Autumn Has Arrived!

It sure feels like autumn has finally arrived. We have been enjoying this cooler weather at recess. We are waiting patiently for our Monarch butterflies to emerge… many of our chrysalises are turning transparent. Hopefully by next week we will have 11 beautiful butterflies!
Last week each student performed their reader’s theatres for the kindergarten classes. They did such a fantastic job showcasing their reading fluency.
This Wednesday we wrapped up our study of butterflies and moths. The class did a really great job on their tests! This week we will begin our next science unit about the body. We will first take a look at hair, skin, and nails… followed by a study of the eye and ear. We will be looking at models of the eye and ear to study how each of them help us and how they work. Next week we will be visited by an ophthalmologist who will speak to us about proper eye care. There are a few health links on our blog to check out!
In writing our class has been working on using good word choice. They have been participating in fun class activities to help us “spice up” our writing and even got to use a thesaurus. Next week we will put our sentence writing skills to the test as we begin paragraph writing. Now that all of the memory boxes have been shared, each child will select their favorite item they brought in and will write their first published paragraph!
Tuesday our Boys and Girls Club leader Miss Laura came to show us a presentation on internet safety. I have added a link to Netsmartz on our blog. This is a safe site that teaches about internet safety in a fun way.
Our class earned their first marble party Wednesday and celebrated with pjs, stuffed animals, and a short movie! This was a fun reward for all of their hard work and super behavior!
Next week we will begin our new author study featuring Mem Fox. She is the author of the book our memory box project was based on Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge.
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the weekend!

Our Caterpillars are Growing!

We have had a very busy week this week in second grade! Our larvae continue to munch away and are growing by the day! We continue to make written and picture observations of their growth. In science we are studying the stages of the life cycle and even made a life cycle using various types of pasta! The second important thing that we have been studying is the difference between butterflies and moths.
Good News!... Reading groups will begin Monday the 20th! We are very excited to begin and start getting into routine. I want to stress the importance of the reading group folder. The night your child brings this home they are to read it and return it the very next day. Our first and second grade policy about folders is that if they are not ready and returned on that next day, your child will be asked to turn a card.
In writer’s workshop we have been writing our first published personal narratives! The true stories about our lives have been fun to read and fun to write! This writing requires we put our sentence writing skills to work! This week we have also begun to finally plan and write our letters! This planning, writing, editing, making a clean copy, and addressing of envelopes will take us into next week. It is fun to hear the class talk about how fun it is to write and “snail mail” letters!
In math we have been super busy! We have been talking about equations and how “partner” numbers are interchangeable in what we call a fact family. This week each table brainstormed together all types of combinations of numbers that would equal a number given to them. After all of their brainstorming… each table worked together to write all of the equations on strips; those were then connected to make “equation chains”. This week we met a new math friend named Bob… Bob is an alligator who is helping us to understand greater than and less than. We have been working on place value to order numbers.
Just a small thank you for helping your child to complete and send back math homework! Each child gets an opportunity to share their strategies used on math homework, we call this math talk, each day with many different classmates using a cooperative learning strategy called Mix, Pair, and Share!

*If you have not contacted our room moms with your child’s contact information and would like to be a part of the class directory, please contact Amanda Elo at ajaveyard@yahoo.com. They are putting together a resource that can be beneficial for play dates, parties, and other get togethers.

Coming up… this weekend there is a butterfly tagging even 9/18 at the Baker Wetlands. The even will be from 7:30-11:30 am. This event is open to the public!

Enjoy the holiday!

Just a quick note to check in about our week…

This week we began practicing for our first reader’s theatre puppet shows! Hopefully we will have these ready to perform for an audience next week. This is our final project with our Jolly Postman/fairy tale unit.
Next week we will begin applying our sentence skills as we start writing personal narratives. These stories about our lives are sure to be fun!
Although the testing continues for reading group placement… we will begin reading skill groups in the mean time beginning next Tuesday. We will be working with various reading strategies and comprehension activities.
In science we continue to study about butterflies and moths. Our Monarch larvae is scheduled to arrive next Monday! We can’t wait to begin our observations!
Our first research project will begin on Tuesday. Each child has been partnered up and assigned a specific butterfly or moth to begin gathering information. The final project will be called a “report in a can” and will be displayed in the library. (If you have any clean soup/vegetable cans to send in… we will need 13 total.)

Some important dates coming up:
September 10th- Grandparent day 3:00pm
September 13th- Picture day


If a family would like to be included in a class, please contact Amanda Elo at ajaveyard@yahoo.com or 785-856-0570 with your information. Participation is optional, but if you would like to be included, please contact Amanda by Friday, 9/10. The following information should be provided:
Child's name
Parent's names
Siblings names (and grades is applicable)
Address
Phone number to use to contact the family

Email address to use to contact the family


Enjoy your long weekend!