Week ending 4/7/17

We made it through our first full week of April and Ms. Kariotis has finished all of her take over weeks!  Have you had a chance to enjoy the better weather?  I hope you can get out this weekend and take a walk, ride bikes, and play like a kid!

Important information:

• Next Friday, April 14, there is no school.  
• Please check your email and your child's folder for information regarding the CAP program that will be visiting us in May.  

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

3 math skills we worked on were naming fractions, using pattern blocks to show our fractions to peers, and identifying equivalent fractions.  

* Show your child a square with a line down the middle or showing thirds and ask your child to show you 1/2 or 1/3.  

2 reading strategies we worked on were summarizing our non-fiction reading on the rain forest and thinking about the big ideas with books such as Secret Place and The Great Kapok Tree.  It's important for students to understand that authors write about ideas that are important to many people, such as taking care of the environment, family, and friendship.

* Ask your child what the bigger idea was in one of those stories.  

1 activity we worked on social studies was identifying people in photographs that were consumers, producers, and buyers.  We looked at various photographs of people working and buying in China, discussed what they noticed in the pictures, and chose a photograph to sketch in our journals to help us remember.

Have a  great weekend!

Week ending 3/31/17

It's the end of March already!  Can you believe we start April tomorrow?  2 1/2 months of school left!

Important information:

• Friday, April 14th, there is no school and then school vacation starts.  
• If you have any cleaning wipes or paper towels you'd like to donate, we'd love to take them off your hands! 

3, 2, 1 things we've been working on this week...

3 writing activities we worked on as we started our new opinion unit were writing opinion letters to someone about what they thought of a class read aloud, getting energy for their writing by talking with a peer, and choosing a character they have an opinion about by rereading their favorite books.  

*Ask your child which book and character they have chosen to begin writing about.

2 math activities we used to practice our measuring skills were working with a partner to measure our arm spans and working in teams to measure our jumps, both in inches and centimeters.  

* Ask your child to tell you about inches and centimeters.   

1 activity we worked on in literacy was making inferences based on a poem we read together.  

* Ask your child what animal they inferred the poem to be talking about and how they knew that.

Week ending 3/24/17

Hi families! Spring has sprung even though we don't feel it yet!  We are all very excited regarding the Chinese Cultural Field Trip on Monday!

Important Information:

• Please send your child to school with a paper bag lunch and be sure to write your child's name on the bag. 
• Students will be making dumplings, and are offered them at lunch, so if there is an allergy concern, please let me know.  
• Should there be any concerns regarding weather, please plan as though we are still going and send a bag lunch.
• Also, if you have any paper towels or tissues you'd like to donate to the classroom, that would be great!

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

3 activities we worked on to practice inferencing were: "What's in my teacher's bag?" to make inferences about what our Mrs. K.  likes and participates in, listening to the read aloud No! David to infer qualities of David, and read together and discussed the poem "Things" to infer what the girl was doing.  

*Show your child an item that is important to you and ask them what they can infer about you.  (Ex. Showing a Starbucks gift card and your child may infer you not only like to drink coffee, but like to drink coffee at Starbucks. 

2 math skills we've been working on are doubling and dividing  numbers and understanding the relationship between that.  We used the activity called Wubbles to do this.  We also worked in teams to show see who would win a "basket ball game" with dice and addition.  

1 social/emotional piece we're working on with all of our students is getting refocused back on our rules, our understanding of glitch and disaster, thinking of other's tone of voice before responding upset, and thinking about problems in our class and how we can work together to fix them.  I have noticed more students given each other a kid positive postcard and for both the giver and receiver, they both are rewarded in their heart.  

Week ending 3/10/17

We've had a great week and it's been so nice to meet with many of you at conferences.  Next week, Ms. Kariotis takes over again as part of her student teaching.

A few reminders:

• Depending on the weather, please send in clothes accordingly for recess.  
• There will be more information regarding field trips as it gets closer.  If you were chosen out of the box to chaperone, you have been emailed.  Thank you to everyone who has offered!

3, 2, 1, things you should know this week...

3 skills we worked on in math are adding and subtracting double digit and three digit numbers while explaining how we solved them to a partner, learning about estimating, when we might estimate, and how it goes with rounding  numbers, and we practiced comparing numbers through number stories.  

* Ask you child which addition strategy they feel most comfortable with and have them show you an example.  

2 reading skills we've worked on are creating questions or wonderings in our mind regarding fiction and non-fiction stories and comparing Ivy and Bean's friendship to one of our own using evidence from the text.  

1 read aloud book we listened to was Recess at 20 Below.  

* Ask your child what it's like when the students in Alaska go out for recess when it's 20 degrees below zero.

Week ending 3/3/17

Hello families!
It's been a great week back from vacation.  The students have adjusted nicely back to the school routine and we've been working hard in so many areas!

Important information:

• Going home TODAY is field trip paperwork.  Please read over the information, sign BOTH permission forms, check if you would like to be considered for a chaperone, and send the money in, in an envelope in cash only.  We can not accept checks.  If you do not have a current CORI on file, as I've mentioned before, you can not be considered for the field trips.  One is the end of this month and the other is in June.  If your CORI is not complete now, you will not be considered for the field trip this month,  you can check yes on the form and complete the paperwork with Ms. Sheehan for June but if you're chosen and it's not completed, you will not be able to attend.  All the information is coming home today so please look at it and send back on Monday. Thank you for your support in doing this quickly!  
• Conferences begin on Tuesday.  This is a time for you and your child to meet with me to discuss how the year is going so far.  
• Thursday, March 9, is an early release day.  Please let me know if there are any changes to your child's dismissal schedule.  Thanks!

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

3 skills we've been working on throughout our Friendship Unit while reading Ivy & Bean  have been making predictions based on evidence from the text, deciding how Ivy and Bean's friendship has changed over the book so far, and then using our own reading workshop just right books, deciding how the characters have changed in those books.  

*Ask your child what they've learned about the characters Ivy and Bean so far.

2 math skills we've been working on are learning how to add using the strategy of partial sums and how to add three numbers at once using a variety of strategies.  

*Ask your child to solve this problem: 74+56 = ?

1 skilled we activity we have begun in writing workshop is reading and taking notes regarding our topic for our informational Mexico books.  Students have read various Mexico books, used post it notes to mark the parts related to their topic, and have taken notes on the important information.  

*Ask your child which topic they are researching.

Have a great weekend!

Week of 2/13/17

Hello families!
How are you all enjoying this weather and the snow days?  I can't believe we've had winter come to us all at once and we've had three snow days.  It's been nice to be home but I'm ready to get back!  Since we're home again today, I decided to write our classroom blog today.

Important information:

• Don't forget to have your child bring in their bag of 100 things and the clue sheet.  Students love doing this activity!
• If your child is bringing in valentines to hand out, be sure there is one for every student and remember not to send in food with them.  
• We will be celebrating the 100th Day of School AND Valentine's day tomorrow, Tuesday the 14th.  
• Vacation is next week!  I hope you all enjoy a wonderful and fun week. 
• Later this week, I will be sending out a Sign Up Genius for Spring conferences which begin the second week of March.  Again, these will be on the afternoons given to us and a few mornings before school begins.  I will send an email with the link when ready.

3, 2, 1 things you should know about room 250 this week!

3 skills we'll be working on in math this week are making tally charts and bar graphs to represent the colors and numbers of conversation hearts we'll be counting on Tuesday, creating a time line to record our own birth years and those of our family members, and we'll use that time line to determine the ages of people in our family using subtraction and explain our thinking to a peer.  

2 writing activities we will begin working on this week are using the Mexico non-fiction books to compile pages of information that will be useful in writing our own Mexico non-fiction, informational books.  We'll also be deciding which topic we would like to research using the texts and various web resources, such as Pebble Go and Brainpop Jr. 

1 skill we are working on is identifying a character's feelings and actions and how they relate to each other.  Our friendship unit focuses a great deal on character's feelings and how that impacts in their actions.  

Week ending 1/27/17

Hello families!  January is closing up quickly and February will be here before we know it!  We are less than 10 days away from the 100th day of school.  I've added some additional websites/apps that are great for spelling, reading, math practice at home.  You can check them out on my Newton schools website.

Important information:

• Next Wednesday, February 1st is an early release day with dismissal at 12:30.   Please plan accordingly and don't forget there is no ASCA on early release days.  

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

3 math activities we worked on were identifying and recognizing 3-D shapes in the classroom and real world, identifying attributes of quadrangles, and sorting polygons based on number of sides and number of angles.  

* Ask your child how many sides and angles a triangle, quadrangle, and hexagon have.  

2 writing skills we continue to work on as we finish publishing our informational books are editing for complete sentences and using the word wall to help spell words unfamiliar to us.  

* Ask your child what their topic is and to tell you 2 ideas they've written about.

1 whole class read aloud book, we're reading is Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  They class really enjoyed it.  We also introduced peer positive postcards to the class.  This is another way students can support each other, recognize others' efforts, and be mindful of how we're building a classroom community.
https://www.amazon.com/Have-Filled-Bucket-Today-Bucketfilling/dp/099609993X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485545619&sr=1-1&keywords=have+you+filled+a+bucket+today

Last Week's Post (1/23/17)

Hi families!
I hope you all had a nice weekend!  I apologize for not posting this earlier this weekend but wanted to still share with you what we worked on last week.

3, 2, 1 things we did this week...
3 math skills we worked on this past week were identify attributes of different shapes and we worked on an attribute train putting shapes together but the rule was to change one attribute as they chose the next shape.  We also worked on identifying parallel lines and quadrangles (quadrilaterals).
*Ask your child to show you with their fingers how to make parallel lines and intersecting lines.

2 writing skills we worked on focusing on choosing which chapters we wanted to publish (as a good writer always chooses from what's written the best parts to share) and adding introductions.

1 activity we completed in reading workshop was comparing the traditional Three Little Pigs story to James Marshall's version and wrote an opinion piece of writing to convince a friend which to read.
*Ask your child which version they liked better.

Final notes on homework (for now):
Beginning this week, your child will be bringing home a fluorescent green sheet of paper.  This is both their homework reading log and their response sheet.  This single sheet of paper is what homework will look like for the remainder of the year; it replaces the packet format we had been following.  This one homework product should be returned to school on Fridays.

Your child has spent some time in the classroom last week learning and practicing homework expectations with an emphasis on achievement and effort.  These  are two of our school's core values.  We expect to see them represented in students' homework just the same way we seek to see these values represented daily in school across all academic and social domains.

The second grade teaching team expected to see the one homework product done well.  Sentences should be properly constructed and follow conventions (i.e., capitalization and punctuation used properly).  Handwriting should be neat and letters should be properly formed.  Work that is less than a student's best effort or which does not meet these standards will be returned.  We thank you in advance for holding these same high expectations at home.

We appreciate your ongoing partnership and active participation in this process more than we can say in words.
Sincerely,
Second Grade Team


**I am working this week myself, to collect more websites and activities for students to work on at home if they/you wish.

Week ending 1/13/17

The weather this week has been up and down but it was so nice to get out today for both snack and lunch recess!

Important information you should know:

• Monday, January 16, there is no school.  
• Continue to send in snow pants, boots, mittens, etc and help your child practice putting them on quickly at home.  

3, 2, 1 things you should know about our week in room 250...

3 lessons we worked on during social studies were learning about Diego Rivera and how he painted to share the stories of the Mexican people, watched a Pebble Go video on Mexico's holiday Day of the Dead where they remember and celebrate people that have passed on and decorated our own skulls which are typically worn on this day, and we learned about the different items sold at the Mexican market place in our book.   

*Ask you child 2 items sold that the market place that we discussed.

2 skills in writing we continue to work on are asking the reader a question in our introduction and how to use twin sentences to make our writing more varied, interesting, and longer.  

* Ask you child to tell you a twin sentence that goes with "The beach is my favorite place to go!"

1 day we  celebrated was Beach Day!  Students really enjoyed beach day today!  They wore sunglasses, used their beach towels to read on, played beach ball math, greeted each other by tossing a beach ball, listened to "The Sand Castle Contest" and wrote about our favorite times at the beach, and watched a Magic School Bus video regarding the beach.

Update on homework:

Dear Second Grade Families,

As you know, we've asked for your feedback regarding homework and have been working to reiterate expectations in the classroom.  To this end, we've been working to redefine expectations as necessary.  Our work with your children over the past two weeks has focused on clarifying what needs to be done to achieve individual hopes and dreams; and, as importantly, how this will be done.

Our team has decided that homework tasks will change but will remain within the district's guidelines for total time spent on homework based on the following conclusions:

• Homework routines are important

• Most families value homework

• Teachers and families value reading tasks above other homework tasks

Moving forward:

• Total time spent on homework will remain 30 minutes.

• Nightly reading of at least 20 minutes will continue.
• BEGINNING JANUARY 23^rd - Nightly reading response

• Nightly math and spelling review worksheets will not continue. 

• Additional resources will be available to families on our websites, and may be given as “homework” at the discretion of individual families.

Our team will spend next week teaching and practicing homework routines with students in the classroom.

Week ending 1/6/17

Happy New Year!  Welcome back families!  We are back up and running this week and we've spent a lot of time refocusing on routines, expectations, revisiting our goals/hopes for the new year, and sharing about our break.  

3, 2, 1, things you should know...

3 math skills we've focused on this week were addition and subtraction skills in math games, understanding how to use a "Parts-Parts-Total" diagram to help add money, and how to tell the temperature and why it's important to know that.  

**Ask your child why we play the game "Wipe-Out".

2 books we've read this week as we jump started our James Marshall author study were Portly McSwine and Eat Your Vegetables.  Our author study is focused using the texts to compare characters, identify cause and effect of a character's actions, identify story elements, and read with expression.  

**Ask your child what happened when the brontosaurus ate the leaves at the owl's tree.

1 activity we did to learn more about a child's responsibilities in Mexico was breaking into groups of three, choosing a child to read about together, and comparing the child's life in Mexico to their own lives.  It can really be an eye opener!

**Ask your child one responsibility that is the same as the other child's and one that is different.

Important information regarding homework:

Thank you for your feedback regarding homework this past week.  We've heard a variety of opinions and have looked closely at the data we've collected via the survey.  Our second grade teaching team has spent a significant amount of time considering your feedback, studied research on the matter by thought leaders in the field, and discussed our past and current research practices at length.  

At this time, we would like to extend the conversation of another week so that we may make what we feel would be the best-informed, most reasonable decision regarding future homework practices at the grade level.  

Please take a moment to share your voice via the brief homework survey if you haven't already done so.  The homework expectation for next week will be the same as for last week: Read for 30 minutes each night.  Homework Survey

Thank you in advance for your feedback and flexibility as we "reset" expectations for the remainder of the year.  

--Second Grade Team