Week Ending 1/26/18

Hello families!
We've had a busy week and today we hit day 90!  We're halfway through the year already!  Can you believe it?

Important Information:

• Please send your child in with boots event if it's not snowing.  The field can often be wet and sneakers get soggy quick.  
• I've notified those that were chosen from the jar to be chaperones.  More info for everyone on the field trips will come as we get closer.  
• Next week, I will send home information regarding the 100th day of school and Friendship week.
• A reminder about homework.  The conversation sheet with sentence starters is meant to check off 2-3 you used that night.  Making the conversation between you and your child stronger and deeper versus using as many sentence starters as you can.  
• If you'd like to donate paper towels, cleaning wipes, or hand sanitizer...we'd greatly appreciate it!

3, 2, 1 things you should know about our week...

3 math skills we worked on were being strategic in choosing what to add or subtract in order to capture the square.  It's a great math game that allows students to put operations together to capture the square.  We also worked on identifying attributes of shapes and parallel lines.  

* Ask you child what parallel lines are and look around your house to see if you can find any!

2 writing strategies we focused on was adding an introduction that captured the reader's attention by writing to the reader, asking questions, or sharing facts.  We also worked on double checking our table of contents to see if it needed some work.  Did we have to rearrange the order of our chapters?  Add chapters in or take something out?  This is all part of the writing process and working pairs, they thoughtfully made decisions.

* Ask your child what their writing topic is and to share more info about one chapter.  

1 area we are continuing to work on is using quiet signals for class conversations.  We are working on responding to each other's ideas for more conversation in the classroom with less teacher prompting.  Students have been building on each other's ideas, agreeing and disagreeing respectfully, commenting, and questioning with others in whole group and in pairs.  

* Ask your child more about our quiet signals and words to say when using them.

Week Ending 1/12/18

Hi Families,
I hope you all have warmed up this week after last week's snow storm.  We've been busy getting back into routines and back into the curriculum.

Important Information:

• Monday, January, 15, is no school.  
• In your child's folder coming home today, is FIELD TRIP paperwork. Please read over information below and let me know if you have any questions.  

3, 2, 1 things happening in room 250 this week...

3 science/social studies activities we worked on were finishing up our unit on Earth, Moon, and Sun by learning about the phases of the moon, completed our passports, and we "flew" to Mexico in the library.

2 informational writing skills we worked on were completing a table of contents with chapters we think we might write about and working on adding more to our writing by telling more information, give advice to the reader, and talk to the reader. 

1 math skill we continue to work on in each unit is problem solving.  This week we focused on determining which number was missing and making sure we answered the actual question given to us.  

In class we are also working on accountable talk between students and making our thinking visible through discourse in the classroom.  We have begun working on hand signals to show that we want to build on to other's thoughts, disagree, or agree (just a few examples), which helps the students gain instant feedback.  We'll begin using sentence starters to help us build our conversation confidence as well.  

FIELD TRIP INFO

The Second Grade Team is excited to announce our two field trips for this year.  They are to the Chinese Cultural Center (Friday, March 23rd) and to the Children's Museum (Thursday, June 7th).  Students brought home a letter regarding these trips today as well as the necessary permission slips.  Please be on the look out for them.

The per-student cost for both of these trips is $55 total.

If you would like your child to go on these field trips, you must return both permission slips and $55 to school by Thursday, January 18th.  Please make your payment in cash and in exact change.  Please contact me if the cost of this trip is a concern for you.

If you are interested in chaperoning this trip, you must make this indication on the reverse side of the permission slips. Please have a current CORI on file with Ms. Sheehan.