Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Bad Weather

As many of you know, we had bad weather in south Cobb today. As a percaution, we were asked to "Take Cover" in the hallway. We were in the hall until the Weather Service downgraded the Tornado Warning to a Tornado Watch. Just wanted to let you know in case your kids come home today and tell you about it. 

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Emails for nightly discussion

I have been getting some very creative and thoughtful emails as part of the homework assignments, i wanted to share a few that are different, but each unique and well done!
A. 31+45+39=

lllx+llllxxxxx+lllxxxxxxxxxx

lllllllllllxxxxx=115
(I like this 1 because it shows the problem. But what I can't show is how he shaded 10 ones and thats how he got the final picture and answer.

B. The answer is 115. I know because I started with the highest number and added on. And I got 115. (What I like about this, is the complete answer written iut explaining his steps)

C. I used expanded form like (40+5)+(30+1)+(30 +9) I will group the 10s and 1s together.
40+30+30=100 and 5+1+9=15 and my answer is 115.
The answer is 115.
D. I used carrots for hundred,peanuts for tens,and raisins for ones. Then I counted and got the answer that is 115. (What a clever way to make represents on the pattern.)




A few changes starting Feb. 4, 2013

I want to let you know of a few changes that will begin next week. Our target day is changing and it will impact our class routines for all of the children. The new Target day will be Fridays and our assessment day will switch to Thursdays. Also, we will no longer do Book Buddies after Valentine's Day.

So in review, all spelling tests will now be taken on Thursdays, even on short weeks. Also our FastFact addition and subtraction quizzes will be on that day as well.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Math Stuff

Hope you guys had a great day off yesterday!

The 100th Day of school is coming up FRIDAY. We will be working with our "Book Buddies" on math skills instead of reading this week! We will need a couple supplies:
1. a box of Corn Chex cereal.
2. 2 bags of mini-marshmallows
3. 2 bags of cheddar popcorn (already popped!)4. large box of raisins
5. large bag of  skittles
If you can donate any of these items, please text Miss G or leave a comment saying which one you will pick up.


Students can access Scholastic's FASTMATH practice by going to the Harmony Leland Webpage from home and click on “FasttMath Student”.  They log-in just like they would from school when the page pops up. 


We still have a few friends who haven't brought in their coins. I have begun sharing plastic money with them but I am sure they would much rather use real ones. The proper coins needed are:
50 pennies
10 nickels
10 dimes
4 quarters


Thanks, Miss G

PS- we have a Toss Students from Kennesaw State University, Mrs. Raji. She will visit on Tuesdays for the next 8 weeks, then spend 4 weeks with us and will teach a few lessons while with/to us.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

homework response Tuesday Jan 15

How did Martin Luther King Jr. think people should be treated?  Do you agree with him? Why or why not?

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The week ahead...

We have a full week ahead of us. Just wanted to clarify some things...

1. Many of you are following along with the blue sheet and are preparing a book report for Tuesday. I love that you are staying on top of that calendar of events. We will present 5-8 tuesday, 5-8 Wednesday and 5-8 friday. a few friends have attempted to make their reports in the different formats that are listed on the back of the blue sheets. We have seen some awesome trains, a few in a book format, a T.V., a few power-points, and some original posters. I do not have any more Butterfly sheets! Our January family project will be a little different since the 2nd grade team is working together on a related but new idea for a jan/feb project that will be presented in late February. Please do not start on the January project. We will send directions, a list of due dates and a rubric to you next week.

2. Homework will go home Monday. I'd like to try the writing portions to be submitted by email. I know many of the kids have their own email addresses, and this form of communication is very authentic. The topic/prompt for each night will be on the packet but the kids can type their response and email it to me. For those families without computer access please write it the regular way, but have it in blue folder everyday.

3. Kids have been doing very well with the 5 minute addition drills but I have noticed many of them still use their fingers to add when its not the 5 minute drill! How strange is that? parents have helped me come up with some of these games that you can play at home to help with fast addition or repeated addition: yhatzee, 21, rummy, and Sequence dice. Computer games to play at home are Fast math and ixl.com.

4. Raz-kids.com is still available for use.

5. AR- the kids should be taking an AR quiz every day, or every 2 days. They are given the opportunity to take a quiz from 7:15-7:55, and during center rotations. They may read and take a quiz on chapter books at their levels which could take a week or 2, but should also be reading 1 picture book each night so that they can take a quiz each day. This is supposed to be an independent activity, but I will begin including a print out from AR in the orange folders so you can monitor the progress.

6. No school next Monday, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, which is actually this week the 15th of January.





Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Just a couple reminders!

Just a couple things...
#1. Look in agenda tomorrow after school for which room to send your 2nd grader to before the meeting. I will be "floating" among the 3 rooms and helping out. When you arrive, keep their jacket with you and just send them to the room by themselves. I promise they know where they are going. YOU find a seat,or you won't get one, its a K-5th event so it'll be packed.

#2. We have a new classmate! Welcome to our room Iyana!

#3. Please read the blogs!


I told you only a couple! Ha!


Monday, January 7, 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! & 2015 Notes

WE are gearing up for the 2nd semester of learning in 2nd Grade! Who would have thought that the 1st semester would go so quickly? Not me!

I wanted to give you a few reminders before sending the kids to school next week!... (I can hear some of you now, "Miss G, with you its never a few!" LOL, you may be right!)


1.  Thursday, January 15th is Awards night. I hope you can make it!

***2 Our math standards introduce money this quarter. I prefer to teach money using the real deal... if you could help out by sending in 50 pennies, 10 nickels, 10 dimes, and 4 quarters that would make the learning for your child much more concrete. Please send in the coins by Tuesday, January 13th. (Ways to reinforce this skill at home : you could start allowing them to shop with a portion of your shopping list and real cash that would really make them think about how quickly money is used and what it means when we are not wise with our funds. For example give them 10 dollars and ask them to buy the milk and cereal for the week. Is that even enough? I don't buy gallons of milk, so I am not really sure. Have them earn money to purchase a prize/goal. Teach them the value of saving and pride of working for something specific.)

3. RAZ-Kids- I am debating renewing my old raz-kids account. A drawback is that I pay for other sites, like spelling city.com and not many of the students access it. While it would benefit all of the children at every reading level, it does cost money and I'm not sure it will be cost effective. I will decide in a few weeks and let you know. This would be in addition to AR and homework.

4. Our writing genre has changed... our focus the next 9 weeks will be persuasive writing, winning someone over to our way of thinking with reasonable points or arguments. A high school friend of mine recently had a debat in his literature class. After the debate he told his mom that the other team had really good arguments and he should have been on their team. She asked him why, and he replied that they were so convincing that he changed his mind! LOL! Gotta love kids! But that is really the point of persuasive writing. 

5.  Report Cards will be coming home early January. They are yours to keep,pPlease sign and return the sheet in the yellow folder stating that you've received them. Also, if you could write out your address on an envelope and put a stamp on it, that would help us eliminate a step in May.

6. Homework will be changing slightly. This first week back, I really want the kids to focus on reading AR books and editing writing that I or others have written. For the most part, our kids have a good voice in their writing, but they really do not like rereading their own work for mistakes. We will do one more addition fast facts quiz the 1st  Friday, and then begin doing subtraction and addition the next week. Spelling will begin again the 2nd week of January.

Again, I have purchased "banks" for the kid's coins. Please send the coins in as soon as possible! The coins needed are: 
4 quarters
10 dimes
10nickels 
50 pennies

OK, so those of you who knew it would be a long one were right! I hope that you had a worderful break that the kids are ready to work!

Love G