Goodness Me! It has been a crazy couple of weeks since being back from Thanksgiving. We have been up to so much fun these last few weeks and I can't wait to share with you some of the fun an exciting moments we have been having!
Science: In science we wrapped up our unit of matter, and had an absolute ball! We had trail mix to help us to identify the properties of matter and to discuss what a micture was. Then we had lemonade to talk about what a solution was and how it was diferen

Classroom Snapshot, Thanks and Reminders

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving filled with lots of love and family! I had a great Thanksgiving with my family, and enjoyed getting to spend 5 days with my little guy. We also had a great time listening to Christmas music and putting up our trees and decorations. My favorite tree in the house has to be sons tree that he picked out last year. If you didn't know my son is truly a basketball guru and can tell you anything you want to know about basketball including, every team Shaquille Oneal has ever played on! He's 4! Crazy! I know, but what can you expect when you have Varsity Assistant coach as a dad. Anyway, his tree happens to be my favorite because it is the Fighting Illini colors, which is his favorite college basketball team and has basketballs as ornaments!  Maybe we have a future Illini Alum? Who knows! So, I said all that to say, I hope your Thanksgiving Holiday was also filled with laughs, memories, and joy.

So it was great seeing all the kids today, and they came in ready to learn, which was great because we had a pretty busy day. Here are few things we did today:

Today we:

• took our pretest on geometry because that is our next focus unit, which I am super excited about. I love Geometry!
• practiced our reading responses during writing time. We practiced answerinf who, what, when, where, and why questions from our text. Then we put them altogether to make what we call a sentence stretcher.
• introduced a new shared reading book called His Majesty, the King, which is an excellent folktale about a king who wanted to go to moon, and decided to command all his subjects to bring a box so they could stack them as high as the moon. The King did all this at the dismay of the Queen.He finally had almost reached the top, but sadly he was one box short to his desination of the moon. So what did he decide to do.... he commanded his servants to take the box from the bottom of the tower and place it on the top. Everyone warned him that was a bad idea, but he is the king! As you probably guessed the tower came falling down with the King landing on top. With this book, we are working on Story traits, such as characters, setting, problem, solution.Funny side story: I think this was one of the abosolute cutest thing I have ever seen. As I read to the students the part about the King commanding the servants to take a box from the bottom and place at the top, one of our classmates facial expression was absolutely priceless! Her face started off as look of concern, ho wis he going to reach the moon. When she heard the King's not so brilliant idea her face slowly began to turn into a quizzical frown, as she began to realize that his idea was not going to work. I truly wish I had a camera because it will defintely be a memorable moment everytime I read this book in the future.
• began reading a great book by Dr. Suess called Batholomew and the Oobleck, during science. This book is excellent because it lends itself well to a discussion on Solids, liquids, and gasses. Additionally, tomorrow we further our discussion as we experiement with matter and make our own Oobleck! (Pictures to come tomorrow!)

Overall, we had an excellent day, and I am really excited about tomorrow!

Thanks:

• Our Thanksgiving feast was a success because of the great families we have here. The students had a wonderful time. Thank you to all the families who were able to contribute. Everything was so yummy!
• To Mr. Petty for coming in and being a mystery reader this past week! I I think I may have forgotten Mr. Flores who also came in to be a star reader a couple weeks ago! Thanks again we can't do it without you!
• To all the families that offered to donate an item towards our Science Experiments. It is truly appreciated.

Reminders:

• Naglieri Test Scores went home today.
• We are in need of Mystery Readers! Please click the link above if you are interested. We have three full weeks left before Christmas break and we would love to have some mystery readers! So far we have had moms, dads, aunts, and grandmas. Remember to pass the word on to family memebers too! Thanks!

Virtual Field Trip

Hello Parents,

Last week we went on a field trip!!! A virtual field trip that is :).  Students had an awesome time exploring different "exhibits". Each exhibit had to do with our new science unit which is matter. Students were to walk with their teams to each exhibit and discuss what they saw at each exhibit. What the students didn't realize until the end was that they were being scientist and listing the properties of the exhibits, which happened to all be solids, liquids, and gases. Here are some fun pictures of our field trip.

Classroom Snapshot and Reminders

Hi Families,

We have had a pretty busy week and half, and I have tons of pictures to show you. I hope everyone a great election day with your little ones if you were able to do so. Here are few things we have been up to.

This week we...

• began a new shared reading book called Putting on a Play, which is a nonfiction text, and informs students about how to put on their own play. Students have learned about stage directions, props, costumes, and much more. In addition to learning all about how to put on plays, we are learning about how to use context clues within our story to find meaning in unknown or unfamiliar words. Students are doing an excellent job with  this, and it is a great skill to practice at home. All you would have to do if there is a word where students are unfamiliar with the meaning, you could ask them if the author has given them any clues to figure out that word on their own, or you can ask them what would make since in it is place, often times that leads to discussion on possible meanings.
• Are wrapping up unit 17 which is about place value to the hundreds. Going into next week, we will be working on numbers up to the ten thousands place.
• will be wrapping up the drafting of our narrative pieces. With this piece of writing, we are really focusing on students organization. We are also working on focusing our topic so that they do not become too big and overwhelming, which students have been doing a great job with.

Reminders:

• We are looking for Mystery Readers for the rest of November and December. If you are interested just click the Mystery Reader link up top and fill in your information, and I will get to you as soon as possible and get you all set up.
• Students were allowed to wear hats in class today as a reward; however, I forgot to remind families via the blog and text message. Therefore, many students forgot. So tomorrow, Thursday, will be our hat day!

Thank you's:

• I would love to thank Mrs. Salkas for leading our Halloween party she did a fabulous job and the kids had so much fun!
• Thank you to Mrs. Burns, Mr. Field, Mrs. Flores, Mrs. Alapatt for their help as well in assisting in our Halloween parties!
• Thank you to  Mr. Larson for coming in a being a WatchD.O.G. on Halloween day as well.
• Thank you to all my fabulous parents who were able to come in and volunteer during center time in October! It was a great help, and the kids love seeing you all come in.
• I would also love to thank Mrs. Self, Elise's Aunt for coming in as a Mystery Reader.

Classroom Snapshot and Reminders

Hi Families!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. My weekend was o.k. except I came down with something, which bums me out because that meant I had a day away from the kiddos today. I hope everything went smoothly with out me. :-)

This week is a very exciting week filled with all kinds of fun. Here are just a few things that are taking place at Grand Prairie this week.

• Monday- Friday we are celebrating Red Ribbon Week school wide. Here a few things you will want to keep track of as we celebrate this week. 

• Monday- Healthy Living is No Sweat: Wear your Work Out Clothes
• Tuesday- Follow your dreams: Wear your Pajamas
• Wednesday- Color my World Healthy: Wear Bright Colors or Tie Dye. 
• Thursday- Team Up For Healthy Living: Wear Sports Gear
• Friday- Live Heart Healthy- Wear Red.
• All Week wear your red ribbons to school

• As most of you probably know this Wednesday we will be having our Fall Festival. Here are a couple reminders regarding the Fall Festival:
• No weapons or blood. Students will be asked to take off costumes if present. 
• Do not wear costumes to schools, students will  have time during the afternoon, prior to the parade to put on costumes. 
• Parade begins at 2:00 p.m (weather permitting).
•  Classroom parties begin at 2:30 p.m.

Quick Notes:

• Conference Times were sent out last Wednesday, if you have not scheduled your conference or have not received your time, please contact me as soon as possible!
• Here is a note from Mrs. Dassinger: 

Dear Grand Prairie Families,

We are very happy to announce that GP Elementary School will again be offering support groups for students experiencing difficult life circumstance related to grief, loss, and/or parental separation and divorce.  This year, instead of the Rainbows Program we will use a new program called G.L.a.D.S. (which stands for Grief, Loss, and Divorce, Separation) which we developed after thorough consideration of our students’ and families’ needs.

If your child has experienced the death of a loved-one or is adjusting to a separation or divorce, they may want to participate in our G.L.a.D.S. program to share with other children and sensitive, trained Grand Prairie staff facilitating the group.  Furthermore, the group will provide your child with a safe place to share his or her feelings and to receive support from other children who experience similar circumstances.

For more detailed information and to register your child(ren), please refer to the program flyer that was sent home. Additional flyers can be found at the GP office or requested through your child’s teacher.

For any other questions, please contact Bianca Dassinger, our school social worker.

Thank you!

I am going to leave you with some fun pictures of our Voting Unit and Halloween writing projects  we completed a little over a week ago. Enjoy!

Reminders

Hi Families, '

I am actually out of the building today, and will happily return tomorrow! Here are a few reminders:

• If you have not yet scheduled a parent teacher conference, please return a parent teacher form as soon as possible. For those who have turned in a form, I will be sending home schedules tomorrow. Please be sure look at it carefully, and if there are any changes in your schedule please let me know as soon as possible.
• Wednesday and Thursday, October 24th and 25th second grade students will be participating in CoGat. Please make sure that your child eats a healthy breakfast and gets a good night sleep!
• Report cards will be sent home on Thursday. Please make sure to carefully look over your child's report card and sign and return the signature card and envelope as soon as possible.
• If you have not already picked out your child's  Halloween Costume, or even if you have, please make sure that their costume is school appropriate. NO blood or weapons.

That is about it for now. I will be back a little bit later with pictures from last week!

Classroom Snapshot

Dearest Famlies,

This week has started off wonderfully! Here are a few things that we did today, as well as, a few things you will want to take note of.

Today we...

• learned about comparing numbers in math. We learned all about the symbols that represent greater than, less than, and equal too. Students were real pros at this today. 
• also learned about Similies. We read a cute book called Crazy Like a Fox: A Simile Story. We talked about how a similie compares two things that are not alike using the words like and as. Then, after we read our book, students created their own similies!
• had second step with Mrs. Dassinger, and she shared with us today about how we can handle and deal with frustration. (Please ask your child about the three steps to handling frustration.)
• Finally, at the end of the day we had a special Mystery Reader come in and read to our class! Thank you Mrs. Nolan, which is one of our students grandmothers,  for coming in. We truly enjoyed it. Also a special thank you Mrs. Burns, Mrs. Gieseke, Mrs. Piekosz, Mrs. Kania, who have all come in and read to our class this year. We truly appreciate you coming in!   If you are interested in coming in and reading to our class please click the mystery reader link at the top of the page, and I will email you a day and time!

Things to remember:

• Wednesday we will be going to the bookfair. If you are interested in your child purchasing books, please be sure to bring money to school with your child for Wednesday.
• Please be aware that their is also a family book fair night, on October 18th  from 4-7:00 p.m. where you can come in as a family and purchase books. In conjunction with this event, the P.E. department will be hosting an Open Gym from 6:00-7:30. Lots of fun is to be had so hope you will be able to make it out!

That's all for now have a great evening!!!

GREAT NEWS!!!

Oh My Goodness! We have so much great news to share, I can barely contain myself! So here we go!

• Thank you to everyone who supported our book fair change drive! Because of you, our class earned $365.00 towards new books for our classroom library. We are absolutely beyond thrilled, and cannot wait to choose our new books!! Be on the look out for a very special thank you once we get our books!!
• 2nd Grade has gone virtual. If you have a facebook page please become friends with the 2nd grade team. You can either search for us viaFacebook using the name GP WILDCAT or you can look over to the right and under awesome websites you will find a link that will take you directly to our facebook page. Our 2nd grade facebook page will be used for giving parent updates and reminders regarding 2nd grade happenings including field trips, testing, etc. It will also be a place where we will be giving tips about how to use and incorporate technology. We are so excited to launch this awesome resource, so make sure you friend us! While you are at you can also go over to the Grand Prairie PTO Facebook page and like it as well to get all kinds of school wide updates!
• It's Friday!! I hope everyone has a great weekend, I know I sure will. I get to take my little guy to the pumpkin patch tomorrow, and I absolutely cannot wait!

Classroom Snapshot and Reminders too!

Hello Families!! I have quite a few things to share with you in today's post. So let's get right to it!

Today we...

• worked on understanding how to make numbers using tens and ones in math. We also, began our math centers after a couple of days of discussing expectation and how our centers run.
• learned about Venn Diagrams and their purposes, during shared reading. We introduced Venn Diagrams by first comparing me with the infamous Mrs. Frizzle from one of our favorite books The Magic School Bus series. Here is how the students compared me to Mrs. Frizzle...

Phew... They said my clothes were "normal". I'm happy they didn't think my clothes were weird! :-)

• After students compared me to Mrs. Frizzle, they worked with a partner to compare themselves with their shoulder partner (the partner next to them that they rub shoulders with). Students had a great time learning how much they actually have in common with their friend.
• continued our discussion on Christopher Columbus. Students created a neat project where the sequenced the events that lead up to Christopher Columbus' arrival to the "New World".  

Students had a great time following  Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World.

• ARE SUPER EXCITED TO FIND OUT THAT WE ARE IN SECOND PLACE FOR THE CHANGE DRIVE!!!! WOO HOO!!! Keep it up!

That is about it for today!

Reminders:

• We are still collecting money for our book fair change drive. Remember the class with the most money collected will be able to spend their class collection, getting new books. The rest of the money will be used to spend money on our school library. Sounds like a win win to me...
• Thursday-  We are collecting Quarters
• Friday- We are collecting ANY Denominations!
• PARENT UNIVERSITY is this Thursday! Second grade teachers are so excited about this event. I can't wait to see you all there. Also, if you did not R.S.V.P. do not worry you are still welcome to come; however, we will not be able to give you a special refrigerator magnet with your child's log in information.
• Don't forget to continue practicing math facts! Make sure to also check out the awesome websites links over to the right. One of the links is to a great website, Arcademics. This website gives students an exciting way to practice their math facts with other children around the world!

Cool Moments from last week...

• We had a ton of extremely cool moments last week. Mayors, police officers, pastor, mystery readers, field trips, tests, picture day etc.  We made it through our busy week, and had a great time doing it! Check out some pictures from our exciting field trip to the fire station!

Have a great evening!!

Classroom Snapshot and reminders

Hi Families,

Our busy week is slowly coming to an end.

Today was a pretty exciting day. We had a school wide evacuation drill to the fire station, and students did a fabulous job!! I am so proud of them, but then again... when am I not! :-) Students also enjoyed hearing two awesome community workers come in today to speak about their very important roles in our very own community. You will want to ask your students all about it.

Just a few reminders:

• Tomorrow is our walking field trip to the firehouse. Please make sure your child is wearing comfy shoes for the walk.
• Tomorrow we are collecting pennies!! All money collected school wide will be used to help provide books for our school library. Additionally, the class that earns the most money, will win the amount donated as a class, to spend in their own classroom library! I know for sure that our class would love to get an opportunity to get some brand new books! So make sure to scrounge up all your loose change to help us out. You can even ask close family and friends. :)
• Tuesday- We will be collecting nickles for the same reason above.
• Wednesday- Dimes
• Thursday- Quarters
• Friday- Any denomination.

Have a great night!

Good Afternoon Families!

Wow! Today was a great day! Students got a wonderful opportunity to meet Mayor Collins, who is the mayor of Plainfield! Students thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to talk with Mr. Collins and learn more about his job. Students were even more excited to learn that Mayor Collins is our very own Mrs. Starkman's dad! You should have seen how all their mouths dropped when Mrs. Starkman told them. It was so cute!

Here are a few pictures of our experience. Enjoy!

Classroom Snapshot

Hello Families!! Today was an awesome Monday! Students had so much fun being able to wear their comfy pajamas to school today. What a great way to start a Monday! First I want to say that I am so proud of my second graders because students earned this second reward while the sub was in our classroom. I received nothing but great words about our class. I even had other teachers who popped in come an compliment our class on how great they were for the sub! They are such superstars! On to a quick snap shot of our day, reminders, and things to be on the look out for.

Today we...

• took our quiz on Topic 3 in math, which covered subtraction strategies. Afterwards we took a quick pretest on the topic of place value. The reason for this pretest is to give me an idea where students are in their understanding of place value, and I can then use this information to create guided math groups to give additional support or enrich and challenge students. 
• began reading the book Tell Me A Story, Grandpa, which is a non- fiction book that discusses the traditions of a Pueblo Native American family. Today as we read this book we focused on a strategy that we can use when we come across unfamiliar word. Students learned that when they come to a word they do not know that they can skip the word and read on to discover clues about the unfamiliar word. Once they have unwrapped all the clues, students can go back and re-read the text with a better understanding. Have your child try this strategy at home. 
• also began day one of our W.I.N. time which stands for  What I Need, this time was formerly called M.E.R.G.E. Students did an excellent job during this time and were working very hard. During this time, students are either receiving small group intervention or they are focusing on reading an appropriate independent texts, followed by writing about the text they are reading. 
•  continued to work in our guided reading groups and centers, which are in  full swing, and I cannot wait to have parents come in and volunteer to help us out!

Now here are a few reminders:

• We have a very, very busy week filled with all kinds of excitement and fun. Here are a few things you want to remember. 
• Tuesday, we will have Mayor Collins visit our school, and tell us all about his role in the community. Pictures will be posted!
• Wednesday, look your best for picture day! Do not forget your picture day money. Also, 2nd graders will be taking the Naglieri Test which measures students ability without reading, writing or speaking. Focuses on reasoning and problem solving skills. 
• Thursday, we have parents who work in the community that are coming in and sharing their roles. 
• Friday- We will have our walking field trip to the firehouse. I personally cannot wait!

Be on the look out for...

• me to contact you regarding chaperoning for Friday's field trip
• information regarding our upcoming Book Fair.
• a new homework calendar and reading log. 

That's all for now! Be back with pictures later. 

P.S. This information was from yesterday October 1st. I forgot to post so it is a day late. :-)

Helpful Tip!

Hello Families! I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. I know I sure did. My little guy and I took a visit to Lego Land with some close friends and family. We had a ball... or would it  be a block? Whichever, we had fun! If you ever get a chance to visit I would definitely recommend it. We had a group of kiddos that ranged from 4-7 and they all had a great time. Pictures to come later :)

On to the helpful tip-
Last week we began our weekly math fact practice for both addition and subtraction. The 2nd grade expectation is that students will be able to add and subtract within 20 without the use of any manipulatives (including fingers) by the end of second grade. The long term goal is that students will be able to complete 40 problems in just 80 seconds. That adds up to only 2 seconds per problem, which can seem quite daunting at first. However, we have discussed that our goal is to reach 40 problems in 80 seconds by the end of the year, and that their short term goal is to beat their own personal best each week.

***The time and the number of problems is based on a district commitees evaluation of research by Dr. Hasseslbring and Dr. Crawford.***  

So how can you help... here are some tips to help your student reach their goal.

• Practice with your child each and every night on their math facts for at least 5 minutes using either store bought flashcards or if you click the resource link above, their will be a link to a set of addition facts that you can print and cut.
• Create math fact games to play with your child, such as who can get the most math facts correct using flash cards.
• Play beat the parent. Set a timer for 80 seconds and see who can complete the most math facts in that time. ( Resource link above will have a link to a website where you can create math fact sheets.)
• Most importantly as you can see by my above suggestions, make it FUN!!!

P.S. I will be out of the building on Saptember 26th and 27th; however, I will still be able to respond to emails if you have questions or concerns. Thanks!

Classroom Snapshot!

Hello Parents!! Even though it has only been a week I have so missed posting here! Therefore, this will be a pretty heavy post because I have just so much to share and a few reminders.

This week we...

• finished up our unit on addition strategies, and began our unit on subtraction strategies. Today we talked about how our addition doubles facts can help us with subtraction.
• read the book Rashee and the Seven Elephants, which was a hilarious story about a little boy who was given the weighty responsibility of leading Seven Elephants to his uncle's house. Well,  unfortunately along the way Rashee kept "losing" one of the elephants and had to frantically **(vocabulary word we emphasized, see if your student remembers the meaning)** search for the elephant. Luckily, when Rashee would get off the elephant to search for him he always found him . When he arrived at his uncle's house, Rashee told his uncle all about it. His uncle discovered that Rashee had never really lost the elephant, but when he counted the Elephants he always forgot to count the one that he was riding! The students got a big kick out of the ending! Students also had  fun  using this book to check and confirm predictions, which was our focus. It is pretty safe to say that no one knew that was going to be our ending!
• discussed our rights as citizens in both our neighborhoods and nation students had great ideas of the rights we have as citizens in these communities. Today, we watched a movie to wrap up our ideas about our rights and responsibilities as citizens. 
• began our routines of word study. Students have been very respectful and working so hard as I take small groups to give differentiated word study instruction. I just cannot express how proud I am that they are being so respectful and responsible.
• finished introducing all our daily 5routines! Hooray! Students have been so awesome! Below are the pictures I took of students, while they learned about the laptops we will be using during listening to reading. They were so excited!!

Reminders:

• It is not too late to express interest in our Parent University Technology Night, if you are interested in coming please just send in a note or return the form to school!
• Don't forget to support our blood walk! If you are interested in raising money towards hemophilia please do so using the envelope students brought home a week ago. Regardless, students will be showing their support during their participation in the walk during P.E. and Health classes. 
• If you are a dad, grandfather, uncle of a great student, you may be interested in coming to our WatchD.O.G. Kick Off ! Reminders were sent home today, if you would like to come to the kick off please fill out the form so that  we can have a close to accurate count to accommodate all with food and beverages. 
• In our social studies curriculum we are learning all about communities. Therefore, if you are a community worker we are very interested in you coming in and speaking to our class about your job. I am looking to schedule families the week of October 1st, if this time works for you please let me know , we would love to have you. 
• Notices went home this Tuesday about Mystery Readers. If you are interested in being a mystery reader please sign up either by the link above, or you can return the form with your availability! Hope to see you!

Cool Moments From Last Week:

• We began our Second Step program with Mrs. Dassinger and it went great! During this time she reviewed listening skills. Students had a wonderful time sharing this time with Mrs. Weber's class as well.
• Cassandra was our star student and our class thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all about her and her growing family. 
• We changed our seats and met our new teammates. However, before leaving our old teammates we wrote sweet goodbye notes to our former teammates. 

Phew!!! I made it and thank you for also making it through this long winded post. I promise it won't be so long next time!

Classroom Snapshot!

Dear Families,
Students had an awesome day today, it has been awesome working with such a great group of second graders! Here are a few things we did tday.

Today we...

• Learned how to make 10 to add 8, Lesson 2.7.
• Talked about having a purpose and audience in mind we begin planning a new piece of writing.
•  In shared reading we discussed setting short term reading goals. Make sure to ask you child what their short term reading goals are.
• Continued working on building and maintaining stamina during our daily 5. So far we have reached our goal of 20 minutes of read to self, 11 minutes of working on writing, and 10 minutes of read to someone! Students are truly rocking and rolling, we will begin introducing our final two daily 5 routine next week!
• discussed citizen's rights in Social Studies. We learned that Rights means things that we are free to do. Students shared with their teams rights they have in school. We have such good citizens in room 005 because they came up with such great ideas such as...
• We have the right to not be bullied
• We have the right to learn
• We have the right to stand up to a bully, and tell them to stop.
• We have the right to be respected.
• Also went to the library where Mrs. Starkman read us an awesome book called we are going on a book hunt. It was all about library behaviors and how to check out a book. Students truly enjoyed being able to join Mrs. Starman in reading!

Here are a couple of reminders:

•  Art Shirts Tomorrow!
• Parent University R.S.V.P.

 That's about it families! Cannot wait to see your little ones tomorrow!
 

We Will Always Rember!

I know many of us can remember September 11th, 2001 as if it were yesterday. I know for myself , personally, I can remember walking down the hallways of my High School in utter shock and disbelief with a heavy feeling of sadness at what our country was going through at that time. However, as WE always do WE pulled through, and made September 11th a day to remember, not for the tradgedy, but a day to remember the MANY heroic efforts and a day to remember how our country pulled together in our time of sorrow and became stronger than ever before.

Today we discussed the importance of this day, and focused on the many postive things that can be attributed to September 11th. I hope that tonight, you can also share your story with your child about where you were and how you felt at this time. Here are a few pictures of the fun we had REMEMBERING.

Quick Reminders:

• Students will need art shirts on Friday because they will be using Water Colors.
• Students will need to return Library Books on Thursday, E day. This is our scheduled library day.

Be on the Look Out

Hello Families! Second Grade has a very exciting technology training program that we are calling Parent University, which we will be launching on October 11th, 2012. My team and I are so excited about the opportunity to train parents on two of our very useful resources, Discovery Education and Pearsonsuccessnet.com. Please be on the lookout for the Save the Date form for that was sent home yesterday, September 10th. We are asking that parents please R.S.V.P. for this exciting night of technology! I hope to see you all there!

Classroom Snapshot

 Hello Families!!! I hope everyone had a great and restful weekend. I cannot wait to get back to school tomorrow to see those sweet faces! This post is a delayed post from Friday. I just wanted to quickly share a few things about last week.

Last Week We...

• Had our first ever read-a-thon! Students had so much fun getting to read to self with their sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows. All their sleeping gear came in handy too, as it was very chilly in our classroom that day. (Quick Reminder: Please dress your child in layers, as we are still trying to problem solve our new air conditioning units. Somedays it has been very chilly and other days it has been very warm. We have been promised it will be fix soon! ) All in All, students had a blast on this day!
• Continued to build stamina in Reading to Self and Working on Writing. Students were able to build stamina to 17 minutes in read to self and 7 minutes in working on writing.
•  also introduced another one of our daily 5 routines, which is Read to Someone. Students were very excited about this addition. As a class we discussed, what the expectations are for this routine.  We further discussed how this will be the most difficult routine of our Daily 5, and immediately students knew exactly why. They all responded because we are working with someone. Exactly! So we made sure to model the correct and incorrect way to Read to Someone.
• also expanded our knowledge of communities and to took a much needed brain break after one of our discovery testing sessions,  and invited Mrs. Weber's 2nd grade class to watch a movie with our class entitled, Cities. Students were so awesome as we watched this video! You would have never guessed there were 50+ kids there. 
• introduced math topics adding doubles, adding near doubles, and adding in any order. 

Those were just a few of our learning adventures we had last week, and I can't wait to get into this week. 

A few reminders:

• We are collecting non-pershible food for Creekside Cares, which is an awesome program that helps Grand Prairie Families that are in need. Our Class would love to also thank all the families that have donated so far! 
• Remember to sign student's homework logs each night. 
• Students have been bringing home sight word flash cards for the last 2 weeks. Please be sure to study these words with your students nightly for their test on Friday. Also, make sure to keep the words in a safe place and practice throughout the year because students will be assessed on these words again at the end of the year.
• This week we will begin having Mrs. Dassinger, the social worker, coming in on A days to work with our students using the second step program. The program program helps to teach students the skills needed to be successful both socially and academically. Students received this program in 1st grade with Mrs. Dassinger, and responded very well to the program. So we are super excited to continue the program in 2nd grade. This instruction will take place every A day from 2:20-3:00.

Have a great night!

Classroom Snapshot!

Good Evening Second Grade Families!! I hope everyone had an enjoyable 3 day weekend! We have a quick celebration that I meant to share with families on Friday, but I was unable to get to the computer too often this weekend. So...we started our classroom incentives during the first full week of school, and we have already earned our first reward! We have earned the read-a-thon! Students were so excited you should have seen their faces. Therefore, we will be celebrating our read-a-thon tomorrow, Wednesday! So students may bring their sleeping bags, pillow, etc and get all comfy for read to self! I'm even super excited! On another note: We have quite a few reminders today and a couple snapshots into our day.

First, the snapshots...

Today we...

• began unit 2.1 in math. We discussed how to add 0,1, and 2.
• continued to build our stamina in writing and made it to 4 minutes!!! We were so very excited about our achievement. I think we are all getting the hang of it now, and we will be sailing from here on out!
• began our week long discussion on how we can get to know ourselves as readers. Today our focus was on understanding that readers develop differently. We discussed as a class how a book that is just right for me may not be just right for others, but that is o.k. because we all develop differently.
• practiced our new word wall words for the week. Students understand that they will need to learn and study these words  throughout the week, and be prepared for our test on Friday! Click here or click the Word Study tab above to see this weeks word study words.

Reminders:

• Please turn in the orange sheet for blog permission, and the blue parent survey if you have not already. Another copy will be sent home on Thursday, if I have not received it by then.
• Please turn in parent handbook signature pages.
• We are having a food drive for our Creekside Cares Program, which helps several families in our school. The class that brings in the most non-perishable items by September 14th will receive an extra P.E. class! Not only are we excited about the extra P.E. but we have been learning all about good citizenship, and how good citizens help those in need. Therefore, what a timely lesson to reinforce at home by donating towards this program. What ever you can spare would be greatly appreciated!
• Wednesday is our Read-a-thon. See above!
• Thursday is Spirit Wear! The theme is Hawaiian, so get out those laus and flowered shirts!

That is all for now. So hope everyone has a great evening, and look forward to seeing some of you at tonight's P.T.O. meeting!

Classroom Snapshot

Greetings 2nd Grade Families! Happy Wednesday! I just have a couple snapshots to share today.

Today we...

• completed lesson 1.7 Problem Solving. Students read addition and subtraction story problems and had to decide whether they needed to subtract or add to solve. 
• In our daily five practice of read to self we have reached 10 minutes of stamina!!! Woo Hoo!!! We are half way to our goal of 20 minutes. 
•  also continued practicing work on writing and building our stamina. Building stamina for working on writing is proving to be a bit more difficult than writing, but I am certain students will get the hang of it shortly.We also have put many things in place in the last two days to help students become more successful. Such as, have you heard about our writer's notebooks? This is where students will hold all their memories throughout the year, as well as, all their other writing projects. This weekend, students will get the opportunity to bring their notebooks home to decorate with pictures from home, stickers, or drawings so that they will become more personal. 
• discussed responsibilities and that the meaning of responsibility is: things we have to take care of. We then listed a few of the responsibilities we have in school and in our neighborhoods. A few things we had on our list for responsibilities in school were, our classroom, our supplies, our work, and our friends. Students had some great thinking on this topic, be sure to ask them about it.
• also talked a little more about our S.C.H.O.O.L. binders, and add some additional pieces to the binder and notebook to make things easier to manage. I hope some of these addition prove helpful to your family and student.Some of the additions are:
• A sticky note to help identify the homework section of the binder (Thank You Mrs. Petty for the sharing your idea!). 
• When students are writing in their homework logs students will write where the homework can be found. For example: Wonder Writers: inside notebook. Monday Math: Inside Take home folder.
• We also added 3 sticky notes to our homework notebook to separate the three nights of homework. The sticky notes are labeled as follow, "T" for Tuesday, "W" for Wednesday, "TH" for Thursday. 
• Stickers for the money and notes baggie. 
• Labels for take home folder. (Left Home and Right Back To School)

That's it for now. Here are a few reminders:

• Parent Handbook Signature Card
• Blue Parent Survey Sheet
• Orange Blog photo permission form
• Wednesday Wonder Writer writing homework due tomorrow. Below is a picture of what to look for in your students notebook. 

                                                             

Have a great night!