunch and after school transportation) and the room parent volunteer form.

- Keep sending in those box tops!  :)

- No school on Monday, October 27th due to a staff development day.

And now... A Peek At Our Week!

- Bible:  Since we did not get to our Circles of Grace lessons this week, we will be setting aside time next week to cover these lessons.  (I admit I was a bit overzealous in my planning!)

- Social Studies:  We will complete our technology safety lessons as well.  These lessons include learning safe and unsafe information to give others over the internet as well as how to search for information safely.

- Science:  We will slowly be wrapping up our unit on plants.  After each student pollinates their brassica plant, we will let the plants dry down and await the harvest of the seeds.

- Math:  As we begin Unit 3, we will focus heavily on place value and counting coins.  We will also take a day to freshen up our time-telling skills.

- Language Arts:  We will review story elements as we read, including character, setting and plot.  We will also learn to use context clues and rereading as strategies to help us with our comprehension.

I will be posting pictures later this weekend, but wanted to get this out to you so we can all stay on the same page.

Enjoy the beautiful weather this afternoon!

News & Notes {and all about plants!}

Can I just say that this is why I love teaching at this school?!

We were gathering our things to go home and cleaning up the room at the end of the day when the students spontaneously broke into song.  (Of course, when I snatched up my phone to record, some of them may have hammed it up a bit for the camera.)  This is a song they've been learning in music class and singing in chapel.  How wonderful that the students feel comfortable and happy enough at the end of a long school day to sing together!

Here are a few reminders for the upcoming week...

- Picture day is on Tuesday, October 14!  Can't wait to see all of the kiddos looking their finest!  (Thankfully, this is not a P.E. day so we will not be looking sweaty or sticky for our pictures.)  Cheese!

- LMH is planning to perform "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in March and are recruiting elementary students from all campuses for the children's chorus.  If your child would be interested in auditioning for the chorus, you can find additional information on the LMH website on the drama page or request information from Mrs. Hess in the office.

- Earlier this week, our second grade room parent sent home information regarding our class parties and listed opportunities for you to help with these events.  Please return your responses to school as soon as you are able.  I'm looking forward to some fun classroom celebrations and I know the students are as well!

A Peek At Our Week:

- Bible --- We will be learning about the ten plagues and God's plan for revealing his miraculous power to both the Egyptians and the Israelites.  I'm looking forward to the activities for this study!

- Language Arts --- This is a review week of the reading and grammar skills that have been introduced since the beginning of the year.  To give our review some focus, we will be completing a mini-study on spiders.  This will tie in well to our earlier science study on insects and butterflies, providing some contrast.

- Math --- Early in the week, students will practice implementing some subtraction strategies.  We will then review the Unit 2 concepts we've been focusing on and take the Unit 2 test on Thursday.  Look for a Unit 3 family letter to come home later in the week.

- Science --- We will press on with our plant study!  The brassica observation continues!

- Other --- I plan to introduce the second grade curriculum for the LMS Circles of Grace.  This curriculum helps students to understand God's will for both them and those around them to be in safe, loving relationships.  

We spent a lot of time using the number line in math to help us with those frames, arrows, and in/out tables.  

 What better way to practice in/out tables than with a game?!  (If you add some dice, the fun factor jumps exponentially!)  

 Students also enjoyed rotating through literacy stations with partners this week.  Identifying adjectives, nouns, synonyms, and antonyms were just a few of the focus points in these stations.

Great partner work with ABC order!

 After soaking lima beans, students were able to get a peek inside a seed.  It was exciting to be able to identify the seed coat, cotyledon and embryo.  If you look closely, you can see the start of a little plant root and pair of leaves.  

News & Notes {race for education and reflex}

What a gorgeous day for Race for Education yesterday!  The students really seemed to enjoy running on the "big track".  Next week, we will write about their experience, and I'm certainly looking forward to reading their perspective on the event.  Thank you for supporting your children and New Danville through Race for Education.  So many of you came out to walk, run, and cheer us on.  :)  I only wish I could have visited with and greeted each of you during the short time we were there.

Here are a few things to note before we dash into next week...

- Coming home today is a letter regarding an online program we are starting to help students with their math fact fluency called Reflex.  Reflex was made available to the 2nd and 3rd grade classes at LMS through a grant.  This is the first time I have used Reflex with a class, though I have heard many other teachers at last year's Mennonite Educator's Conference speak very highly of it.  I have also completed a training on the program and experienced the program as a student would experience it.  The program is a game-based and self-adapting, providing both motivation for students to increase fact fluency and coaching to help them succeed.  The producers of this program have advised that students should utilize Reflex three times each week.  I am going to set aside time twice during the week for students to use Reflex.  On nights when math homework is not assigned, students could play at home to fulfill the third time.  (Of course, if you do not have internet access, I completely understand.)  If you have additional questions regarding this program, please contact me.

- I have posted an explanation of how I score spelling tests under the spelling tab on the blog.

- You've probably noticed the October Book-It calendar that started coming home this week.  The goal is for students to read 20 minutes on 5 different days each week.  If they read the required 20 minutes, they may color in the picture for that day.  Homework reading does count towards this 20 minutes.  At the end of the month, simply sign the calendar and send it in!  Your child will receive a certificate for a personal pan Pizza Hut pizza.  :)

A Peek at Our Week:

- Math --- Next week will be all about thinking about numbers flexibly.  We will work on name collection boxes, frames and arrows problems, and in/out tables.  If that all sounds new and strange, check out your child's homework next week!

- Language Arts --- We didn't quite get as much revising and editing done this week as I had hoped, so we will have to push off our "publishing party" (little celebration of the hard work they have done during Writer's Workshop) for a little bit longer.  We will continue to get our writing all spruced up for publishing.  Our reading skill will be centered around making predictions, though we will review summarizing as well.  Our texts are thematically related, focusing on immigrants to the United States.  This will provide a nice Social Studies tie-in.

- Bible --- We will study Exodus 4:18 - 6:8.  This section of the Bible relates to Pharaoh's increased oppression of the Israelites and the hardening of his heart.  We will look specifically at how we can trust in God's promises even when things don't seem to be going well.

- Science --- We will continue our study of the plant life cycle, observing our brassica plants, and identifying plant parts.

 Using fact triangles to practice those fact families!

 We rotated through stations to introduce some new skills and strengthen others.  When I told the students that "nests and eggs" would help them when it came time to learn multiplication later in the year, they seemed extra determined to make those equal groups!

 Students also used dominoes to find patterns in adding two even number together, two odd numbers, and one odd and one even number.

 One of the stations included a pan balance station where students predicted which item would be heavier.  They were also introduced to the terms "pound" and "ounce".

 Of course, I had to add some pictures of the Reflex math station!  They were so excited about this program!  It really challenged them, but they seemed quite motivated.  :)

 This week, second grade also started reading to their Book Buddies!  This year, they are the big buddies, and they are so excited.  I must say, they did a nice job of setting good examples and helping their little Pre-K buddies to keep focused.  They will read to their buddies every other Wednesday for about 15 minutes.

 We planted brassica seeds on Monday and many have already sprouted!  We are already making predictions about what color their flowers will be.  There were lots of votes for white and many for yellow!