Classroom Snapshot!

Dear Families,

Happy Friday!!! I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Halloween. We had a blast here in school! Here are a few things we did this week:

• In Shared Reading, we read the book, The Ox Cart Man. We focused on using our background knowledge to help us to better understand what we are reading.
• In Writing, we worked on transition words, comma usage, and writing from pictures. Students were given 4 pictures that they had to sequence correctly. Then, students had to write a paragraph from the pictures remembering to use transition words and commas.
• In Math, we worked on problem solving using repeated addition. This is a foundational step of multiplication; however, we did not yet link their repeated addition work to multiplication; although, some second graders did explore the multiplication sign through the repeated addition.
• October pictures will be posted by this Sunday of all our October adventures!

• Thank you to all who have scheduled a parent teacher conferences. If you have not received a conference time, please contact me as soon as possible. Clicking the contact me link above will give you information on how to contact me.
• Conferences are next week, I look forward to meeting with everyone!

• Thank you to all the families who made our party a success by either volunteering their time or by donating items. We greatly appreciate it!
• Thank you to our Snazzy Snak Shoppers this month! Our snacks were yummy!!

Classroom Snapshot

What an adventure day we had today! Due to Electrical issues today, we spent about an hour today without power! However, like they say the show must go on! We continued with our day as usual and students handled the unexpected like real champs. We are all so proud of their flexibility today.

This week we had a lot of great learning adventures. Check it out!

Shared Reading

This week, we used our shared reading time to review everything we have learne this year in 2nd grade, and prepared ourselves to take our first outcome assessment in Language Arts. Students did a great job and worked really hard!

Math

This week, we continued our focus of subtraction strategies. Please, continue to practice subtraction facts with students at home.

Social Studies

This week, we continued our focus on communities, and even got an opportunity to go in a field trip to the fires station to learn how fire men help in our community. (PICTURES COMING SOON!)

Next Week:

• Monday and Tuesday, I will be out of the building again for assessment writing for our new math common core curriculum.
• Monday- Friday is Red Ribbon Week! Where we are Absolutely "PAW"sitively Drug Free!
• Monday: "Follow your dreams!" - PJ day
• Tuesday: "Say peace out to drugs!" - Tie Dye day
• Wednesday: "I'm too bright for drugs!" - Bright/neon colored clothing day
• Thursday: "Catch the wave of a drug free life!" - Hawaiian day
• Friday: "Team up for a healthy lifestyle!" - Sports Apparel day
• If you have not scheduled a parent teacher conference, please remember to do so. Conferences are available Monday- Thursday November 4th- 7th.
• Report Cards will be going home this Thursday, October 24th!
• Please remember to sign and return the signature sheet. 
• Monster Bash will be held this Friday from 5:30-7:30
• If you are interested in your child attending, Mystery Cafe will be held this Friday at 8:00 a.m.

That's it for reminders for now. Please check back throughout the week for any updates!

Thank you to Mrs. Czekala for assissting and volunteering her time to come in and chaperone our Fire Station Fieldtrip!

Have a great weekend!!

Classroom Snapshot

Hi Families! I hope everyone had a long and restful weekend. Last week we had a lot of fun things happening. Take a quick peek at some of the work we did.

 Shared Reading

we read The Remarkable Adaptable Turtle, this text was an informational non-fiction text. In this book, the students learned all the ways that turtles adapt to the enviornment around them. (Ask you second grader what adapt means.) In addition, we focused on the comprehension strategy of summarizing, main idea, and supportive details.

Writing

We read a cute book called, My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks. Students enjoyed reading this silly story of a little girl's description of her family using only similies ( a figure of speech, which uses like or as to compare to unlike objects). Students enjoyes so this book so much that we decided to create our own classroom book, where we described ourselves using only similies.

Math

we finished topic two and our focus on addition strategies, and we have begun topic 3 focusing on subtraction strategies.

Social Studies

We continued our focus on communities.

This Week:

• Book Fair- We attended the book fair as a class today, Tuesday, October 15th ; however, we the book fair is open through Friday.
• Field Trip-We will be taking a walking field trip to the fire station this Thursday!Please, turn in the field trip slip as soon as possible so that your child may attend.
• Professional Development- This Wednesday, I will be out of the building for a planning committee to train staff on a piece of the new Math Common Core. I will see your kiddos on Thursday
• CogAT- Thank you families for being very flexible as we experienced many technological glitches with our online assessment system for cogAT testing.We will be picking up testing the week of October 21st- November 1st.
• Be on the look out for Conference Schedules! They will be sent out this Thursday. I will do my best to accomodate families with their first and second time choices; however, with 31 students scheduling may be very dificult. Please, be as flexible and patient as possible as we schedule this years fall conferences.
• Wednesday, C day, students will have a healthy health class; therefore, please make sure your child has gym shoes to wear the p.e. tomorrow!

UPDATE!

Tomorrow we will be taking the first of three batteries of our CogAT testing. Please, make sure students get a good night sleep and they eat a healthy breakfast in the morning!

Classroom Snapshot

Dear Families,

We have been very busy in room 005 in the last week! 

Last week we...

Math

continued to work on a variety of addition strategies through exploration. Students discovered patterns in mathematics through the explorations of double math facts and near double facts. Students also discovered that no matter how you add the addends in an addition fact, the sum always stays the same. 

Shared Reading

worked on strategies for solving unfamiliar words. Students learned that we can use our context clues or clues around a word to discover meaning. 

Writing-

began writing a poem or a song about a tradition that is special in our families. Many students chose Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, and Christmas. Ask you child what they chose.

Social Studies

continued our focus on citizenship and what good citizens do for their community. 

Students had a blast creating their apple smiles!! 

Thank you to the many families who came and supported second grade on our first family outing to Haunted Trail! It was an absolutely awesome experience and I loved being able to spend time outside of school with my students and their family. I look forward to the next time. Plus, there are a couple students who I need to rematch at laser tag because I swear the red team won. :)

Also, thank you to the families who were able to supply donations to our first snazzy snack, "Apple Smiles", as you can see above the students loved it and it was a great way to end our Johnny Apple Seed Unit. 

Finally, thank you to the families that have been able to participate in our Mystery Readers. The kids have been extremely excited and have looked forward to Fridays to see who will be coming in next. Remember we would love to have you next! If you are interested you can click on the Mystery Reader form above and  sigh up electronically or be on the look out this week for a new sign up sheet for the next two months! 

This Week:

• One for Book Coin Drive will be taking place all week. This is an opportunity for our school to earn new library books at our upcoming Book Fair. In addition, the classroom who earns the most money will be able to purchase the amount they raised in books for their classroom. Last year, our class earned upwards of $600 in new books thanks to One for Books. That meant, at least two- three new books per student that was able to be added to our classroom! It all starts Monday with Pennies!
• Tuesday- nickles
• Wednesday- dimes
• Thursday-quarters
• Friday- All Denominations
• Classroom T-shirts are on the way! Yay! They should be arriving by next week.
• CogAT testing begins this Friday, October 11th. Parents and Students: This test is extremely important! This test will determine your child's placement in regards to the Gifted and Honors program that is available beginning in 3rd grade. Please, Please, Please, make sure your child is prepared to begin the first battery of test on Friday. The tests are an hour and fifteen minutes long with small breaks in between. This year the CogAT will be taken on the computer but will be proctored/read by me. Please, be sure your child has a yummy breakfast, sleeps well the night before, and has on comfy clothing. Also, if you are able, please avoid doctor's appointments on this day and if at all possible make sure your child is in attendance. The second and third battery of test will be completed on October 21st and October 22nd.

Classroom Snapshot

Hello Families!

Our second graders have been very hard at work since the beginning of the school year building their stamina for reading, writing, word work, and reading to someone. We have successfully built our stamina for 15 minutes independently in all of the above centers, which means we are ready to begin our guided reading small group instruction! It is the most exciting and most important part of the day as we begin to really grow as readers and writers. Please make sure to ask your child about what books we are reading in class.

This week:

• I will be out of the building Monday and Tuesday to work on Common Core Math Curriculum for the district. 
• in Shared Reading, students will be able to use a variety of questioning techniques to better understand what they are reading. 
• in Math, students will be learning a variety of addition strategies.
• in Social Studies, we will continue to discuss communities and good citizenship. 

Reminders:

• Please remember we are always looking for Mystery Readers! If you are interested in being a mystery reader for our class, please send a note or email and I will get you all set! If you would like, you can also click the mystery reader tab above, and you can sign up electronically. 
• Please return Community Helpers forms if you are interested in sharing with our classroom about your work in the community. 
• Don't forget our 2nd Grade Party at HAUNTED TRAILS!!!! Everyone is invited! Included but not limited to Siblings, moms, dads, neighbors, grandmas, grandpas, etc. We hope to see everyone for an epic laser tag 2nd grade tournament this Thursday, September 26th!

Catch you later!

Welcome!!!

I am so thrilled to be able to connect with all my families this year through my classroom blog. What can you expect to find here? You can expect to find, weekly updates of what we are doing in our classroom including fun pictures of some of our classroom adventures! Additionally, you will find many reminders and things I would like you to be on the look out for as they come home. I hope families find this to be a useful tools, and I am definitely open to suggestions. If you have any suggestions to make our classroom blog more useful, please let me know. 

Reminders:

- P.T.O. meeting tonight at 6 p.m. hope to see you there!

- Please return handbook signature page if you have not done so already. 

- Remember to check out your child's monthly behavior calendar, and sign student homework logs nightly. 

Be on the look out:

- Students will be bringing home homework this week, please be sure to give students support in the beginning of the school year. Make sure your child has a quiet and consistent space to complete homework. 

- Daily Homework is as follows:

           Monday Math- Worksheet Inside Folder (IF)

           Tuesday, Totally Sight Word Tuesday- Inside Notebook (IN)- Nothing comes back to school just            

           a signature of completion at home is required.

           Wednesday, Wonder Writers Wednesday- Inside Notebook (IN)- 3 sentences to given prompt.

           Thursday, Thinking Thursday- Inside Notebook (IN)- reading plus 3 sentenes to given prompt. 

           (Monday- Friday- 20 minutes of reading daily)

- Homework Journals will be where Tuesday- Thursday homework will be stored. 

- For information regarding Star Students.

- Above you will find a running list of our weekly sight words in case students lose or forget. 

Thanks so much!

 Hello families! I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful spring break. I love seeing the students come back from spring break they look so refreshed, rejuvinated, and ready to tackle the remaining 7 weeks of school like champs!

Well this first week back from break was absolutely AWESOME! We have been involved in a lot of fun activities this week and I can't wait to share.
This week's snapshot...

In Math, students have totally up for the challenge of learning how to add and subtract double digit numbers! Students have been extremely successful at learning this new and challenging concept and I am very proud of them. We've had a lot of fun learning about being precise in our mathematical language and the importance of place value when working with addition and subtraction. You will find that in the new Common Core Standards, there is a major emphasis in an understanding of place value; which, is why I gave students the assignment of challenging their parents and teaching you the importance of how numbers work, and that a number in the tens place is not just 7 but 7 tens. The kids thoroughly enjoyed teaching you all :)

This month begins Poetry Month! Therefore, in shared reading we have explored a variety of different poems and practiced the very important skill of visualizing which is when readers make a mental picture in their heads. This is a great skill to work on at home. Especially as students begin to really delve into pictureless chapter books. Make reading fun by having them read a chapter and then have them draw a picture of what they see in their head.  

Classroom Snap Shot

We're back! My sincere apologies for not keeping up with this blog and popular demand :) we are back in action! Although, we have been away for some time we have still been very hard at work. Learning about 3D shapes, 2D shapes, measurement, graphing, research writing, expository writing, taking notes on fiction and non fiction text, cursive, presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, Martin Luther King, Black History Heroes, celebrating Dr. Suess' Birthday, learning all about contractions, and so much more! I am so happy to be back to keep you all informed of our happenings here in room 005!

Today We:

• Continued our discussion on telling time to the nearest five minutes. Sudents have been very successful with telling time so far! For the last couple weeks we have taken a new approach to our math lessons and it has proven to be very succesful in cementing learning of new and old mathematical concepts. As apart of the Common Core Math Committee in the district I have received a lot of training on Common Core and its rigourous expectations. Therefore, I have began implementing the standards of Mathematical Practice. The standards of Mathematical Practice supports the why or how of math. We've always learned the what, but have often forgotten that students also need to understand the why behind math and how it works, instead of just memorization of math practices. Each Week or the remainder of the year I will introduce to you one of the matematical practices and how we used it in our classroom for math that week or day.
• This Weeks' Mathematical Practice:
• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
• Throughout our math lesson I ask the question  how. How do you know that? How can you convince me? Convince your partner that your logic and thinking is valid. Did you convince me? How do you know? The use of these questions alone have sparked so many ah!ha! moments in our classroom. It has truly given me goose bumps to watch students debate back and forth with classmates and teams on their reasoning of how mathematic concepts work. A quote from a student today, " At first I thought that it was a correct display of time; however, after speaking with my partner I am convinced that it is not a correct way of showing 1:50 beause...." the student went on to elaborate their NEW thinking successfully. I love this and students enjoy it too... getting an opportunity to debate with one another and proving their thinking using a variety of arguments including modeling. It is amazing!
• Learned the lower case letter f in cursive. So far we have learned all the lower case letters of the alphabet except the letter b, which is our lesson tomorrow. Please continue to practice students cursive writing at home, as they will be assessed on cursive handwriting in the fourth quarter.
• Have just completed our unit of Expository Writing and our writing piece, How Mrs. Szurek Helps Our Shool. Up next is our unit on Directional or How To Writing, which is one of mt favorites.
• Continued our discussion of plants in our Living and non living unit.

Reminders:

• If you have not scheduled a parent teacher conference please do so as soon as possible! Scheduled times will be sent home today if scheduled.
• Report Cards will be sent home this Thursday.
• Spring Picture Day is scheduled for this Thursday.
• We are in need of Guest Readers, remember this can be a family member, family friend, parent, older brother or sister, etc. We'd greatly appreciate it! Just click the guest reader link up top to schedule.
• Continue practicing math facts!
• Practice Cursive writing (lower case letters only)!