September is here!

Thank you so much for those of you who were able to attend Tuesday’s parent information evening. If you were not able to attend I have sent home the information that I shared, so if you have any questions please let me know!
I will hopefully have our class email group ready by this weekend… starting next week I will be emailing you to notify you that our class blog has been updated. If you would rather receive newsletters by paper copy please let me know. This will hopefully be one of the last paper newsletters that I send home. Our class blog can be found at www.crookersclass.blogspot.com . I will upload spelling words at the beginning of the week and class news at least every other week. You will receive an email letting you know that our blog has been updated. (No pictures or names of your children will be published.) There are a lot of spelling, reading, and math games that are linked on the blog.
A note went home today about Grandparent’s day. If you could cut off the bottom and return to school by next Wednesday I would greatly appreciate it! This will let me know who is coming! If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Just a reminder that field trip money and permission slips were due Friday. I will be sending home extra copies Friday to return next Tuesday if needed.
Health- This week we spend some time getting to know our families. We have read stories and have talked about what makes up each of our families.
Math- We spent a lot of time practicing patterns and number order this week. We practiced grouping objects into groups of ten and leftovers. In the last half of the week we took turns stamping patterns, making patterns with blocks, and creating caps in patterns after reading Caps For Sale.
Thank you for your continued practice of spelling at home!
Mrs. Crooker

Welcome to First Grade!

I am so excited to begin this year in first grade here at Nike! Thank you to those of you who were able to attend parent night. If you weren't, please contact me at your earliest convenience. Spelling list for this week:
hat
had
sad
sat
bat
bag
at
can
help
now
challenge: nearby and form

Have a great week!

Happy May Day!

Happy May! It’s so hard to believe that May is here… where has the year gone?! We had a great week last week. Thank you to all of the parents who were able to chaperone us to the Kansas City Zoo! It as a beautifully perfect day and the kids had a blast seeing everything! Trips like this are not possible with out parents like you.


Guided reading groups ended last week. During the next two weeks, I will be using our Daily 5/Language block to do some year-end reading testing. Students will also be doing some reading comprehension and word work activities in class during that time. When testing is finished, we will begin our "Teach the Class" week. I will be sending an information letter home today. Now would be a good time to start talking with your child about possible ideas for teaching the class. If you have any questions please let me know. These forms are due to be returned May 10th. Be creative!


Our current math unit includes a lot of different information, as you have probably noticed! So far in unit 13, students have worked on multiplication, division, fractions, and geometry. Next week, we will spend a couple of days on probability and statistics, and then do some more work with geometry. The unit 13 assessment will be this week.

I will be grading our amphibian/reptile test this week. This was such a fun unit for the kids to learn… and me to teach! This week will be our Junior Achievement week, and we will be welcoming a guest teacher from our community into our classroom to talk about production, producers and consumers. For the rest of the month of May, we will be using our science/social studies block to study about animal adaptations, and United States symbols.

Please check with your child one last time about school supplies. I know that many students are working with dry markers and almost-empty glue sticks. Those things will definitely come in handy with some of our end-of-the-year projects.


Thanks, as always, for all that you do!

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.