Weekly Update

Hello second grade families,

I apologize, I did not get this weekly update out last night. This week has been busy.  Last night I got home and started writing the weekly update, and then my computer battery was dying.   I had left my charger at school, so that is why there was a delay.

I hope everyone’s week is off to a great start.  There is a lot going on this week as well as next week. First, I want to thank everyone for signing up for parent conferences.   THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.  I am looking forward to meeting with families.  If parents want two different times to meet for conferences, I am flexible and able to do that.  Please let me know if you would like to schedule more than one.

TOMORROW THURSDAY OCTOBER 25^th IS UNITY DAY AT SCHOOL.  It is a day where students come together to stand up against bullying and preventing bullying situations.  If students have a DBS “Otters Don’t Bully” T Shirt please wear it that day.  If they do not, please just have them wear anything orange.

Student pictures did come in yesterday.  We were running behind schedule at the end of the day, so I did not get a chance to hand them out this afternoon.  Pictures will be in your child’s blue folder tonight.  Please make sure they keep bringing in their communication folder back to class.

The book fair is going to be taking place next week starting on Monday, the 29^th.    Our class will have a chance to shop during school time.  There will be times after school and during conferences that the book fair will stay open, so families can shop together on their own time.

There will be no Weekly Update or spelling homework next week due to the short week and Halloween activities happening Wednesday night.  I have only received three parents that need a SCHOOL LUNCH for their child for Wednesday.  If you need your child to have a school lunch that day, please make sure to email me tonight.

Next week, the class and whole school will be having fire safety lessons and prevention training.  They will also learn what to do in emergencies.  Students will learn how important it is to know their address and telephone number as well.

This week’s spelling words focus on short and long U words.  The emergent words are focusing on words that begin with K, L, and J.

In math the students are learning how to add two digit numbers using number lines and taking jumps of ten, five, and ones from any number.

In Science, the students have been practicing presenting their Monarch butterfly knowledge and sharing their designs for their butterfly house.  In the following weeks, they will be presenting to other classes.  They are doing a fabulous job!

The students have been working on their fluency and comprehension with their reading. The class is practicing sequencing and putting the timeline of events in order for the characters that we are reading about. 

The students have loved having the growing change in for their lessons about the life cycle of a plant.  Right now the students are observing flowers that are in cups of water and food coloring.  On Friday, they will be seeing if their prediction of what would happen to the flowers were correct.

They have been hard workers and I am super proud of them!  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me.

Sincerely,

Ms. Mac

Important Information

Hello second grade families,

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and an excellent start to the week.  As you may have noticed a lot of student work went home in the blue communication folder today.  Along with the work, a pink form was also brought home for signing up for parent conferences.

 On Thursday, November 1^st there will be a half day of school and on Friday November 2^nd there is no school for students due to parent conferences taking place.  I know that it is hard for families to work around two days, so I made time available throughout the last week in October for families to sign up to meet with me.  I am hoping that this allows more flexibility for families.  I will schedule conferences based on when I get the forms returned to me, and I will send a confirmation note back to you.  The students have been working extremely hard and I am looking forward to discussing your child’s progress in the coming weeks.

The spelling words for this week are:

Within Word Pattern: Short and Long e

Left

Neck

Bell

Green

Wheel

Sheet

Need

Teeth

Mean

Team

Deal

Reach

Clean

Beach

Bean

Best

  

Letter Name: Short e

Pet

Net

Met

Set

Jet

Ten

Hen

Pen

Men

Bed

Red

Fed

Led

Bell

Fell

Tell

Well

Emergent: Short e

Pet

Jet

Hen

Men

Bed

Fed

Fell

Tell

Pen

Met

The class has been diligently working on their letter and word formation in their journals.  They are excited to have their writing shared at parent conferences.  The students have been working on five finger paragraphs like you see in this image, to guide their organization.

Reading groups will be starting in two weeks for all students, now that everyone has been placed at their level.  The students will be divided into small groups between the second and third grade teachers, as well as special education teachers and other staff who are trained and knowledgeable in leveled literacy instruction.

In Math the students have been practicing:

-telling time

-writing the time in digital form and drawing hour and minute hands on clocks.

-writing and solving addition sentences

-writing and solving subtraction sentences

-skip counting by 5’s

-skip counting by 10’s

-skip counting by 100’s

-identifying even and odd numbers

-identifying nickels, pennies, dimes, and quarter and knowing each value

-identifying hundred’s, ten’s, and one’s place value

-writing numbers in expanded form: ex: 286 is 200+80+6

In social studies, (Micah our traveler, who is in India) has been showing us what daily life is like in the bustling streets of India through pictures, videos, and email posts.  He will be photographing landscapes, animals, buildings, schools, clothes, food and transportation to give the students a visual of the similarities and differences of people in the US and India.   The class has greatly enjoyed this partnership. 

The class started designing their butterfly designs that would protect or save the butterflies from threats during their journey to California and Mexico.  Their designs look amazing and they are going to have one more day this week to finalize their projects.  

Tomorrow, Mrs. Shimko from the Ava Gallery is going to come to our class to teach an “Art Detective” lesson in the afternoon.  Many grades in DBS has participated in this program and have created outstanding work that is later displayed at the Ava Gallery for one of their showings. This has been a fantastic experience in past years.

Students from Dartmouth College who are known as “Growing Change” will be coming in on Fridays to teach our class about gardening, eating a balanced diet, and identifying popular foods in different places around the world.  We are very happy and thankful to have them join our classroom during the week.

We have been active learners and are excited for the number of projects, guests, and opportunities that our class has scheduled.  It has been wonderful sharing these learning experiences with your hard working, kind, and enthusiastic children. 

As always, if you have any questions feel free to email me at: Maccallumt@hartfordschools.net

Have a great night.

Sincerely,

Ms. Mac

Hallway Happiness

The second graders have been working extremely hard on their butterfly unit and projects.  Please feel free to stop by our classroom and take a look at our beautiful bulletin board for this month.  The bulletin board includes their butterfly life cycle representation charts and their self butterfly portraits.  Mrs. Broderick has also hung up their Monarch Butterfly Art Projects on the 2nd grade walls as well.  It is a wonderful site to see.

Butterfly Bodies

The class was excited about designing wings of a butterfly.  Their designs would be the background, as if they were the butterfly, itself.  The picture of their human body would be covering the head, thorax, and adbomen of the butterfly image.  They did some wonderful poses for their project. 

Weekly Update

Hello Second Grade Families,

I hope everyone had a nice long weekend. Hopefully families were able to get outside and see the fall foliage that is starting to happen.  It’s so beautiful.  As the weather is getting colder, (especially for our morning recess) students must have a second layer that they can put on when we are outside.

Science- Both second grade classes are continuing with the Monarch Butterfly Unit.  We have been learning about their habitat, adaptations, migration patterns, life cycles, as well as their threats in their environment.   If families have any shoe boxes that they would be able to donate to our classes that would be amazing.  The students will be working with groups to create designs on how they could protect Monarch Butterflies.

Here are the spelling words this week:

List 1-Emergent-identifying beginning consonants of C F D

Duck

Cup

Fork

Fan

Cake

Desk

Comb

Doll

Fire

Door

Foot

Coat

Car

Dice

Five

List2-Letter Name Alphabetic (Short O)

Not

Got

Hot

Lot

Hop

Pop

Mop

Cop

Lock

Rock

Sock

Dock

Dog

Log

Frog

Jog

List 3- Within word Pattern (Short O/Long O)

Clock

Crop

Odd

Block

Slot

Odd

Shop

Rope

Close

Broke

Stone

Road

Boat

Soap

Coach

Reminders and Announcements:

I believe I responded to everyone who asked what reading level their child was on. If families are curious feel free to email me, and I can let you know. 

Social Studies- Both classrooms are participating in Reach the World.  This program will have each second grade class paired with a college student who is on a semester abroad in a different country.  Our second grade class got paired with a student named Micah who is in India.  The class got to see a picture of him with a monkey last week.  We will have writing, math, social studies, and science curriculum that will be linked with our interactions and activities with him.  We participated in this program last year and it was very successful and inspiring for the students.

Due to events last week, I was re-scheduled to do PNOA testing with students this Thursday, October 11^th.  Mrs. Thorburn and Mrs. Giroux started math testing with some of the second graders last week. I will be finishing up with the rest of the class and there will be a substitute teacher this coming Thursday.  

If there are any other questions or concerns please feel free to email me MacCallumt@hartfordschools.net

Thanks and have a great night,

Ms. Mac J

Social Sciences

The students have been learning about the threats, habitats, mirgration patterns, and life cycles of Monarch butterflies.  In these pictures the students are coloring, drawing, and writing about the life cycles of the butterflies, and also creating different structures that would save or protect the butterflies on their journey. 

Color the World with Kindness

The students earned their September PBIS goal of coloring the world with kindness.  As a reward the whole school painted rocks with positive and kind words or pictures.  These will later become part of our rock river.

Reminders and Announcements

Hello Second Grade Families,

I hope everyone enjoyed the fall-like weekend we recently had.  It is definitely nice to have the cooler weather during the school day.  The students brought home their reading logs and their new spelling words today.  These are the three lists that the children in the class are working on. Again, the spelling words are not something the students need to do for homework.  The priority is reading each night.  Students will get extra points for reading and practicing their spelling, if they choose to do both.

List 1-Emergent-identifying beginning consonants of P, T, M

Tag

Moon

Pin

Mask

Turtle

Pear

Pan

Milk

Towel

Toe

Mop

Paint

Pie

Top

Match

List2-Letter Name Alphabetic (Short i)

Fit

Kit

Quit

Big

Wig

Pig

Dig

Fig

Pin

Win

Fin

Thin

Chin

Will

Fill

Hill

Mill

Bill

Sit

Bit

List 3- Within word Pattern (Short i/long i)

Chip

Kick

Miss

Twin

Rich

Wish

Gift

Clip

Thick

Hike

Ride

Ripe

Nice

White

Dime

Fine

Life

Mine

Dish

Five

Reminders and Announcements:

Last week the two second grade classes completed their reading assessments, if you would like to know what reading level your child is at, please feel free to email me and I can let you know their level.

Both second grade classes will be completing the PNOA testing this week, which helps the teachers and staff place students for their math skills and groups.  This assessment shows us where their strengths and weaknesses lie and what we can implement for specific math instruction to meet their needs.

Next Monday, October 8^th is Columbus Day.  There will be no school because it is a Teacher-In-Service Day.

If there are any other questions or concerns please feel free to email me MacCallumt@hartfordschools.net

Thanks and have a great night,

Ms. Mac J