April is there!

I hope that all of the 2nd graders were able to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

In writing most second grade writing partners are wrapping up their rough drafts of their animal books! Most groups will begin writing final copies of these animal books later on this week. During our reading and language block, students are working on sentence fluency activities and reviewing reading comprehension skills.

In math, we continue to practice working with place value and adding and subtracting three-digit numbers. Students are doing a great job working with money amounts and story problems! Thanks again for your continued help with flashcard practice at home. Students are showing steady growth in speed and accuracy with basic facts. This week, we will continue to work with place value and problem solving strategies.

We wrapped up our trip around the globe on Friday! The class was so excited to take this trip together and eager to learn everything they could! I will try to have the geography tests graded this week sometime. We are now moving into our science unit on amphibians and reptiles! Students will be learning the difference between amphibians and reptiles, as well as specific traits of frogs, toads, alligators, crocodiles, turtles, snakes, lizards, and salamanders! This Friday, we are excited to have a visitor come to Langston Hughes from Prairie Park Nature Center to show various reptiles and amphibians to the class. Be sure to check out the relevant links under our science tab!

Field trip money and permission slips are due at the end of this week. Thanks to those of you who have already turned them in! It is time to start crossing your fingers for a beautiful spring day on April 29. Please mark the following dates in your calendars.

April 11 - Spring class pictures
April 19 - 2nd Grade music program
April 21 – Family Wellness Night
April 29 - Kansas City Zoo field trip
April 30 - School carnival (remember to send in your donations for our ice cream themed basket!)
May 13 - Field Day
May 24 - Last day of school

Second Graders Traveling the World!

Our second graders are traveling the world! We have strapped on our travel bag every day and have ventured into the world… so far we have traveled to Antarctica, Asia, Australia, and Africa. We will visit Europe at the end of this week. I can not thank you enough to those of you who have been able to send things in to share with our class. These artifacts, pictures, and movies have enriched our experience at each destination. Thank you! As we travel to each continent we have been looking at the landforms, famous monuments, artifacts, the culture and the food we might find there.

In writing we spent a few days writing our own leprechaun stories… and even made our own leprechaun masks! These clever stories are hanging outside our room with pictures of our second grade leprechauns. Monday we began our animal research projects by selecting books from the library. Tuesday each set of partners took time to read their resources and tomorrow we will start taking notes.

In math we have wrapped up a short geometry unit covering congruent/similar shapes, shape movement, and polygons. We will be continuing to work on adding and subtracting three digit numbers in our next unit. This unit will also provide practice in adding money and counting back change. In our daily routines we continue to practice elapsed time and function boxes. Thank you for continuing to practice flash cards at home during the week!

There are no new spelling words coming home today because of spring break. New spelling sorts will resume the Wednesday after break.
Friday is a beach party at lunch! Feel free to send a beach towel with your child to sit on as we picnic in the lunch room. Also, our school is trying to get an accurate number on enrollment of first graders next year. If you have a child who will be coming to Langston Hughes as a new first grader next year, or if you know someone else in this same situation, please notify the office. Thank you!

Have a wonderful and safe break. Whether you will be traveling or not, enjoy!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I want to first thank you for making it to conferences last week. I enjoyed visiting with all of you and sharing your child’s progress. It’s hard to believe that it is already March! We have been busy this last week… and have been having a lot of fun! Monday our class earned a marble party and choose a campfire reading party. We set up our new campfire creation, grabbed pillow and lanterns, and devoured freshly made s’mores! I think this party was one to repeat.
A few curriculum notes…

Writing: This week we celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday and wrote about some of our favorite books. In our writer’s workshop we have been writing personal narratives focusing on small moments.

Math: Tomorrow we are taking a test over three digit subtraction and counting money. We will revisit these concepts in a couple of weeks in a review unit combining subtraction and addition. Thank you for sending back your child’s flash cards and taking the time to note how they did while they practiced. This practice at home will help you child to become more fluent with their basic facts.
Our next unit beginning Monday will begin to cover congruent shapes, polygons, and slides, flips, and turns of geometric shapes.

Social Studies: This week we have begun to take a look at the communities that we live in. We have talked about what rural, suburban, and city areas are like. We have also reviewed the cardinal directions and will start working on various mapping skills beginning next week. I will be sending out an email soon regarding the dates what we will be “traveling” to each of the 7 continents during our geography unit. If you have any special artifacts or pictures to share, we would love to see and hear about your travels!

We are getting plans together for our field trip to the Kansas City Zoo! Our trip will be on April 29th. If you are interested in chaperoning us on this all day trip please let me know as soon as you can. I will take the first volunteers! Thank you for considering.

Poetry Cafe Time!

We have had a very busy week! I don’t know about you… but I am looking forward to warmer weather very soon! For those kiddos who have been ill this week, I hope that you have a restful weekend and get to feeling better so you can return soon. We miss you bunches! Thank you in advance to those of you who are going to be able to attend the Poetry Café… your children have been working hard cooking up some yummy poems. Just a note: if you have not been able to send back your conference forms to confirm your meeting times, please try to send that in as soon as you can. Thank you for taking the time to fill out the “What do you want to discuss” form. This really helps me to make sure we discuss all of your concerns when we meet. Valentine’s Party Monday!
Here are a few curriculum notes:

Writing: This week we were finally able to wrap up our poetry unit! As a final project each student has selected their favorite poems they have written and took them through the writing process to create a final poetry booklet. They are anxious for me to share these with you at conferences! Next week we will jump back into a traditional writer’s workshop and will learn how to focus our writing on small moments.

Science: We were also able to finish out weather unit this week. I am very proud of how they did on the test! They became quite the meteorologists this year! Next week we will spend some time learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Wednesday each student will choose a president to research and write a paragraph about him. They will then make an illustration (these are always fun to look at) and we will create a presidential timeline!

Reading: We took a break from reading groups most of the week and were finally able to finish up second trimester reading testing. I love being able to sit down and read with all of the kids and see how much they are growing in their reading! Reading groups will resume next week.

Math: In math we are focusing out daily practice on various subtraction strategies. (Because our pacing guide for math has us working on units out of numerical order… you may continue to see things on the remembering side of the homework that we have not studied yet. Please give it a try with your child if you would like or just leave these problems blank. We are also working a lot on money values and patterns in class during daily routines.

Happy Kansas Day!

We have made it through our first full week back since winter break! We were finally able to make it to an outdoor recess. Although this was a long week… it was full of many exciting activities!

Curriculum notes:

Reading- We have been studying the author Tomie DePaola. This week we have spent time reading his books and learning about his life. He has a great website www.tomie.com. As a class we have been studying the rules to make words plural.

Writing- Our poetry writing is now in full swing. This week we learned our last style of poem, the free verse poem. Next week each child will narrow down their favorite poems that they have written and will begin a final poetry project. Thank you for practicing your child’s poems for the Poetry Café at home. We will continue to practice at school!

Math- This week we wrapped up Unit seven about graphing. When we return next week we will begin two digit subtraction. We have been working on addition and subtraction fact fluency. Flash cards are a great way to help your child with speed and memorization of their math facts. This Thursday was the 100th day of school! Thank you for sending in snacks for our 100th day treat! We had so much fun measuring, counting, and thinking about 100.

Science- We have taken a break from our study of weather, we have recently learned about the water cycle, to spend some time talking about the history and important symbols of our state. This Friday we celebrate Kansas day with classroom rotations and activities such as making butter, measuring with sunflower seeds, Kansas songs, and so much more!

Thursday we went to the Leid Center to see puppet performances of books by Leo Leoni. The sets and puppets were truly beautiful! You can check out the traveling troop from Canada at: www.mermaidtheatre.ns.ca/

Upcoming events:
No school January 31st
Class Pictures February 3rd
Book Fair February 7-9
Poetry Café- February 11th
Conferences February 23-24 (Information about times will be coming home soon. Please let me know if you will not be able to attend and we can find a time the following week.)
March- Science Fair (More information will be coming out soon!)

Let it Snow!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

I hope you stayed warm and that your kiddos enjoyed their two snow days this week! We have had a very busy start back to the month. Here are a few curriculum notes about last week and this current week. Following the notes you will find a few dates and events to make sure to add to you calendar!

Writing: We are really enjoying our study of poetry! So far we have learned about the basic couplet. (two lines of poetry that rhyme) This type of poem serves as a building block to many poems we read. We have also learned about list poems. For these poems each child chose a color to create a “list” of all the things they think about when they see this color. They have really surprised me with all of the creative and thoughtful things they have thought of! Our favorite poems so far are shape poems! We love writing and creating different shapes! There is a link on our blog to make your own shape poems at home!

Math: In math we have been spending a lot of time looking, creating, and interpreting graphs. Collected data has been displayed in bar graphs, tables, pictographs, and picture graphs. Along with basic practice of graphs, this unit is also highlighting patterns, problem solving, and basic fact fluency.

Science: The falling flakes from the sky have been a great introduction to our new unit about weather! So far we have had a review of the four seasons and have studied about the main types of clouds. Everyday we make written observations of what the weather is like. This week we will be creating our very own clouds while highlighting the basic details about each. We will also study about the Beaufort scale for measuring wind… along with other weather instruments used by meteorologists. There will be new links on our blog for weather practice!

Dates:
January 26th- The 100th day of school! (a note will follow soon about materials for this day)
January 27th – Leid center in the afternoon
January 28th- Kansas Day
February 7-9 Book Fair/ Pancake dinner on Wednesday
February 11th- Poetry Café performance (in the afternoon time TBA)
February 14th- Valentine’s Day Party

Warm Winter Wishes

I hope you were able to stay warm this windy and cold weekend! Our recess times have brought with them chilly play and bundled up second graders!
As we enter our last week together in 2010… here are a few notes from the classroom!
Many children are starting to run low on classroom supplies like glue sticks, crayons, markers… and especially dry erase markers. We use dry erase markers every day for math, so these have become quite important! I am now out of my class supply. Please ask your child if they are in need of any supplies for when we return in January.
Writing- We have been working really hard on a special writing project. This project has put to use our paragraph writing skills and knowledge of the writing process. Your child will be bringing this project home this week to share with you! This week we will also be thinking about our favorite winter things to do. The class will be making their own snow globe to go along with their writing!
Math- This week we wrap up our current unit. I am continually impressed with the hard work your children are showing me everyday. Thank you for helping to make sure homework is completed and returned to school. Sharing and correcting their homework with a math partner has proved a great opportunity to enrich so many math skills and math language.
Health- Over the last few weeks we have spent time talking about personal safety, staying well, and how to make good choices with medicine and drugs.

• This Thursday we will have our Gingerbread day! On this day our first and second graders will rotate between six different classrooms participating in many kinds of gingerbread activities… to many a favorite day of the year!

• Birthday breakfast is this Wednesday.

• Winter party Friday afternoon.

• This Friday we say goodbye to one of our classmates Miles. He and his family will be moving and not retuning in January. If your child has a special note they would like to send with him, I encourage them to bring it by Friday. We will plan to keep in touch and write to Miles whenever we get a chance! We will miss you Miles!

I hope you all have a safe and restful break with your family! I look forward to seeing you when we return in 2011.

Amber Crooker