Week ending 9/25/15

It's Friday!  I think every one is ready for the weekend!  I hope you and your families are doing something fun and I can't wait to hear all about it Monday!  Monday will be our first full week of school.
Important information:

• As the weather changes, please be sure to send in a jacket or sweatshirt for the mornings or recess times.
• Please be sure your child wears sneakers on Wednesdays and Thursdays for physical education.

3, 2, 1 things we worked on this week were…

3 skills we practiced in math were measuring each other with cubes, comparing numbers using greater than, less than, and equal to, and practicing review problems in math boxes.  

2 books we listened to in read aloud were Miss Brooks Loves Books and I Don't to focus on choosing books that they really enjoy and Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth to focus on sounding out words carefully and slowly.

1 thing Andrew wants you to know that he was surprised by what the art room looked like.  There were really comfy bean bag chairs.  

Here's a look at some of our math measuring…

Week ending 9/18/15

Hi Families,
We've had a great week!  We've worked on a lot of routines and expectations and have spent time practicing.  Practicing now saves time later!  It's been warm but I think next week will have more September like weather, at least we hope!
Important information:

• Please continue to send in dismissal changes in a note.  It's so helpful!
• Please continue to meet me outside to pick up your child and encourage them to high 5 me before leaving.  This helps me check off each student.  
• Next week there is no school on the 23rd, Wednesday.  

3, 2, 1 things you should know…

3 parts of Responsive Classroom we worked on this week were: setting up our rules and signing them, talking about Rest Stop and how it can help us relax, calm down, take a break, and get refocused on our work, and we learned a clap game in morning meeting.

2 writing activities we completed were the writing prompt and writing about our summers.  The writing prompt was asking them to write a small moments story about anything they wanted, as long as it was true.  They worked really hard!  After I look them, I'll have a better idea of where each child is in their writing journey.  

1 thing Jayden wants you to know about school this week is we practiced telling time and reading books.

Week ending 9/11/15

Welcome back to school!
We've had a great week!  I've really enjoyed meeting and starting to get to know each of our students this year!  This week has been filled with getting to know you activities, learning and practicing expectations and routines, attending specials, and getting our room set up to be "ours".  We will spend a great deal of time over the next month or so learning about each other and learning about our room.  We will practice expectations and routines so each of them knows what I'm expecting and what to do.  We practice, model, and help each other.  The more we practice now, the less we do later and the smoother the year goes.
Important information:

• Specials:
• Monday: Art
• Tuesday: Music
• Wednesday: Physical Education (don't forget your sneakers)
• Thursday: Physical Education (don't forget your sneakers)
• Friday: Library (don't forget your books)
• There is no school on Monday.  
• Thank you for helping with dismissal by coming to get your child and checking in with me before leaving.  I'm asked all the students to say good bye and high five me before leaving.  It's very important to be sure I know who the students go with and as I'm getting to know each of you, this is very helpful!  Don't forget that if there is dismissal changes, please send a note in.

3, 2, 1 things you need to know about our class this week…
3 books we read this week were: Brand New Pencils, Brand New Books, First Year Letters, and Chrysanthemum.

2 skills we practiced in math were telling time and how the calendar works.

1 thing Gabriel wants you to know about 2nd grade is we need to be quiet during fire drills.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. DeKing

Weekly Update 6/19/15

Hi Families!
We are in the home stretch!  I can't believe how quickly it has gone by!   Are you excited for summer?  We plan to camp, visit family in NY, and head to Disney with my family.  I look forward to long warm days for the beach and bike rides!  I'm sure you all have your own plans and I look forward to hearing about the summer when the kids return in the fall!

* Don't forget to keep sending kids in with sneakers or sandals (no flip flops).
* If you have any last library books at home…please be sure to send them in!
* School ends on Wednesday, the 24th, with dismissal at 12:00!  

It was nice to see so many of you at our celebration on Monday!  The students are so proud of themselves for all they've accomplished and persevered through this whole year!   I am very proud of them and I know you are too!  Thank you so much for your help and support this year.  It truly takes many people to keep a room happy, healthy, and full of learning!  I appreciate your support for me, but more importantly for your children!  Without you, they would not achieve all they could and would not have bloomed so nicely!

I hope you all have a wonderful summer, full of sun, fun, and exciting adventures!
I am honored to have had each of your students this year and I look forward to seeing them next year across the hall!
Have a wonderful summer and keep in touch!

Megan DeKing

Week of 6/12/15

We are in the home stretch!  I can't believe how soon school will been ending for our year!  I am so impressed with how far the students have come and I can see where they are headed!

Important things to know…

• Monday is our celebration!  Please join us to see your child's work from the year and a few presentations.  Please wait by the auditorium and at 8:45, we'll come down and get you when we're ready to go!  :)
• Tuesday is Color Day.  Your child brought home a sheet yesterday regarding their color and other hints for Color Day. (The rain date is the Thursday.)
• Step Up is Friday, the 19th.  Our 2nd grade classes will be meeting with the 3rd grade teachers to hear about next year and see the teachers face to face.  They can ask questions and get a sense for  what's to come.  Talk to your child about it…they may be excited, nervous, or have questions.  I can't wait to hear what they think!
• The last day of school is Wednesday, the 24th, with dismissal at 12:00.  

We've been working on many things to get ready for our celebration, finishing up our opinion writing unit, continue working on our poetry reading unit, learning more about Ghana, and then later next week we'll be doing some fun writing for poetry, end of year activities in reading and writing, and more!  

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Week ending 5/29/15

It's been a beautiful week!  We're all so in love with this weather and I hope it continues into June!
Here's some important things to remember:
* Please be sure your child has sneakers or sandals with a back in school.  Sneakers on PE days especially.
* Yesterday an email was sent regarding homework and an end of year project.  Also, one about behavior at the end of the year.  Please be sure to read them when you can. :)
* On Tuesday, we had an evacuation drill to the Temple.  The students did fantastic!  We could evacuate for a number of different reasons such as no heat in the building and it's important for students to know where to go and what it would look and feel like.  It's the same reason we practice fire drills.
* The Museum of Science field trip is June 8 for the whole day so it's very important your child is here on time and ready to go.  A different email will go home next week with specifics.
* Keep June 15th open for a celebration in the morning.
* June 16th will be Color Day.

3, 2, 1 things we've worked on this week…
3 math things we completed were Kojo's Math to begin learning about arrays and groups or sets of numbers, and the Unit 11 and end of year assessment.  The end of year assessment will help you know which skills your child can practice over the summer.

2 writing skills we worked on were understanding what a book recommendation is and how to provide support for our opinions.

1 thing Mary wants you to know is that we are reading and writing about biographies on famous people.

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Week of 5/22/15

Hi Families!
It's been so nice this week and we love getting outside for recess!  Yesterday we enjoyed getting out and letting our butterflies go.  It was beautiful to see!

A few important things:
* Our field trip to the Museum of Science is on June 8th, a Monday.  More info to come on that.
* Often at this time during the year, we spend a lot of time checking our behavior and making sure we're still on track.  Please check in with your child about expected behavior and keeping it together as long as possible! Thanks for your help with this!
* We will be having an end of year celebration on Monday, June 15th first thing in the morning.  More details to come!

3, 2, 1 things we've learned this week…

3 math skills we worked on were creating arrays as the first step for multiplication, subtracting money using dollar signs, and working on our addition and subtraction problem solving skills by focusing on the numbers and choosing which strategy would work best.

2 skills we practiced in writing were checking to be sure we have capitals in the correct spot and correct letter formation of our opinion letters.

1 technology project we've been working on is a wordle.  Don't know what a wordle is?  You'll have to wait till our end of year celebration. ;)


Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

What did we learn this week?

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Week of May 4

It has been beautiful out!  Are you all enjoying the weather?  I hope so…we have!  We've stayed out a little longer at recess to enjoy these temperatures and blue skies!  We have had a busy week in room 250!  Can you believe there's only 32 more days of school!

Important Information:

• Please remember to put sunscreen on your child before leaving the house in the morning.
• Don't forget to send in sneakers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for physical education.
• If you child is wearing sandals, please be sure they are sandals that have straps and not flip flops.

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

3 skills we've been working on with our opinion writing are: making our letters about books more interesting by retelling part of the story, keeping our audience in mind by talking to the reader and not giving away the ending, and we started looking at a checklist that will help us be sure we have all the different parts/ideas of an opinion letter.  **Ask you child which character or book they are writing about and what their opinion is.  

2 take aways from our CAP presentation on Monday were to be sure to say "NO!" if a stranger tries to talk to you or makes you a little nervous.  We also talked about sticking up for ourselves and sticking up for our friends.

1 thing Judah wants you to know about this week is we learned different ways to split numbers when adding in math.

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Week ending 4/10/15

We've had quite a busy week!  We've started new units, such as Folktales, and are working on finishing up other units, such as China and math Unit 9.
Important information:

• Monday is Red Sox day…wear Red Sox gear or red, white, and/or blue to cheer on our team!
• Vacation is April 19-26.  Please let me know if your child will be out before or after.  Thanks.
• May 7th, a Thursday, is an Early Release day.

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

3 learning ideas we worked on in social studies are: China's Forbidden City was built with many features to protect the Emperor and keep others out.  China has rural and urban areas, as many cities do, and we watched a video describing two children's days and how they differ based on where they live.  We learned about Yikang's day and compared it to our day, our routines, and activities.  Ask your child about one of these ideas.  We will be finishing our China lessons next week and then complete an alphabet book on China after vacation.  

2 math skills we have been practicing are comparing lengths of objects and understanding what capacity means.  We will finish Unit 9 this week and next week will begin Unit 10 on place value, money, and making change problem solving.  

1 thing Advik wants you to know about fables is that fables are stories that are not true and there are animal characters.

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Week ending 4/2/15

Hello Families!
Instead of a regular blog post this week since it's a short week…I wanted to call attention to a two activities we participated in.  In the post below you'll see what happened at the Chinese Cultural Center.  Below are some pictures from todays in school program called Life Cycles from the Museum of Science.
Ask your child their favorite part and what they've learned!
Enjoy!