October 31st-November 4th

Hello, Spooktacular Parents!

I hope you're all enjoying a fun-filled evening with your kids!  We sure did enjoy ourselves at school today! 

Our morning was filled with some festive activities.  We rotated to every second grade class to see the other second grade teachers who had some fabulous things set up for us.  We created haunted houses, played games, and got our faces painted!  We even enjoyed a story book character parade from the first graders.  Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed our harvest party with some spooky tunes and delicious snacks.  Thanks to everyone who was able to contribute to the festivities!  Room 10 had a blast!

This week in literacy we are continuing our work with Treasures and Literacy Cafe time.  Each day we work hard to build our comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, fluency, stamina, and writing skills.  Our whole class readings will focus on plants which fits perfectly into our science unit. 

Last week, Team Blowey worked together to create a KWL chart.  That stands for what we KNOW about plants, what we WANT to know about plants, and when we finish our unit we will write down what we have LEARNED about plants.  This Friday, we will be working towards our goal of learning more about plants by combining with Ms. Thornhill's class. 

In math, we began unpacking our place value standard.  Once we are finished unpack, we will have a clear vision of what it will look like to pass the place value standard.  Students are also working really hard on their math facts!  We've have a lot of students pass some of their goals already!  Ask your child about the math boogie.   It's a fun way to celebrate when our friends meet their goals.

 Homework this week is the cafe packets once again.

Spelling:  Pick one activity a night.
Reading:  Read for 20 minutes every night!  (Scholastic News counts as your reading time!)
Math:  Practice on IXL for 30 minutes this week.  Remember any extra choices you make during the week will help you meet your goals faster!

BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR:

-Blue volunteer paper.  If you are interested in volunteering in the the classroom or even helping out from home, check out the blue paper that will be sent home in the boomerang folders on TUESDAY!
 

-Salmon colored parking lot.  In order to help answer any questions or be able to take any comments you have into consideration, I thought it would be most helpful to create a parking lot together.  Please fill it out with what you think is going well, what you think needs to change, what questions you have, and any bright ideas you might have to make homework better.  I'm hoping that using this tool will help us to work better as a team and to make any necessary changes to the homework.  This will go home in the boomerang folders on TUESDAY!


REMINDER:  Please send in last week's homework if you have not already done so. 

I hope you all have a joyous week!

October 24th-October 28th

I'm sure most of you have heard by now, I am on crutches.  Over the weekend, I dislocated my kneecap.  Fingers crossed I haven't torn anything!  My future doctors appointment will bring the news.

Thank you all so much for the conferences that we've been having!  I'm really excited about all of the action plans we are putting into place.  I really see a lot of teamwork going on and it warms my heart.  Team Blowey is off to great places!

After all of the conferences are over, I will be compiling all of your questions and concerns.  I'll use this information in a newsletter.  Hopefully we can tackle any of the issues soon and effectively!  It's all about the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, and Adjust).

Homework this week is the cafe packet.  You'll be working on spelling, reading, and math. 

Goals for homework:

Spelling:  One activity a night.  Shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes.
Reading:  15-20 minutes a night.  Remember:  You'll be recognized for every 300 minutes you read!
Math:  IXL 15 minutes, twice a week.  Math fact cafe is also an option for those you who would like more practice to meet your math fact goals. 

I hope you all have a marvelous week!

October 17th-21st!

Conferences are starting this week!  The first conferences are on Thursday.  They will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.  Confirmation sheets were sent home today in the boomerang folders.  Please remember that you and your child should attend these conferences.  The purpose of these conferences is goal setting.  It's so important for parents, teacher, and student to be on the same team!

In literacy, we have been working to create specific goals for ourselves to really help our reading.  These goals are focusing on fluency, accuracy, and comprehension.  With these goals have come very specific techniques for us to be able to meet our goals.  Our work with literacy cafe has also continued and the students have been working hard to build stamina, fluency, comprehension, word work, and writing. 

In math we are wrapping up our unit on bar graphs and pictures graphs and have begun or menu work for fact fluency!  Math fact cafe is a GREAT supporter for this!  We've also introduced clocks and telling time.  Today we turned ourselves into a clock and used our hands as the hands of a clock to represent different times.  It was a lot of fun!  Time and math facts will continue throughout the year.

Homework cafe packets were sent home!  Each night students should try to do one spelling activity, read for at least 20 minutes, and have time to practice their math skills with IXL or math fact cafe. 

If you have any questions or observations you would like to share with me about how homework is going, please let me know!  I'll help in any way I can.

REMINDER:  In the newsletter that was sent home this week, I asked for students to please bring in an expo marker and an old (but CLEAN) sock to use as an eraser.  They will be used during whiteboard time. 

ALSO:  Please send in pictures of your kids for our Team Blowey News bulletin board.  We love seeing what our teammates do outside of school!

Have a lovely week!

October 11th-14th

Hello Team Blowey Parents!

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend!  I spent mine down in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with my family getting a whole new look at America's history.  I had a blast!

This week Team Blowey is making the final touches on our ABC's of the Cumberland Fair book.  It's really starting to come together!  We're also continuing our work with literacy cafe time, where students choose what areas they are going to focus on to help them become better readers and writers.  They may choose stamina, fluency, comprehension, word work, or writing.  We're still learning about what it means to be responsible for our work and how to choose what we work on appropriately.  We'll get there!

In math some of our teammates have already begun passing our graphing learning target!  We've starting talking about fact fluency (adding and subtracting numbers up to 20 in our heads) and why it's so important.  Students will have the chance to explore and build on their fact fluency by choosing from their math fact menus.  When students feel that they are ready to move on to the next fact family, they may put their goal sleeves in the "check me" box so that I can test them.  If they pass, they get to move onto the next goal!

Homework this week is the same.  Homework Cafe packets went home in the boomerang folders.

Practice your spelling words!
Read every night!
Practice your math skills!  (IXL 30 minutes every week... facts as much as you need to move onto the next goal)

Just a reminder, ask your child to circle the day of the week they decide to do an activity.  This way I can see what they were practicing and also when they were practicing.  If students choose an activity like rainbow words or a math worksheet, for example, please send them with the homework packets as well.  I would love to see the progress students are making at home as well!

As always, please send any feedback or questions my way!  I wish you a marvelous week!

October 3rd-October 7th

Happy October Team Blowey!

This week, Team Blowey is off on some fun adventures! 

In literacy, we are building a classroom book!  After collecting the ABC's of the Cumberland Fair, we grouped all of our findings into one master list.  Each of us will be working on completing a page for the letter we picked out.  Some students will have the chance to work on two pages.  We're in the beginning stages of creating a rough draft.  We're creating sentences and pictures to really show what we found during our field trip!

In math, we are continuing our graphing unit.  Last week we pulled a mystery item from a bag (colored snap cubes) and from there we began sorting out the data.  We'll be working on creating our own graphs to represent the snap cubes we collected.  When we're finished, we'll be presenting our data to the class with lots of details about what we found.

In science, we are continuing to learn about plants.  Recently, Team Blowey and Mrs. Sylvester's class got together to watch a video about plant life cycles!  Ask your child about it.  We'll be continuing our plant unit with some fun activities later this month!

We also "unpacked" our math fact fluency standard.  Team Blowey is full of investigators who work really hard to solve the mystery of the new standard.  We pull out the really important words and break them down into smaller pieces so they are easier to understand.  Now we know what our goal should be when it comes to knowing our math facts!

Homework is in full swing this week!  In the boomerang folder you'll notice that there is a Homework Cafe packet.  The cover sheet gives you a little more information as to what the specific guidelines are.  Each week students will receive a menu for spelling, reading, and math.  They can choose different activities from the menu to help them practice the new skills.

As I have mentioned before homework is assigned on Mondays and due on Fridays.  However, if your family's schedule and your child work better over the weekend, homework may be turned in on Monday.  This basically means that students should be doing homework about 4 days a week.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Be sure to check out the classroom website at bloweyclassroom.pbworks.com.  There is a new video there showing you how to navigate mathfactcafe.com. 

September reading calendars are due!  Students should have been keeping a record of how many minutes they were reading during the month of September on the school calendar.  Remember to send those back to school!  Students will be recognized for every 300 minutes they read.

Remember if you have any pictures of your child doing fun summer or fall activities, send them in!  Our Team Blowey News bulletin board will be updated all year long.  We love seeing the fun and exciting things our team mates do outside of school!


I wish you all a great week!  Happy Monday!