February 24-28

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Welcome back!  I hope everyone had a lovely vacation!

I think I was a little overzealous when I decided to have all of the winter olympics papers due by today.  Instead, I will extend the deadline for those papers to be turned in to THURSDAY!  I will move the medal ceremony to Friday.  Also, winter break homework packets will also be due on Thursday!

Mrs. Sylvester’s class is collecting books for a book swap for Read Across America Day!  Please send in a gently used book with your child by Friday!  This book will be added to the book swap.  It should be a book that another second grader will be interested in.  On Monday, March 3, students will have the chance to pick out a new book in place of the one that they gave.  You are more than welcome to donate more books if you would like, however, students will only be getting one book at the book swap.  Contact me with any questions!

This Saturday is Dancing with the Staff!  I can’t believe it’s here already.  I will be performing with Mrs. Russell, Ms. Cott, and Miss Walsh!  Buy your tickets today!  

I would love to have all of you there for support during dancing with the staff.  I’m asking that any students who go to wear black and maybe sunglasses to show their support!  Our theme is “under cover”.  Feel free to make posters so I have something to concentrate on instead of my stage fright, ha!  Tickets tend to go fast so buy them soon!  $10 for adults, $5 for students.  

Mrs. Thibodeau will be coming to our classroom on Thursday to talk to us about friendship!  Something we definitely enjoy celebrating in the month of February.

Please remember that second grade tries to go outside for a morning recess every morning (depending on the weather).  In order to help your child get the most out of their recess, please send them already dressed to play outside!  They will need their snow pants, jackets, hats, boots, and mittens!

This week in...

Phonics:  We are working with spr-, str-, and scr-.  Our focus words for the week are screen, scream, crape, stripe, struck, strict, sprain, spring, spruce, and strap.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are sincerely, impatient, furious, demand, emergency, and snoop.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.   Then, we’ll search for them in the short story Izzy Pig Saves the Day!  by Kevin Tormino.

Comprehension:  This week we will be focusing on cause and effect again.  The cause is why something happened and the effect is the event that happened.  We’ll use the connecting word “because” to help us with our thoughts.  We’ll practice this strategy while we read Click, Clack, Moo:  Cows that Type.  

Grammar:  We will work on combining sentences.  If two sentences have words that are the same, we can combine the sentences using the word “and”.  For example, we can take these two sentences:

Mom picked the apples.  Mom baked a pie.

We can connect these sentences with the word and so that they will read as:

Mom picked the apples and baked a pie.  

Writing:  This week, we will finish up our autobiography books and begin our buddy biographies!  Students will be partnered and they will interview each other to gather information about their partner’s life events.  Then, they will create a book about each other!

Math:  We will continue our flexible groups for place value.  Please see previous blog posts for specifics on what your child is working towards to meet our second grade place value standard.

Science:  We will replant some of the seeds that we were able to harvest from our brassica plants and see if we can start the plant life cycle all over again!  

We’ll also introduce our weather topic!  This week, we’ll start by reading some weather books and collecting different weather words that we hear.

Read Aloud:  We are still on an adventure with the fabulous BFG!

Scholastic News:  We will read about Harriet Tubman and how she helped so many slaves escape to freedom!  We’ll also learn a little bit about the Underground Railroad.

February 10-14

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Tomorrow is our sledding day!  Mrs. Boyce will be taking Team Blowey over to the sledding hill for tons of fun at recess tomorrow!  Please make sure that your child comes to school with snow pants, jacket, hat, mittens, and boots so that they can join in with the fun!

Remember, Team Blowey’s Winter Olympics started on Friday!  Be sure to help your child fill in that recording sheet!  Please contact me if you have any questions.

In your child’s mailbox today is a questionnaire for you to do with your child.  You will be asked to write down some memories with your child so that they can incorporate them into an autobiography.  You will be reminiscing about memories as a baby, in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, summer memories, and other fun memories.  I am asking that this questionnaire be returned by Wednesday, February 12!  If it is easier for you to email the memories to me, you are more than welcome to do that as well!

This Wednesday is an early release day!  Please plan accordingly!

This Friday is Valentine’s Day!  Last week, students were given an OPTIONAL homework assignment to build a box for valentine’s day cards.  If you are not able to build a box at home, do not worry!  We’ll have a chance to make something here at school.

If your child plans to bring in valentines on Friday, please make sure they are bringing one for everyone in the class.  Also, please do not send in any candy with your valentines.  We’ll celebrate by playing some Valentine’s Day themed minute to win it games!

Homework packets will be due on Thursday!  Please remind your child to put it in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  This Thursdays homework packet will be a little bit different.  It will be a vacation homework packet instead!  If you have questions once you receive it, please let me know!

This week in...

ELA:  

We will be introducing autobiographies!  An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person!  With some help from you at home, Team Blowey will begin writing stories about their life to share with the rest of the team.  Then, we will have the chance to write buddy biographies!  We will interview a partner, and write a short story about their life.  This will be the introduction to our second grade biography projects where Team Blowey will be researching a famous person from history and writing a report about them.  

We will also be reviewing some reading strategies that help us become better readers.  As a whole group, in small groups, and as individuals, we will review story elements.  We will talk about what they are and how to identify them in the stories we read.  We’ll talk about title, characters, setting, problem, and solution.  

To go along with the Winter Olympics, we will also be creating Teamwork mini books and writing a Teamwork acrostic poem.  In our books, we’ll write about how we can be team players, a good partner, and the kinds of words we might use when talking to our teammates.  

Math:

We will continue our flexible math groups for place value.  Students will be working towards reading and writing three digit numbers in standard form, word form, and expanded form.  They will understand the ones, tens, and hundreds place being able to identify what digit is in each place and the value of that digit.  They will also be working with groups of 1, 10, and 100 in a three digit number.  Students will work on skip counting by 5s, 10s, and 100s up to 1,000.  The power standard is being able to compare two three digit numbers using <, >, and =.

Scholastic News:  

Team Blowey will be reading Road to Gold, an article about Evan Lysacek.  We will learn about his road to winning a gold medal at the Winter Olympics!  Then, we will use a map to answer questions about the different countries the Winter Olympics have been held in the past.

Science:  

We are nearing the end of our plant life cycle.  Soon, we should be seeing some seed pods and begin to harvest the seeds.  Once we have some new seeds, we will try to replant them and see if we can begin the plant life cycle again!  

Early Release Day Project!

This project is one that is very near and dear to my heart!  Since Valentine’s Day and the 100th day of school fall on the same day this year, we will be working like a team to create 100 valentines to be sent to the elderly who are living in an assisted living facility.  Something small that can really brighten up someone’s day!  The valentines will be delivered just in time for our older friends to enjoy reading at dinnertime!  To kick off the project, we will read the story Cranberry Valentine by Wende Devlin.  This is a sweet story about Maggie and her grandmother who sent secret valentines to Mr. Whiskers, a grumpy man who has never before received a valentine!

100th day activities!

Can you believe Valentine's Day and the 100th day of school fall on the same day?  It's crazy!  To celebrate the 100th day of school we will load up our morning with some fun activities!  First, we’ll make a picture of what we think we will look like when we are 100 years old using some torn paper.  Then, we’ll challenge ourselves to try and build a 100 cup structure!  finally, we’ll use the number 100 to make an interesting picture.  Some might form the number 100 to look like glasses, some might form the number to look like a car!

I hope everyone has a lovely week!

February 3-7

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Homework packets are due on Thursday!  Please remind your child to put it in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  Remember... no homework packet = no free choice Friday!

Starting on February 7, Team Blowey will be participating in their own Winter Olympics.  Be on the look out for more information coming home this week!

Please remember to send in a healthy snack for your child each and every day!  Please make sure all snacks do not contain any strawberries, pineapples, or peanuts!  Also, water is the only drink allowed in the classroom.  Please save all juices for a lunch drink or an at-home drink.

This Friday, Mr. Sparks from Sparks Ark will be coming to visit.  He is a wildlife expert and has many animals to share!

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We will be working with consonant digraphs again.  This time, we’ll be working with the /th/, /sh/, /ch/ and /tch/ spelling patterns.  These are our focus words:  each, teaching, teeth, wishbone, matching, which, path, fishing, watch, and dish.

Vocabulary:  Here are our new words:  students, effort perform, mood, remember, and proud.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we’ll search for them in the short story called A Little Symphony by Lani Perlin.

Comprehension:  We will continue to work on summarizing a story.  When we summarize, we retell the story using only the most important parts of the story.  We’ll practice this skill while we read The Alvin Ailey Kids:  Dancing as a Team.

Writing:  This week, students will finish their writing check-ins, where they are writing to show me their very best.  This will help guide our goals moving forward in the year.  We’ll also begin a writing project that aligns with the upcoming Winter Olympics.  As a team, we’ll identify qualities we think a person needs to have in order to “go for gold!”  Then, we’ll write about what qualities we have inside us that would help us “go for gold” too!

Grammar:  We will be working with the verb “have”.  Have comes in two forms:  has and have in the present tense.  We use “has” when the subject is singular and “have” when the subject is plural or I or you.

Math:  We are continuing our flexible groups for place value.  Please refer to previous posts to find out exactly what your child will need to demonstrate in order to meet the standard.  

Read Aloud:  We are still on a marvelous adventure with Roald Dahl.  We are currently reading The BFG and loving every second of the adventure!

Scholastic News:  This week’s issue is all about dental health, in the past and today!  We will be practicing our comparison skills while we read the article.  Then, we will read and interpret a chart to answer questions about how to keep our teeth healthy!

Science:  Our plant life cycle continues!  This week, we are starting to see some flowers!  We will use our scientist eyes to help us write and keep track of exactly what we see.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!