Monday, December 29, 2014

Heads up for 1st school week of 2015

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, please 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.

To re-cap: I have purchased "banks" for the kid's to store their coins. Please send the coins in as soon as possible! The coins needed are: 
4 quarters
10 dimes
10 nickels 
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!

Thanks for the Christmas gifts. I can't wait to see the kids! 
Love G

Sunday, December 21, 2014

2nd Grade Family Robot Project

Last week I sent home the 2nd Grade Family Projects that are due at the end of January. The requirements are as follows: 1. build a robot with the following 3-dimensional shapes (rectangular prism; cube; cylinder; sphere; pryamid) and 2-dimensional shapes (circle; square; rectangle; triangle; trapezoid; rhombus; and parallelogram). 
2. Label each shape on the robot! 
3. Write a sentence for each shape describing how it was used on the robot. 

The students will be asked to read their sentences for the class on a pre-assigned day. The schedule for project deliveries will be sent home January 27th with the homework packet. 

Below are some examples of robots from last year's group. 











 









Thursday, December 11, 2014

Winter Party info, Math Project Days and Stocking Stuffers!

We had a good time working on the 1st half of our "math project" today! I wish I took pictures!" Tomorrow we move from 2-dimensional shapes to 3-dimensional shapes! Thats when we crack open the yummy smelling marshmallows! Yea! Thanks to all of the families who supported this activity. 

I understand that Emily Ekayanake sent home a letter yesterday and an e-mail too! If you want to help out with the "Winter Party" please get in touch with her so that we have don't have 5 parents bringing in the same things. Lol! It is possible to have too many cookies! 

Someone asked about the stocking stuffers today. You are allowed to send small stocking stuffers into the class with your child to fill their friends stockings. Ideas are- erasers, fun pencils, party favors, i got each student a puzzle from the Dollar store that will nicely fill the bottom of each stocking. Please do not just send in 1 item for the "best friend". If you want to get a gift for that special friend, please set up sometime away from school to share that.